Cut Your Cell Phone Bill in Half With a No-Contract Phone

I don't know about you, but I like it when I can get the same thing for half the price. A year ago, I was paying $172/mo. to AT&T for my family's cell phone usage. Here's what it bought me:

*My iPhone Unlimited data, unlimited text, shared 700 minutes talk
*DD19 iPhone 300MB data, unlimited text, shared talk
*DS 17 cheap PAYG phone (because he had lost or broken his good ones) unlimited text & shared talk
*DS 15 (same as DS 17)
(Mr. D's phone is provided by his employer)

Every time I talked to AT&T about saving money on my phone plan, they told me I had the cheapest one I could do. What about lowering my data? "You never want to do that! You're grandfathered in our unlimited plan! You can't even get that plan now!"* And so it had gone ever since I had discovered that an iPhone was an indispensable tool in my back pocket five years ago. So what changed? In the summer of 2013, I discovered Mr. Money Mustache and found the Communications & Tech Superguide (Now Son of the Superguide)! A kind and patient fellow forum-er named IP Daley (who also must have a sense of potty humor!) posts excellent information on all things regarding communication. I won't rehash what he has to say, I suggest checking it out yourself. Ask Daley a question and he will be happy to help, although you might get a "face punch" MMM-style. Try not to take it personally, sometimes you gotta be cruel to be kind! In my case, I needed to lose the idea that I needed unlimited everything. Daley always says to use cell phones as a tool, and pay for what you use.

I wanted to write about my own journey with cell phones and MVNOs. And I'll share some tried and true advice. First, what is a MVNO?

Mobile virtual network operator
A mobile virtual network operator (MVNO), or mobile other licensed operator (MOLO) is a wireless communications services provider that does not own the wireless network infrastructure over which the MVNO provides services to its customers.

From my understanding, it is a cell phone middle man. Usually, a middle man makes the cost to the consumer go up, but in the case of cellular service, a middle man may save you a bundle. For example, I was on AT&T. I wanted to keep and use my same phones. This meant that I had to find an MVNO that uses AT&T towers/technology. Daley recommended Airvoice Wireless as having good plans, service, and track record. I was still worried about service and how this would all work, so I did a test run. My DD13 became a teenager and wanted to have a phone. She really wanted an iPhone (which AT&T won't let you have without a data plan), but didn't need data. She found a used iPhone 4 on a local classified site and used her birthday money to buy it. I ordered a sim card for $5 from airvoice. When it arrived, I got it set up and put her on the $10 plan which lets you send 500 texts or 250 minutes or a combination of both** for $10/mo. I would like to stop here to reiterate some advantages to Airvoice over AT&T:

1) You can use an out-of-contract smart phone without a data plan (using Wi-Fi only)

2) $10 is literally $10- no taxes, fees, and etc.

3) If you set up a plan with auto-billing, the money you haven't used rolls over to the next month. My now 14 year old DD is a super light user and has about $80 in her account. I would adjust to a different plan, but I know she may use more as she gets older.

So the test run with my DD was a success. I finally bit the bullet and ordered sim cards for the whole family and ported our numbers. I gave the kids the $10 plan each. The idea was to have them learn to use texting for conveying important (and whole) ideas.  This worked wonderfully for three of my kids. The fourth was too popular for his own good. He burned through $10 in less than a week. He put more of his money on his account and burned through that too. He's on an LDS mission now and not using a cell phone, but when he comes home, he'll have to get a bigger plan or curb his usage. For myself, I bought the $30 unlimited plan. Talk and text are unlimited, but data has a limit of 500MB. I don't have long distance on my home phone, so I wanted an unlimited plan. I also wanted a little bit of data for when I don't have wi-fi. So here are the new figures:

*My iPhone unlimited talk, text, 500 MB data $30

*Kids plans x 4 $10 each ($40 total)

Total each month $70- Savings $102/month or $1224/year ($2448 for an equivalent 2-yr contract period) And that's with one extra kid than with the AT&T plan!

What happens if my phone dies or drops in the toilet? Well, my phone has already become acquainted with the toilet- turn it off and put it in a bag of rice! We did that to a contractor's iphone 5 that fell from the second story down to a bucket of water. And both phones still work! But if your phone truly dies, make sure you have set aside a bit of the above savings to replace it. Daley isn't fond of iPhones, but I'm a fan and the great thing is that they keep making new models. That means older, but still great out-of-contract phones are available in the used market all the time. I'm not someone who needs the latest model, but you will save enough to buy it if you really want it. I also like that I'm making my kids responsible for their account. We provide a basic $10 plan. This is for OUR convenience, so that we can contact them when we need to. If they want to go beyond that, they can use their hard-earned $ instead of ours. 

So overall, the pros and cons:

Pros

-huge savings

-able to use smart phones without a data plan

-roll over of unused credit

-same AT&T coverage, phones

-no contract, walk away at any time

Cons

-kids' texting is limited (this is also a pro)

-$10 plan will give you a message each time you text or call with your new balance. Some find this mildly annoying.

-Only half of my data plan is loaded at a time. I have to "activate" my second half of data when the first runs out by calling Airvoice. This is a small inconvenience, but it also has a useful feature. This month, with all the Christmas shopping and price matching, I ran out of my first half of data in just a week and a half. That let me know that I need to be a bit more careful for the rest of the month. I set my cellular data to off, and will only turn it on when I really need it for the rest of the month. Normally, I don't use all my data, and I don't have to keep my data off like this.

-no "free" upgraded phones, but were they really free?!

In conclusion, I really like my MVNO, Airvoice Wireless and I'm staying with them. There are options for Sprint, Verizon, and T-Mobile users, as well. Again, check out the Superguide at the MMM forums! Here are some other recommended MVNO's from Daley's Superguide:
ATT- Airvoice, Pure Talk
Sprint- Ting, Virgin Mobile
Verizon- Page Plus
T-Mobile- P-tel, GoSmart
There may be other MVNO's with plans that work for you, do some research and find out what your options are. Remember, break out of the idea of "unlimited" and pay for what you need!

*Interestingly, I found out that I was using less that 1GB per month at AT&T. And that was when I wasn't being careful of data usage at all. It was hard to find out how much I was using, because my bill would list my usage in KB, which had to be converted to MB, and then converted again to GB. Nice, AT&T!

**There is a way to use data on this plan. It costs $.06/MB, a decent price for data. You have to call and get data enabled on your phone, which is not something I want for my kids, and therefore I pretend it doesn't exist. ;)

*** I have no affiliate links and get no bonus/commission from recommending any links on this page. This is just my opinion and recommendation hoping that it helps someone else.

How to cut cable (without everyone hating you!)

Save thousands and still be entertained!

You guys, I had been toying with canceling satellite for years.  I have a small HGTV addiction, the little girls love Nick Jr. and Disney, but the real problem was sports.  Mr. D doesn't watch a lot of TV... unless it is college football season.  The TV is on one game or another until the bowl season is over.  Seven months of the year he could care less if we have a TV, but during the other five he NEEDS it!  

Because of that, I continued to pay $75/mo for the DISH America's Top 120 plan (3 TVs, 1 dual DVR), which was the smallest plan that offered the sports/home improvement channels that I needed wanted.  I've had a plan like this for probably over 15 years, costing me over $13,000 in that period of time.  Now if I had put that money in a money market mutual fund over the 15 years, I could have had an average of $21,000.  That would have been nice.  :(  

But let's not lose sight looking backwards.  After bowl season was over early January of this year, I talked Mr. D into cutting the cord.  I told him if we hated it, we could always go back to paid TV in the fall.  I called to cancel DISH, and they offered me other plans, bundling, and finally a free "pause" for 9 months.  I caved, and let them pause the account.  That kept everything on our DVR, and provided a few channels that would change from time to time.  After a while, our family stopped even looking at the DVR or the available DISH channels.  Football started up again, but now we had an antenna, so all the local networks were available.  Mr. D's follows his favorite team on online radio broadcasts whenever they aren't on the networks.  It's working.  So I called this week and cut my relationship with DISH for good.

So what do you need to cut the cord 

without causing riots in the streets?

1)  You need to find out what local channels you can get.  Start at tvfool.com.  Input your address and find out where your stations are and what kind of antenna you need to get them.  We get about 30 channels locally through our antenna.

2) Buy or better yet, build your digital antenna.  I used this tutorial to upgrade from the rabbit ears I had.  It works great and cost less than $15.  I bought copper wire, because I didn't have any wire coat hangers.  If you had some hangers and scrap wood, you could build this much more cheaply.  

3) Consider purchasing a Roku, Apple TV, or other streaming device.  Our Roku was a factory reconditioned model for $39 and it works great.  You can also stream Netflix on a Wii or Xbox, if you already own those.  There are many channels that are free, including PBS, PBS kids, BYUtv, and others.  If you would like paid streaming channels, Netflix and Amazon Prime are good.  I have Amazon Prime for the shipping, so the movies are a bonus to me.  

4) Watch the movies you already own, borrow movies from your local library, or get a Redbox for $1.29/night.  

Now for the Pros/Cons:

Pros:
1) $900 or more in your pocket each year.  $$$

2) Less screen time.  Frankly, we only have TV on when we really want to watch something. It is not the background noise of our family anymore.  

3) A quieter house (see #2)

4) More reading.  We go to the library almost weekly to find books and DVDs.  Due to #1 and #2, I have come home to find all the kids reading instead of glued to the TV.  It's a good thing.

5) Less of the "gimmes".  Less screen time means less time for advertisers to convince your kids that they need some new toy or breakfast cereal.  

Cons:
1) A bit more of a challenge to catch your favorite games or shows.  Not impossible, just challenging.  

2) Lack of elegance.  With DISH I had a single remote that almost accessed everything. Now I have four remotes standing by.  A more tech-y type person could figure this out, but I'm lazy used to it.

3) Antennas aren't pretty.  My main idea was to put an antenna on the roof, tie into the existing coax cable, and have signal to TVs all over the house.  Maybe that will be a project for next year.  I'll post an update when that happens.  For now, my creation sits on my fireplace mantle looking like my kid's science experiment.  My cable-subscribed relatives mock it, but it's become a sign of freedom to me... and beautiful in my eyes.  

What are you waiting for?  Cut the cord!  

And share your favorite free TV tips and streaming channels in the comments!