Phone rate update

February 23rd, 2009 at 05:47 am

I am finally running out of minutes on my "new" pre-pay cellphone, and decided to run the numbers. I wish I had kept better documentation of my usage, but from the looks of things, I am averaging about 250 minutes a month.

This is shocking to me because I thought I would average more like 100 minutes a month. With Tracfone's rates, that's somewhere between $23 to $25 a month for a phone bill.... That's also shocking to me because I was thinking more along the lines of $10 a month.

Well, I guess I can't complain. I mean, it's still pretty cheap for a cellphone.

But I would really like to get my cellphone bill even lower. So, what to do? Anybody have any suggestions?

I'm looking over Tracfone's promotions again, and while I can buy bulk minutes at a lower overall rate (about $0.09 a minute), I wonder if there isn't a better way out there? Short of talking less of course.

Posted in Uncategorized | 8 Comments »

8 Responses to “Phone rate update”

Ima saver Says:
February 23rd, 2009 at 06:10 am

No advice from me, BA. I don't have a cell phone nor do I want one.
lizajane Says:
February 23rd, 2009 at 07:09 am

Would it work out better in the long run if you bought a "double minutes" card? I don't remember what they cost but you buy it one time, and any time you add minutes after that, it doubles them. Also, when you add airtime, do it online and look first for promotion codes on retailmenot.com. You can only use each promo code once, but many times I've found a code that added extra minutes to those I purchased or added.
Broken Arrow Says:
February 23rd, 2009 at 07:45 am

lizajane: Yes indeed! In fact, the Tracfone I bought automatically comes with the double minutes perk included, which is how I was able to get the rates down to $0.09 a minutes. Otherwise, it's twice that.
ceejay74 Says:
February 23rd, 2009 at 08:17 am

No advice, but I'm about to put my family on prepaid and I'm curious to see how much money we save. Right now we average $86 per month; I'd be really happy if we got it down to $50.
Broken Arrow Says:
February 23rd, 2009 at 08:25 am

Ceejay, for comparison sake, I recommend to break down the total phone usage to rates per minute. Before I was with Tracfone, my rates with Cingular/AT&T pre-paid was $0.25 per minute. And that was a savings from my previous monthly plan back then that was about $0.38 per minute.
Joan.of.the.Arch Says:
February 23rd, 2009 at 12:23 pm

I just loaded up on the double-ups and got it to $0.09, same as you. I think it is the best I can do for long distance.
whitestripe Says:
February 23rd, 2009 at 08:07 pm

does pre paid have a higher cost per minute and flagfall in the us? it does in aus.
i have $300 of free calls with my $49 a month cap plan, and i usually use about $200-$250 worth of it, which is about 380 minutes
what can i say? I like to talk!
the funny thing is, the person i call most is one of my closest friends, but we also work together. you'd think after being with someone for 8 hours a day, three days a week you'd have nothing left to say to each other, but we probably talk atleast once a day if not more, on the phone.
Broken Arrow Says:
February 24th, 2009 at 05:01 am

What is flagfall?

There are discount unlimited calling plans in the US as well.... One starts out with unlimited calling for $40USD a month. But I don't use the phone enough to justify that.

Actually, I would use a lot less if it wasn't for my best friend calling once in a while. But when we start talking, the time and the minutes start to fly. Haha. That's why I ended up using more than twice the amount of minutes as anticipated. But I don't mind. Good friends are worth it.

BA

Could be worse....

Phone rate update

8 Responses to “Phone rate update”

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