Wednesday, April 9, 2008

How 10 minutes saved me almost $200 a year.

This week’s Monday Money Funny about cell phones promoted me to follow some of the advice I’d found about how to lower your cell phone bill by reducing services.

I pull out my last bill and discovered I had over 7,000 unused Rollover minutes with my current cell phone I couldn’t believe how many unused minutes I had, its over 7 months worth of talking that I was wasting, so obviously I’m paying for more service than I need. I decided I need to find a plan with less minutes and of course one that would save me money. First I double checked to make sure there would not be any consequences for changing my contract provided I stay with my current provider, fortunately there are not so I’m free to change my plan.

My current monthly phone bill is $55,12 which is for a plan that includes 900 any time minutes, unlimited nights & weekends, unlimited Mobile-to-Mobile, and 200 text messages. To start looking for a new plan I went back to my last 6 months of cell phone bills to see range of minutes used.
Per months I use:
Any Time Minutes: 288-397
Nights and Weekends: 157-463
Mobile-to-Mobile: 1275 – 2754
Text Messages: 13-48

Armed with this data I went on line and investigated other plans that would fit my ranges. I found one with 450 any time minutes, 5000 nights & weekends, unlimited Mobile-to-Mobile, and 200 text messages for $44.98 plus fees and taxes after I deducting my 24% preferred employer discount the total cost would be $34.18 plus fees and taxes – I’m estimating with fess and taxes my new phone bill will be around $40. That’s a saving of $15 a month, which is a savings of $180/year for spending about 10 minutes worth of work – if only my billable rate at work were this high. :)

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