The holidays were a time where many of us spent gobs of money. But I was interested to learn that this winter came just in time to see a new line of cell phones come out that were right in line with something I had already started doing myself.
Pay As You Go!
Several months ago I went through a serious cut off of some of my expenses. Of course with gas prices rising and my expensive tastes, some of these expenses have crept back in but on the whole I am doing much better than I used to. I’ve removed a monthly cellphone bill and a seasonal game subscription which monthly totaled over 50 dollars. The cellphone, however, is the most remarkable I think. For my business, I often have a cell phone available so that people can reach me on the road, so that I can take the calls there rather than on my phone at home, and in this day and age, who doesn’t have one?
Do You Really Need That Cell Phone?
So, one of the challenges of course when I was reviewing my expenses was to figure out what services I really used and which services that I might be able to live without in the situation that I really couldn’t afford to keep them in terms of a layoff or something similar. So one of the services that goes right away is the cellphone since it is a monthly expense that could effectively be handled by using the home phone. So I think that is something that I should consider. After a long process, I finally cancel the phone; but I realize that I still would like to have a phone to use once in a while.
Pay As You Go:
One day when I am in Wal-Mart, I notice them selling pay as you go phones so I started doing some comparison shopping and decided to not get the Wal-Mart one but instead I bought one at the local convenience store for 20 dollars, no activation fee, no contract, pay as you go, and some airtime was included with the cost of the phone. The activation was easy—took less than 5 minutes on the phone with the guy. That might be because I am somewhat tech savvy but I don’t think so.
Service Quality:
One of the items that I was most concerned with was that I would have to either sacrifice service quality, phone quality or otherwise give something up in order to get to a pay as you go phone. But in my case, I didn’t have to. The phone is a Kyocera, it’s decent. It has voicemail and I could have kept my number if I had wanted to. But the bottom line was that I didn’t want to.
Great Price:
The rates are very reasonable, under 10 cents per minute which considering that I only use the phone once a week perhaps for 5 minutes, that is more than reasonable.
No Lost Phone Issues:
And the best part is that if the phone is lost, then I can just forget it and start a new one. I am out only the amount on my account and that is only if I am not able to get it resolved with customer service. So, all told, this was a switch that costs me less money, only a about an eighth of what I used to pay each month and I still get all of the same services and features. Check out your cell phone usage. Maybe you could get the same benefits from a dealer near you!
Submitted by