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Cell Phone Bill

August 10th, 2011 at 05:55 pm

I have verizon cell phones with 5 lines. Three of the lines are for me and the kids. My EXDH has the other two lines. This bill is roughly $300 per month for 2100 minutes. We generally go over 1400 but are way less that 2100. So I can't reduce the minutes to save money. However, XDH uses most of the minutes. He used 1052 of the 1488 minutes used. He was just paying what the charges were for his line, 9.99 per month for the line and the ringback tones. This month I asked him to pay $125 of the bill since most of the minutes used were his. He was fine with this. So from now on, I will be getting more money from him for the cell phone bill. That will really help me out and it is only fair I think. I can't reduce the amount of minutes due to his usage.

My budget is looking very good. So good in fact that I think I am going to get the air in my car fixed on Saturday, as long as it just needs to be charged. If it needs extensive work I can't get that done, but it will only be about $50 to get it charged and see if there are any other problems. It is just brutal sitting in a car with no air where the drivers side window won't go down and now the the controls on the driver side won't make the passenger window go down and I am too short to reach across the passenger seat and roll down the window. Even with the back windows open if feels like a sauna in there. Keep your fingers crossed that it just needs some freon.



10 Responses to “Cell Phone Bill”

  1. BuckyBadger Says:
    1313001414

    Why don't you boot him off your plan? That is ASTRONOMICALLY high! CeeJay (sp?) has move over to pre-paid plans and it's gone really well for her. Maybe you could try that for you and your kids? I would get rid of the $300 plan immediately if possible -- even if there is a penalty (depending on what the penalty is). Seriously... Think what a difference an extra $200+ would do to your month budget?

  2. BuckyBadger Says:
    1313001484

    "has moved" and "monthly budget"

    Didn't re-read for comprehension!

  3. ceejay74 Says:
    1313002451

    Bucky's got a good point. Even if you pay a penalty for canceling your contract, you could easily make that up with the savings. Sounds like you and your kids use 436 minutes on average? At 10 cents per minute, that would come to $43.60 on prepaid, maybe $50 with tax.

    T-Mobile is an awesome deal, if you can pay $107 upfront you get 1000 minutes (can be used for texting too) and one year of service. I reload about twice a year.

    Net10 is what NT uses and it's a pretty good deal too; $32 or so every 2 months for 300 minutes. You have to renew within the 2 month period to keep your phone active, but you can renew earlier if you run out of minutes.

    We have two T-Mobile phone/plans and one Net10, and we've gotten our total average cost down to about $60 per month; hope to get it down to $50 average for the year eventually.

  4. scottish girl Says:
    1313003301

    I agree, get him off your plan. You'll save a fortune.

  5. North Georgia Gal Says:
    1313003590

    Unfortunately where we live T Mobile and Net10 don't work. The only phone companies that work are Verizon and Cingular. We live in a very rural area. And we sent over 12000 text messages last month so we need a text heavy plan.

  6. BuckyBadger Says:
    1313005068

    That's 100 messages per person per day... Wow.

    Even if you don't change to pre paid, I would at least look into getting your plan down to just your 3 lines and dropping your minutes way down, while keeping unlimited texting. Although if you are with Verizon, I think that Verizon-to-Verizon texts might be free.

    You really should look into making a change.

    What are the odds that the exDH is actually going to pony up the $125 a month? Isn't it better to get a fixed bill lower than rely on him paying what he owes? No one can take that money away from you.

  7. North Georgia Gal Says:
    1313005177

    I am looking at AT&T plans and it looks like I can get 3 phones with unlimited texting for $150/month. Will have to investigate further.

  8. BuckyBadger Says:
    1313005580

    I think you should do it! That'll be a huge savings, as well as a load of your mind not having to worry about coming up with $300 if your exDH doesn't come through every month with his portion.

  9. Just Me Says:
    1313009023

    That seems like a lot for a cell phone- but really $50.00 +/- per phone. Do you also pay for a landline too? Think of how many hours of work you have to put in to have these phones? Is it really worth it? Do ALL of the children need phones or can 1 or 2 of them share a phone? My husband and I pay $70.00 (which includes surcharges, taxes and other crap they ding you for) for 1000 anytime minutes, free incoming (regardless of time of day), unlimited nights *(starting at 7 pm), unlimited weekends, unlimited text (regardless of incoming/outgoing/photo). Good for you for asking the ex to pay his fair share.

  10. MonkeyMama Says:
    1313009715

    Even with Verizon, we only pay $110/month for 4 of us. Seems to me there has got to be something better out there, with any cell carrier. (I am partial to Verizon - personally - never have been impressed with the coverage elsewhere). Unlimited texting would be $$130/month, I believe. We don't use a lot of minutes, is the thing (since weekends and other verizon users are free - mostly what we use). But seems to me they should have other options with more minutes.

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