DO you need that smartphone that bad?

[mavric]

My Verizon bill was $200 mo. My smartphone ,wife smartphone..... $40 month each for data ,plus the phone plan of $89 plus all the taxes was around $200.
I get to thinking do I need to be all connected to all this ,I mean I not that important. Most of this stuff I can do on the home computer, before we going any place.
So we got rid of the smartphones and changed the plan to basic phone. BTW had before smartphones.

My bill now is $60 mo for 550 min's for 2 basic phones. That saved me $140 a month Well that 's $1680 a year and that is a house payment, just by changing your cell phone bill.


Maybe this will help someone else.

[Pjmax]

T-Mobile $50/mo. + $20 additional line. Unlimited talk, text, (data slows down when you go beyond the limits, but it's still fine for me, I use it on Wifi wherever I can. $10 or $20 more if you really need more fast data.

For $50/mo., I love my smartphone, but I do commend you for cutting back. Good job.

[occi]

Hello a friend of mine introduced me to TING.com, I brought over my Samsung Galaxy phone and my cell phone bills have been $15/month.
I don't make a ton of calls or text/internet alot. I basically pay for what I use. And when you need help, you actually get to talk to a live person ! HTH

[AngelinaCat]

'Hub and I used to have Boost Mobile for the Push-to-talk feature, pay as you go. That network was discontinued as of Midnight June 30.

We are now trying out two Verizon Samsung Gusto 2 phones on the 1.99 a day, pay as you go plan for unlimited voice and text. We don't text, so we don't care about that. These phones have some smartphone features, but we don't care about those either. All we want is a way to communicate with each other, when one is traveling to work and an emergency occurs.

We got these phones at Family Dollar for $20.00 each. Sometimes you can catch them on sale, either for $15.00, or $20.00 and you get a Family Dollar store coupon for $10.00.

We have had them since July 1, and so far I have added $15.00 to each phone (the minimum amount) and so far we are pleased. There are many plans you can sign up for, but we have the $1.99 plan. That is a daily charge of $1.99 per day for unlimited calls and text. However, if you do not use your phone, either dial out or answer an incoming call, you are not charged that day. Any extras like photos (it is a camera phone) are $.25 per picture, and webbing, email, etc, cost extra.

Verizon's website is easy to use also, and you can track your daily usage. It is much easier than we ever found with Boost.

The phones themselves seem sturdy and feel good to the hand. Also for those of us age 60 or better, it is easy to read the screen and keypad without glasses in many cases. Sound in the earpiece is good, whereas with other phones, it has been hard to hear the other end of the conversation--or have them hear you.

I didn't plan on writing a review here, but I guess I just did. I am just passing on our observations for now. We may decide later on that this may not be a good fit for us, but for now, we like them.

[sbatman]

I pay $5 a month for my smart phone plan on the $59 Samsung smartphone I bought from Kroger (here in AZ, Fry's grocery stores). For the $5/month plan, outgoing minutes and texts are 10 cents a piece. Incoming texts are free. I don't use the data plan much (unless like yesterday, I used it so I could bring my hair dresser the website with my desired haircut on it), otherwise I turn off the data for when I don't need it. I use the wi-fi in the house (or wherever wi-fi is free) all the time to use the smartphone features

But, I never pay more more than that $5 a month for all my phone calls and texts because I get free minutes and texts based from my shopping at the store. I get 20 free minutes for every 2 prescriptions (I take many for chronic health issues + family's rx's) and 20 free minutes for each $100 I spend in groceries. I also buy my gift cards for my inevitable Home Depot or Lowes purchases and I get double points ($50 gift card=20 free minutes) for that-occasionally they make it quadruple points.

I can pay for $30 for 1gb data, which for me lasts forever.

They have some other pretty cheap plans: the cheapest "regular" plan is $10/month for 100 minutes, outgoing texts (incoming are free on this plan too) 50mb data and 3 free MMS.

On top of that, the points can be used towards gasoline-10cents off a gallon for every 100 points. We have 60 cents off each gallon of gasoline for our next fill-up, from last month's points.

Do I need the smart phone? Of course not, but that cheap, I won't pass it by. I know this would never work for a heavy user, but I works just fine for me, I've never run out of time, I currently have about 800 rollover minutes free minutes/texts.

[mavric]

Only Verizon work's here ,so I can't change that. We sill use the smartphone on all Wi-Fi places we go , and there are a lot of them.

Just another way to save money. When your in a ch 13 you look for ever penny.

[AngelinaCat]

Even if you are not in a BK, if the OUTGO exceeds the INCOME, you look for every penny, even if it means picking up cans on the side of the road...

[keepsmiling]

Hey sbatman, that is a great deal! No Krogers here in NJ
But I have TMobile pay as you go for 30 a month and I LOVE it!!! That only includes 100 min talking BUT if you use a VOIP it's unlimited. Plus texting, and enough data to keep me pretty happy.
Also can use it to tether the laptop which has come in very very handy at times.

Never texted before on my dumbphone since I didn't want to pay extra for it. Feels good to finally be part of the world lol.

[nioka]

I and with the OP. Verizon is out of control.

When my contract ended I opted for a regular phone with Straight Talk. Phone $50, monthly service fee $30, a good deal if you just need a phone.
I did miss my smartphone and ended up by a Samsung Centura for $100 and paying $45 monthly service for talk, text, and data.
ST's $45 is much more attractive than Verizon's $100 plus.

I am in Tennessee and have no problem with Straight Talk.

BTW, for those in dire straights there is always goggle voice. If you don't have internet you can still use goggle voice anytime you find a free wifi.

[TXskyblue]

I use Red Pocket. It uses the AT&T network. I pay just under $30 a month for unlimited calls and texts. They also include a very meager 100mb of data.

I stopped using my cell phone for internet and now I save about $70 a month. It adds up.

If you want to save on your cell, take a look at howardforums. They have all the carriers and all the deals. It's how I found Red Pocket, a company I had never even heard of before.

[tobee43]

i just don't know. my smart phone is so stupid! my husbands droid is tons better.


keepsmiling their are Krogers in NJ!!! i have been to a few at the shore, if they are still there one was near routes 1 and 9.

[bcohen]

My Verizon bill was $200 mo. My smartphone ,wife smartphone..... $40 month each for data ,plus the phone plan of $89 plus all the taxes was around $200.

Holy s***! Cellphones are a rip-off, especially the so-called smartphones.

I get to thinking do I need to be all connected to all this ,I mean I not that important. Most of this stuff I can do on the home computer, before we going any place. So we got rid of the smartphones and changed the plan to basic phone. BTW had before smartphones. My bill now is $60 mo for 550 min's for 2 basic phones.

Not terrible, but not spectacular, either. Like you, I once had a cellphone (though mine was a basic flip-phone, and not a smartphone) and the cost was outlandish. My monthly service, which was advertised as being $49.99 a month was costing me well over $60 with all the taxes and fees--and that was if I didn't go over the allowed minutes.

Finally, after getting a very high bill due to going over my allowed minutes, I decided to quit paying the cellphone company, let the account charge off, and get a home phone instead. The home phone is an even better deal than any cellphone plan out there, with unlimited local and long-distance talk time for less than $50 INCLUDING the taxes and fees. Home phone service also provides much better voice quality, no dropped calls, and cannot be tapped or monitored by the government without a valid court order.

[GoingDown]

I made the jump to a smart phone, and if I am careful, using mainly wifi for internet surfing, etc., I only have to pay about $7 per month, pay as you go. I got a Tracfone Samsung Galaxy Centura from Radio Shack. It was on sale for $89. Plus the cost of the pay as you go card to activate it for 3 months, which was about $20.

It's Android 4.1 and it doesn't have all the bells and whistles of a Samsung S5, but for a basic smart phone, it's quite good.

[Pandora]

Guess we did it backwards Back in 2012, we got rid of our home phone and internet services (cost approx $180 for both) and decided to just use our cell phones as our primary phone, making sure they had tethering capability for internet services. While it costs us $230 for 3 phones (unlimited talk, texts) and 12 G data shared - for us, its actually saving us money in the long run. We had cells prior to along with home phone / internet service and I believe at that time our cell phone bill was right around $190 but with no data allowance (we didnt have smart phones). Upgrading and changing our plan cost a bit more, but we're also getting a 15% discount because DH works for the county. Didnt realize if you work for a gov't entity and they have VZ service (or most any other cell provider service) you can get a discount! We could have been saving that 15% for YEARS but werent aware until last year when VZ brought it to our attention.

In the end, it works out well for us, we're saving in the long run compared to what we were paying for all services before (about $140 a month savings), but I still hate paying $230 for stupid phone / internet service...its outrageous - but none of the pre-paid plans that I've looked at allow you to tether, which we need out here in the boondocks. We have no other internet service providers other than satelite and we've already been there, done that. Ugh.

[GoingDown]

I have an update, for those who have a smartphone and you also have wifi at home...

Go to Google Play and search for an app called Talkatone.

It's a free app that gives you a free phone number which allows you to do these things over wifi...

1. Receive unlimited incoming phone calls for free. In other words, if someone calls you on that number (not your cell phone's number, but the number given to you by Talkatone), you can talk to that person for free as long as you want to talk to them without costing you anything, and without running down your own cell phone's minutes.

Due to the fact that I did not want friends and relatives to have to learn a new phone number for me, I just tell them to keep on calling my Google Voice phone number. And then I have Google Voice forward those calls to the new Talkatone phone number. So it doesn't really matter what the new Talkatone phone number is.

And, if you're at home anyways, and you have access to your home desktop computer or your laptop computer, you can just go to the Google Voice website, and then type in the phone number you want to call, and Google Voice will call you on your smartphone first, and then it will call the person you want to call, and big surprise here, there is a loophole here that allows your phone call to someone else to be free. Why? Because all incoming calls are free. And Google Voice called you. So, it is a free call. Now that method won't work if you try to place the call directly from the smartphone itself, because then it would be an outgoing call. Which brings me to the next point...

2. The Talkatone app gives you up to 20 free minutes of outgoing calls per month over wifi or your own cell phone plan's 3G. It does not provide 3G itself. After that, you would have the option of using Google Play to buy 60 minutes at a time of outgoing call time, for 99 cents. That's still cheaper than Tracfone's per minute cost. These minutes would be used if you were not at home, and you needed to call someone, probably from a wifi hotspot like a restaurant, etc.

Another way around it is to send the person you wish to talk to a text message or an email, asking them to call you, because incoming calls are free.

3. All incoming and outgoing texts are free from the Talkatone app.

Not bad for a free app.


And one last thing... I have tried this so I know it works... Even smartphones with no carrier will be able to make and receive calls using this app. For example, a pay as you go cell phone that has been allowed to expire because you didn't keep paying for it, will still be able to make and receive calls using this app, but you must have wifi, since you have no carrier and thus no 3G.

I can't think of a cheaper way of getting by than this.