If you have not done anything with your cell phone plan lately, give your provider a call. You can save a bunch of money or get a lot more data for “free”. In the past year or so a lot has changed with the plans offered by all carriers especially T-Mobile, Sprint, and even Verizon. T-Mobile started the trend when becoming the uncarrier and making some really good consumer focuses changes. The competition soon followed so take advantage of it.
Two things you should do right now when calling your carrier:
- Unbundle your phone from your monthly fee. All of the carriers now will sell you a new phone which you pay off for 2 years and keep the service separate. Makes a lot of sense if you keep your phone for 2 years or more since your phone will be paid off so your monthly spend goes down accordingly. Some carriers are giving you a free phone to do this or paying any cancellation fees to move to a different carrier.
- Get a better plan. Seems like the trend these days is for the new plans to have unlimited calls and texting while giving you a block of data. Turn on wifi on your phone and use a lot less data on your plan so this could work toward your advantage. We changed our Verizon company plan to this type of setup and saved over 30% a month. A couple of months later we called back and got some double data promotion for only 10 bucks more a month!
