While this makes for easy budgeting, it’s not encouraging if you care about trimming your monthly spending. Fortunately, there are some monthly bills that do allow for some flexibility when it comes to lowering your expenses. Your cell phone bill is one of them. Here are some great tips for how to save money on your cell phone bill:
Shop no-contract carriers. Carriers like Boost Mobile, Cricket, MetroPCS, AT&T Go, Jitterbug, Net10, T-Mobile Prepaid, Virgin Mobile, and Verizon Wireless Prepaid offer a variety of monthly plans at extremely low rates (how can you beat unlimited text, phone, and data for under $50?!), and without obligating you to a contract. The drawback? You must choose from their cell phone offerings, and while you can find some high-end phones through these providers, you won’t find the hottest and latest (sorry, there are no iPhones on the menu).
Sign up for a shrinking plan. Boost mobile is one such carrier that will actually shrink your phone bill by $5 per month just for paying your bill on time for a specified time period. For example, it is possible to shrink your cell phone bill by up to $15 ($5 for every six months), bringing your monthly payments from $60 per month all the way down to $45 per month!
Don’t pay for text messaging. That’s right – text message for free, using a web-based text messaging service like txtDrop, mjoy, or Peekamo. These services send text messages through either your home’s Wifi, a provider mobile hotspot, or your phone’s mobile web, depending on what’s available to you. Plus, there’s no fancy app to download. Simply visit the service’s website, fill in some information, and text away.
Use a mobile VOIP app. Download a mobile VOIP app like Fring, Talkonaut, Skype, ID88 or Gizmo5 and you can talk and chat for free! That means that you might be able to get away with having a data-only plan on your smart phone. Shop around to find an app that works best for you, as they each use different interfaces, provide different services (some even offer higher-end services for a fee), and are compatible with different provider networks and phone makes/models.
As you can see, there are numerous ways to save money on your cell phone bill each month. Consider all of these ideas, as it is likely you may be able to benefit from more than just one in order to cut unnecessary spending on cell phone services.