Wednesday, January 29, 2014

Spending Money to Save Money

My first cell phone was a $50 Verizon phone back in 2000.  It made calls and that's all.  It might have been able to text, I don't know.  It lasted 8 years until it could barely hold a charge.  When I took it in to the Verizon store to upgrade in 2008, the clerk was amazed that it was still working.  He said it belonged in a museum.  I chose an LG EnV2 as the replacement.  It had a full keyboard and a 2.0 megapixel camera.  Oh the luxury.  I also bought a memory card and was able to put music on it.  For a brief moment, I had a up-to-date piece of technology.  This phone has been my trusted companion.  Unfortunately, I have dropped it on its head too many times to count.  Most of the buttons on the front don't work any more and the buttons inside get stuck which makes my texting look like this "Juuust wannteed tooo ssay HIII".

I've been thinking about upgrading my phone for a while but I didn't want to sign a new contract with Verizon.  My phone bill is $55 a month after an 8% discount from my employer and a $5 bundle discount with Qwest.  I don't have a data plan, just call and text.  Every time I see a review for a discount cell phone company, like Republic Wireless or Ting, I try to figure out if it would be worth it to change.  I want to save money and I don't want to lose my phone number.  Today I read the post on Retire by 40's blog, Republic Wireless Review. and then I did some research.  I looked up my usage on my Verizon bill and plugged it in to Ting's cost savings calculator.  I would fall in to the $20 a month category if I joined Ting.  They have cheaper phone options than Republic but over the long term, I think that I could save more money with Republic's $10 plan which has unlimited calls and text but data can only be used when there is free wifi available.  I'm not used to using data so this probably won't be an issue.  The $299 price of Republic's only phone option, the Moto X, made me hesitate but if I am really saving $40 a month then I would make up the cost of the phone in 8 months.

I decided to do it.  There is a 30 day money back guarantee so I ordered the phone today.  I'll try it out and hopefully, it will work for me and I will never ever lose or kill this expensive phone.  I think I will wrap it in waterproof bubble wrap and build it a little parachute.  That should work.

6 comments:

Dave said...

Daizy, I don't think you'd want my cell phone plan. I don't have a cell phone and have no use for one LOL!

Daizy said...

Do you have a home phone, Dave? Or do you use something like Skype or Google Voice?

Dave said...

I have a landline phone, the same one I have had in my place for nearly 25 years. It suits me just fine.

Daizy said...

If you don't mind me asking, how much does your landline cost? I haven't had one since 2000.

Dave said...

Please check your email, Daizy.

Daizy said...

Not bad especially since you probably don't need to upgrade your phone every few years. Those taxes certainly add on to the bill.