Changing Cell Phones to Help Save Money

For years I had a nice little Net 10 phone that had an FM radio built in as well as an MP3 player which was really nice when I was walking every day. It just bugged me that year after year my husband kept getting newer and nicer phones (because I got them for him and he needed them since he was away from home so much of course),... and I was still stuck with a not-so-smart-phone.

So this past year in February or March I got Christopher and Faelyn (hers was a bday present) new smart phones with the Virgin Mobile $35/month unlimited texting and data and 350 talk minutes on each phone. Though actually Christopher's plan is only $25 a month since we grandfathered in his rate from before the prices went up. Then we gave his old phone to Rhiannon and got her a new $35/month plan as well. I decided I wanted Rhiannon's old phone which wasn't much of a smart phone, but since they were getting new phones I wanted one too darnit. So, mine was then $25 a month (since it was also grandfathered in).  So, that was $35 for 2 phones and $25 for the other 2, for a total of $120 a month before tax. And we did ok paying for all of those on time, and they were well worth it for as much as the girls used theirs.  After the wedding and getting in debt again, I stopped paying for the girls' minutes. They've gotten odd jobs here and there to get minutes off and on, but Faelyn now just uses the house phone, and Rhiannon just borrows her dad's phone when she feels like it.  Sneaky kid.  I still keep the minutes on C's phone since he has to be able to be reached by employees. Besides he LOVES his Droid so much, and he has some really stressful days at work, so anything to relieve that stress is nice.

I stopped getting minutes on my phone a while back. I did put minutes on it since I had to be able to be reached when I took Rhiannon 2 hours away to the All-East audition. Later I was thinking back and realized, I should have put the minutes on Faelyn's phone instead since it's just a little more and she'd get much more use out of them and has an actual smart phone.  That's when I decided there was simply no point in me keeping the monthly virgin mobile service, when all I really needed to be able to do was be reached in an emergency and text my husband and kids now and then and maybe send a tweet now and then. If I need to use a smart phone for any reason, I usually can just use Christopher's. I rarely leave town without him anyway.

I tried putting minutes on my old Net 10 phone again tonight after my paycheck went through (it's in the budget!), and their website keeps saying there's an error. Blah.  Their customer service has never been great in the past, so I'm not looking forward to dealing with them, but I will wait til tomorrow. I do kind of miss using my little slider phone. The minutes roll over month after month as long as I have service days on it, and you get more service days each time you add minutes, or you can buy a card of just airtime so you don't have to worry about losing the minutes for a long time. I totally should have just stuck with that plan all along. Oh well, lessons learned.