Hellobee Boards

@Silva: Mrs High Heels just did an awesome post on Ting!

http://www.hellobee.com/2014/01/17/a-ting-review-saving-100-on-our-cellphone-bill/

@pui: Mrs High Heels mentioned that in late 2013 they started supporting the iPhone.

@Silva: do you have any family members who have AT&T ? You can save quite a bit a money when you create a family plan.

My name is on our family talk plan. I have 4 other people on my account (my DH, mom, dad and niece). We pay $250 a month and that's for 3 iPhones and 2 'dumb' phones. The one thing that is good for us is that we use hardly any minutes. Our plan is 700 minutes and we use between 400-500 minutes in a month. We have rollover minutes so we use more minutes than the 700 we get each month.

We just switched our plan around with AT&T with their new mobile share plans. We were given two iPhones from family and ended up upgrading our plans and saving money. We had been paying 90/month for 2 basic phones, 200 texts and no data. Now we will pay 70+taxes a month for 2 smart phones, unlimited minutes, unlimited texts, and 300 mb of data. And, no contract. We had looked into Straight Talk but they don't have a lot of support so we were a little hesitant to switch over.

We have a family plan with friends and it saves so much money, so if you don't have family around, friends can work too!

@creativemomma15: how's that possible? Just my data for two phones is $60?!

@bluestriped bee: @locavore_mama: @Silva: First, I realized I was off by $5… This is how it was explained to us, a base of $20 for the shared data of 300mb and then each smartphone cost $25 to add. So for my husband and I we pay $70 (20+25+25) If you have a regular phone then the cost is $20 a phone. The base for shared data goes up depending on how much data you use. So, for 1 mb the base is $45 plus 20 or 25 for each phone depending on what type of phone you have. Does that make sense? It is a no contract plan and we came into it already having phones.

@creativemomma15: Oh, ok. I am currently grandfathered into AT&T's unlimited data plan for $30 a month. I kinda like having the unlimited data.

@jodyblair: There was a short lived thread a while ago... I think the one person that answered liked it, but she was using Sprint phones/towers. I looked into it, you have to get specific phones that are from Verizon in order to use Verizon towers. I think it is compatible with iPhones; at least when I checked on the website my phone was!

I just need to take some time to do the math; we pay $60 per person right now for 4 people on a family plan. Straight Talk is $45, but then Verizon subsidize a new phone while I probably have to pay maybe double if I were to get the same phone & use straight talk.

I would keep using my phone but I am not sure if it will last till end of this year!

Part of the reason why AT&T is expensive is because there is a built in phone subsidy. Every month you are on contract, part of that phone subsidy goes towards paying off the phone you got at a discount (or free). Once you are off contract, AT&T is now pocketing that phone subsidy. I like getting a new phone every 2 years, so as soon as my contract is done, I sign a new one and get a new phone. I also sell my old phone which helps cover the cost of the upgrade.

If you are ok with buying a phone at full price to begin with or with using an older one, I would look into lower cost alternatives like Straight Talk, Tmobile, prepaid phones, etc. I used an old flip phone for years with Tmobile prepaid and spent about $100 per year. My bill is now around $120 per MONTH for 2 smart phones

@locavore_mama: That stinks! We were on a family plan a few years ago but realized it wasn't saving us too much money and was making it a little awkward to be sharing with the ILs, especially if someone is using the plan more and you want to pay your fair share.

http://www.att.com/shop/wireless/data-plans.html#fbid=6d-4zdnXWwX
If you go to the bottom of this page it shows the cost for different amounts of data. Not sure how much you use or need but maybe one of the higher amounts could still work for you? It's the data cost plus $25 for each smartphone.