It’s not worth living without a cell phone
I just blogged about how much I hate my cell phone bill, and today I changed our plan and lowered it! We have U.S Cellular, so we have free incoming minutes. We also have free mobile to mobile minutes so talking to each other is free, and we have the free nights and weekends. When I looked at the confusing break down of our bill I saw that we use around 1200 minutes per month, and I wondered – is that 1200 anytime minutes? Or does that 1200 include just talking time – meaning all the free minutes too, and if so – how many anytime minutes do we actually use (being that we pay for 1,000).
It turns out that the 1200 is a total of all minutes. About a third of these minutes are mobile to mobile (free), nights and weekends are about a tenth of our minutes (free), and about 20% of them are incoming (also free), which means we only use 250-350 anytime minutes per month! My immediate instinct was to jump down to the 750 anytime plan, but then I realized maybe we could upgrade to a national plan.
We currently have an old-school wide area plan, which means we have roaming minutes when we’re out of town. This is a sore point when Brittany goes away because she tends to talk more than I do, and just plain annoying when I’m out of town because I have to always borrow someone’s phone. Since we rarely go over 350 anytime minutes, I chose a 550 anytime national plan which is still $10 cheaper than our current plan. We’re now saving $10/month, staving off fights about using roaming minutes, AND cutting down on annoying our hosts when visiting from out of town. Sha-Zammm!
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Martinique Miller lives in Chicago with her partner, Brittany. She writes a personal finance blog with her two sisters, called Thrifty Sisters where they share their success with money.
Photo credit: stock.xchng.
I’m looking at replacing my cell phone with a skype phone that can call over wifi networks. If you’re like me, and only talk for two or three hours a month, most of it at home, or at cafes with wifi it makes sense… I just need to research the reliability and battery life of wifi based Skype phones.
Well if the cell phone is you and your partners only phone I guess thats well and good.
I’m one of the Rare Birds I guess where I DON’T have a cell phone except for an emergency Net10 I carry in the Motorcycle in case of an emergency. (course it helps if I remember to charge the battery every week or so..{:~D)
I used to carry a Cell, Pager, and Two-Way in order to operate my businesses which were 24/7 operations. After 32 years I was burned out with answering the phone at all hours and NEVER getting any peace.
They were one of the Prime motivators for me to Save money and when I turned 48 I sold my shares of the businesses to my brothers and retired..(big mistake going Cold Turkey from 90 plus hours a week to 0 but thats another post.}:~D)
I ALMOST took all three of them outside in order to run over them with one of the trucks the day I left.
Today everyone seems to have a cell…but it didn’t used to be that way. Only the “Well To Do” had them because they were so costly…I remember 25 cents a minute in and out and $1 plus for long distance and the phone was as big as some womens purses.
They were a sign that you were IMPORTANT!!
Now everyone has one and they are commonly referred to as a “Social Leash” and you can’t get away from anyone…any of you gotten a cell call from your Boss while you’re out to dinner with family or friends on your day off and told to come to work right away..?????? I won’t make any bets here because I KNOW the answer.
I value my own time too much to allow others to intrude anytime they wish and so do just about every senior manager for big companies…they may have a cell but the only one who has the number now besides the wife and family will be the Secretary/Administrative Assistant who vetts the calls and takes messages…its come full circle. Now if you’re IMPORTANT you DON’T have a cell phone or no-one has the number.
~ Roland
P.S. Has anyone thought about the fact that ALL new cell phones have GPS systems in them and that ANYONE with the right program can locate your Happy Butt anytime they want????