Round and round she goes, where she stops nobody knows. That seems to be the prevalent thinking today when it comes to your family mobile phone bill. Your youngest wants the latest and greatest in technology to impress their friends, and your oldest texts faster than you can run the 40 yard dash. With a drawer full of old plugs, cords, and adapters, it is almost becoming a full time job to keep up with managing your family mobile phone bill. Here are three very smart money moves for you to consider to keep your monthly bill in check.
- Who Is Your Top Ten?– Most of the mobile phone companies will offer some type free minute program around your top ten friends and family you call the most. Between my phone, my wife’s phone, and the three phones my children have, we did an inspection to see which numbers were called the most in order to access the most amounts of free minutes. If your family has 25% to 50% of total minutes within those ten numbers, you could be able to lower the amount of minutes you need for your master plan which could help save money to the bottom line. This helped us shave over 500 minutes a month off our plan.
- Study and Pick The Right Plan – The plans from mobile phone companies are changing all the time. It’s your job to go on to the website to see if the plans have changed because your mobile phone company won’t call you with a lower cost option. If you have children with a mobile phone, you’ll quickly realize that their texting to talking ratio is the complete opposite of yours. Most of the kids who are under the age of 17 will use about 80 to 90% texting and only 10% to 20% talking. This is why unlimited texting is going to be one of the smartest money moves you make. You should also reanalyze the amount of talking minutes so you aren’t overpaying on your monthly bill if that number is shrinking every month. Most of the large mobile phone company websites like Verizon or AT&T have good family analysis tools to help you make the best decision.
- Only Change Your Phone When An Upgrade Is Available– For most of the mobile phone companies, you can upgrade your phone without incurring the full cost of the phone every two years. It can be easy to get caught up with the latest and greatest technology and want to change your phone every year, but this can really add significant cost to the bottom line of your bill. One consideration with the new i-phones or other expensive android voices is to buy insurance in case your phone breaks. I have seen several of my oldest daughter’s friends break their phones and that can really set your family budget back with an extra $600 to $800 expenses you weren’t expecting.
You most certainly want to examine whether your company has a discount plan or you can run the phone through your family business. If you don’t watch your bill closely, you’ll be dialing 911 vs. 411 if you get a monthly bill that shocks you! Use these three smart money moves to help get a dial tone on your family budget.
Written by: Ted Jenkin
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