It's time to start trimming the fat around here. I went to Alltel today to switch to a cheaper plan as I've determined that switching to a smart phone was a dumb thing for me to do. The plan is too expensive. Between the two phone (with a "family plan") I've been paying $145 per month. Ouch!
Apparently when you have a smart phone plan you are not allowed to switch back to a regular plan. Huh. I guess I missed that part when changing things around last July. The gal politely told me that there's nothing she can do and I have 21 months left on my plan. She looked a little stunned when I asked what the termination fee would be. The fee? $200.
Now I forgot to ask if that's per phone or for both. The kid's phone reaches it's 2 year plan end in December but I'm not sure if that changed when I mixed things up in July. I'm seriously thinking of paying the (insert cuss word here) termination fee and going with Net10 prepaid phones. I don't use mine much anymore so it won't be hard for me. It would be hard on Anime who has been sending an average of 2200 text messages a month and receiving roughly 2400 texts per month. Now it won't hurt my feelings at all if she can't text as much (or at all!) and if she has to use the home phone to make her phone calls on. (It's right outside her room where everyone can listen in. No cordless phones in this household.)
What I've learned? Stick with what you NEED over what you WANT. Internet on your phone is a luxury, we lived just fine before text messaging, don't get in over your head & cave to societal pressure to have the latest greatest toy (or in my case . . . phone). Keep your expenses as low as possible so that extra money can be going to either pay down debt or into something that will fund my retirement.
This is an expensive lesson for me, but a needed one, I guess. I'll pay the termination fee and put the pretty shiny PalmTreo up for sale on either craigslist or ebay.
I guess my decision is pretty much made. Bye-bye Alltel. Hello prepaid Net10.
What would you do?
Thursday, October 16, 2008
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2 comments:
I did the same thing and paid myself out of a lousy contract only last week. it's always worth it
Once you get out of this plan, how much would it be for Anime to have her own plan and you to use a pre-paid?
Being that we haven't a had a "real" cell phone for ages, I have no idea what plans are going for now-days.
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