Who wants to save lots of money on your cell phone bill. You can’t really go without a cell phone these days. We’re all so reliant on them and even though most of us could probably do with cutting back on our cell phone usage, it’s tough to get by without one. That can be a problem if you are trying to save money because cell phone plans are expensive. If you go for the latest phone with a big data package, the monthly costs can quickly start to add up.
The good news is, you probably don’t need to spend as much as you are on your cell phone plan. It’s easy to end up with an expensive cell phone plan if you go into a store and let the salesperson convince you to add on lots of extras that you don’t need. Before you know it, you have an expensive phone with a huge data package that costs way more than you can afford.
The good news is, there are plenty of simple ways that you can cut your cell phone bill and save yourself a lot of money. If you are fed up with extortionate cell phone bills, here are a few things that you can try.
Open Up Your Options
When you go into a cell phone store, you have a choice of different phones and different providers, but usually, you only find the big companies. Most people don’t even realize that there are a lot of smaller companies that often have much cheaper deals. If you check out this Network review UK page, you can find some deals from the smaller companies. They piggyback on the larger networks, so you can be sure that you will still get a good signal, but you will get a far better deal. Whenever your contract is up, make sure that you shop around and look at some different providers as well. You won’t get any discounts for loyalty, so take the time to look for the best possible deals.
Use Your Phone Less
Data is one of the things that pushes the price of your phone contract right up, so if you can make do with less data, you can get a much cheaper deal. If you spend all day scrolling Instagram, you will need a lot of data. But if you can learn to live without your cell phone, you don’t need to spend all of that money on an expensive data package. Cutting back on your cell phone usage is good for your mental and physical health as well, so it’s always a good change to make.
Use Wifi As Much As Possible
Using your phone less, in general, is the best way to save on data costs, but sometimes, you still need to use your phone. If you are going to use your phone, you should try to connect to wifi instead of using your data as much as possible. Most public places have pretty good coverage, so you shouldn’t need to use your data that often. You should also check the background data usage on your phone because some apps use a lot of data without you even realizing. If you can stop those apps from running, you will save a lot of money on data costs.
Go For Sim-Only Deals
When you pay for a phone contract, you are paying for the phone itself as well as the cell service. If you always go for the latest phone, that pushes your monthly cost up quite a bit. But you can save a lot of money if you go for a sim-only plan instead. You just pay for the sim card, and you can buy a phone separately. The monthly cost will be way lower, but you do need to find the money to buy a phone in the first place.
Get A Second Hand Phone
A brand new phone is so expensive, but you can save a lot of money if you just go for a second hand one instead. There are plenty of places where you can buy a refurbished phone that will work just as well as a new one. Phones don’t change that much in terms of functionality, so using a phone that is a year or two old will suit your needs just fine. However, you need to make sure that you buy it from a reliable store so you can be sure that it will be in good condition.
Keep Your Phone For Longer
If you are not on a contract and you bought your own phone outright, you should try to make it last as long as possible. Phones do have a useful life and after 4 or 5 years or so, they will become obsolete and there will no longer be support for the operating system. But you can keep your phone for a lot longer than most people usually do. There’s no need to replace it every year or two as long as you buy a good case to protect it and you look after it properly.
Cut Out The Insurance
Phone providers will usually offer you insurance on your phone, and they make it sound like a great deal. If you ever drop it and break the screen or accidentally put it through the washing machine you can just get it replaced and you won’t need to pay. It sounds like you’re saving money because you only have to pay a small monthly cost and it will help you to avoid the cost of a new phone. The thing is, how often do you break a phone? Most people never claim on their insurance, but it pushes up the cost of their cell phone quite a lot. It’s much better to cut out the insurance and just put that money aside in a savings account instead. If you do need it for a phone, you have it there, but if you don’t need to use it then you can spend it on something else or save it for other emergencies.
Take Automated Payments
When you sign up for a contract, you will be offered the choice of automated or manual payments. You should always go for the automated payments option because, most of the time, you will get a discount. It isn’t a huge discount, but it adds up over the course of a two year contract and saves you a lot of money. Automated payments also make life easier for you because you don’t need to worry about missing your payments. Just make sure that you know when the money is going to leave your account so you can make sure that it’s in there.
Go For A Family Plan
If everybody in your family has their own separate cell phone plan, you are all wasting money. There are some great family plans available that will save you all money. You will get a shared allowance of minutes, messages, and data to use each month, and the combined cost is a lot lower than a lot of separate plans. You do need to be careful with family cell phone plans though because it’s easy for one family member to burn through all of the data for the month in a couple of days. As long as you get a plan that has enough minutes, texts, and data for everybody, you should be fine.
Check For Unnecessary Extras
Phone providers often sneak extras into your contract and a lot of people never realize because they don’t look through it properly. Some contracts have things like enhanced voicemail, which doesn’t really do anything, or they might have roadside assistance added on top. There is a whole host of different things that cell phone providers may be getting you to pay for. But if you take the time to read through the contract properly, you can ask them to take off all of those pointless extras, and the cost will come right down.
You can also cut down on the number of minutes and texts that you have if you don’t need to use them all. So many people waste money paying for a contract that they simply don’t need.
Ask For A Better Price
You don’t get if you don’t ask, but people forget that when it comes to phone contracts. They just take the first price that they’re given and pay the bill. But a lot of providers are more willing to be flexible to make a sale. If you shop around a few different providers, then you can use those prices as a bargaining tool. If you tell a provider that you can get a better deal elsewhere, they will often be willing to match it or beat it. You should never take the first price that you are offered, you should always try to haggle with them and get a discount.
The chances are, you are probably paying too much for your cell phone. The good news is, you can easily save a lot of money if you follow these simple tips.
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