With the price of gas, electricity, food, and other basic necessities, it’s important to cut out as many extra costs as possible. Cell phones are one item that nearly everyone has; whether it’s out of necessity or more of a luxury. These tiny pieces of technology can easily become a very expensive part of life. If you find most of your pay check going towards your cell phone bill, then take a look at the following list. Here are 8 ways to cut cell phone cost out of your budget.
Each line you add onto your original phone has charges included. Many phone companies try to entice you into adding an extra line – for a friend or a child – because the cost will be a mere 10 dollars a month. The phone company usually neglects to remind you that not only will the fee of 10 bucks be added onto your original bill, but there will be additional charges from basic use of this ‘cheap’ phone addition.
Roaming charges can be horrendous! If you tend to travel out of the immediate area regularly or between states, then make sure the phone company knows this. Get a nationwide plan to avoid any additional fees from being added on whenever you make a call out of your home coverage area.
The multi-media package on a cell phone includes regular phone calls, as well as internet services. Sometimes these also include being able to send photographs and text messages out to friends and family. Having a basic phone plan will eliminate a lot of the extra money wasted on internet service. You might have to wait until later to check your Facebook page, but I think you’ll survive.
If you’ve every been sucked into getting a plan for a specific amount of texting, then you might know how high the bill can be when you go over the set amount of texts. Getting an unlimited texting plan is better than setting a limit on the amount of text messages you can send, if you are big on texting. When you only send a few each month, then it might be better to simply omit this feature and save yourself some dough.
It’s so easy to dial up a friend when you get bored. Get a phone plan that gives you the least amount of minutes you can possibly live with in a single month. Try cutting out a lot of the ‘yak’ time put in to friends and you might be surprised at how low you can go. Just remember that going over your set amount can really bump the monthly cost way up in a short span of time.
This is a hard one with my family, since we are always on the go. I do have friends who have a cell phone that only gets used when they travel. They have the option to use it if they need roadside assistance or call for aid in an emergency.
My phone plan includes free calls to people who also have cell phones through the same company. However, if I want to call someone who uses a different cell phone company, it’s cheapest for me if I wait until after 7pm to do so or wait until the weekend. Check your phone plan to see what the restrictions are on it.
I think this is probably the cheapest way to go when it comes to cell phones, if you absolutely have to have one. The hard part is running out of minutes and then finding out you really need to use the phone! Most parents purchase this type of plan for their kids, so they won’t have to spend tons of money on a cell phone bill that has gone out of control.
These 8 ways to cut cell phone cost should prove useful for most people, even if only one or two methods are tried. How have you tried to lower the cost of your cell phone?
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