It’s been two billing cycles since I switched my cell phone service from AT&T to Ting. You can read why we made this decision here. I’ve gone from paying $100/month to about $30/month for the same exact service and usage. The difference is that I’m now being charged for what I use versus paying for a fixed amount whether I used it or not. As a Scavenger, I love being able to cut down on bills by being frugal. Digital scavenging!
The genius of Ting is that most of the time I’m using my phone at home where we have Wifi, so I’m paying for no phone data. When I make calls from home, I just call for free on my computer using Google Voice so not paying for any cell phone minutes. When Ryanne and I text each other, we use the free service WhatsApp (uses wifi) so no charge for texts.
When we traveled for three weeks in June I used my phone much more, but my bill was only an extra $5 since Ting charges a minimal amount for extra usage. I would have to be on my phone all day and all night to be charged the $100/month that AT&T used to bill me. I was just blindly paying those bills not thinking there was a cheaper option.
Since our testing went so well, Ryanne switched over so we could be on the same account. She had to buy a Sprint phone to use their network, but she’s selling her old phone to cover the cost (she might even make a profit). Instead of paying $200/month for our cell phones, we’ll now see about a $65 bill TOTAL. Also, if we don’t use our phones for a month, like when we travel
overseas, it only costs us $6 per phone to keep them activated. We pay
nothing extra if we use no data or minutes.
Other people have suggested cutting down on phone bills through Republic Wireless, TracFone Wireless, MetroPCS, Cricket, Simple Mobile, etc. We like Ting because it has a great interface/community and is easy to get a customer rep on the phone for questions. Ultimately, if you’re paying more than $40 for your cell phone, it’s time to do some digital scavenging.
This is an open thread, so talk about whatever you want. Have you found ways to cut down on any of your regular bills?
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