Independence Day marked the end of our first Ting billing cycle. (Not to mention the first month of our having a cell phone in general.)
Our bill? A whopping $17.46. It would’ve been $13.97, but we got a text. A text from someone we don’t even know! (Can you tell I’m still bitter?)
Still, $17.46 is a pretty good deal. The next cheapest plans (Cricket and a few prepaid options) were $30 a month. And regular carriers seem to charge $70 to $80. Ouch.
Of course, we were able to keep a low bill because we were also extremely conservative with usage.
After finding out that 17 MB had been used without our leaving the house — apparently iPhones can decide connections are too slow and boost the speed with some data — we learned to turn cellular data off completely unless we needed to look something up. Otherwise, we relied on home and business wi-fi connections.
As a result, we used only 68 MB of data, which kept us on the $3 tier. The next level up (101 to 500 MB) is only $10 a month. Even 2 GB is only $20. So it’s not a catastrophe if we have a data-heavy (for us) month.
Still, I’m happy to shoot for bills of $20 or less. And other Ting users seem to agree because the average bill is only $23 a month. That’s kind of crazy, right?
Of course, really heavy data users may not see savings, but the cell phone users I talked to use about 1.5 GB a month. From what I understand, most people use less than 3 GB. So I strongly suggest you check out the rates because most people will probably see some serious savings.
Incidentally, if you’re impressed by the savings and decide to switch to Ting, use my link for a $25 account credit.
How much data (or text or talk) do you use each month?
We use Tracfone. Each phone costs, I think, $60 to extend the contract for a year, and it comes with some nominal phone time and texts. I have to add another 1 GB of data every two months, which is $10. One time we had to add another 1,000 texts which costs $5.
So for the two phones combined, it probably comes out to $15 a month.
Norm recently posted…Ridinkulous Quarterly Expenses: Q2 2017
Very nice. Tim didn’t appreciate the crappy Tracfone flip phones we had for vacations, and he’s deadset on iPhones. So I didn’t bother trying to sell him on a Tracfone smartphone. But some of them did look decent.
That’ s pretty good! How would you rate the call quality? I don’t know who Ting piggy-backs off of.
I’ve been a pretty loyal Republic Wireless user for three years now. My wife and I pay about $42/mo with taxes and fees included.
They use the Sprint network. We don’t make a lot of calls, but so far the quality seems good. Republic is a great company and people are really happy with the service. It was my first thought when relenting about a smartphone. Unfortunately, Tim had his heart (and brain and every other stubborn internal organ) on an iPhone, and Republic only does Android.
I think we may actually be getting a better deal with Ting, but both companies give their customers *very* good rates!
Woo-wee! That’s still amazing for a cell phone bill. That’s such a bummer about the text; ugh! We’ve been on Google Fi for over a year and absolutely love it. We’re paying *quarter* of what we paid when we were on Verizon and AT&T and the quality is pretty much the same.
Mrs. Picky Pincher recently posted…Why Bottled Water Pisses Me Off
Google Fi? I haven’t heard of that one. I’ll look it up. I like to stay aware of all the options, though I don’t think we can beat $13-20 a month. Way to go on your savings, though!
We switched from Ting to Google Fi because the cell networks Ting uses have a nearly-dead zone over our apartment. Google Fi has a weak cell signal here too, but these phones can also use our wifi for calls/texts. Our bill has gone up by about $10 a month, however it is well worth it since I am no longer dealing with relatives grumpy that I was “ignoring” their calls & texts.
Sorry to hear you have such trouble with data coverage! I agree that it’s better to pay a little bit more to, ya know, actually get coverage where you live.
I’m still using a crappy flip phone; after all, I’m home a lot. My plan is $2 a day if I use the phone, and $0 if I don’t use it.
I do have to pay attention to expiration dates. I put $10 to $20 worth of credit on it at a time; if I don’t use the phone before the funds expire, they all go away. But if I use the phone even once, the funds roll over to the next period.
Weird, but effective for me. The most use it gets all year is when I’m at the Financial Blogger Conference.
Donna Freedman recently posted…5 personal finance lessons from ‘Alien: Covenant.’
Yeah, I’d check how many times a month you use it, but unless it averages 5 or 6 times a month, you should probably stick with your deal.
Interesting to know. Like Donna, I also cling to the crappy flip phone, which…you’ve kindly reminded me…needs to be recharged! I buy XX number of minutes a year, and carry the gadget only for emergencies.
I would LOVE to have a smartphone, but a) can’t afford it and b) when I did get one, I couldn’t figure out how to operate it.
Since everything is now done on these devices, I suppose I’ll have to try again…and apparently the brain-bangingly expensive iPhone is easiest for old people to learn. Thanks for the clue to this relatively cheap service.
Is there a way you can block people from sending texts? If you have to pay for every blurt in your direction, that’s not very acceptable.
Yeah, if it happens again this month I’m going to contact Ting and see if there’s a way to turn off texting. We may want it at some point in the future (like if we’re on vacation, since some friends prefer texting), but for now it’ll just cost us money.
An older iPhone would cut the cost a little, but yeah it’s a big financial hit I’m afraid.
Way. Too. Much. We have Verizon and the bill is crazy. We’re hoping to switch to MetroPCS.
MetroPCS has a good price for sure. I’d still recommend checking your last couple of bills to see how much data you’re using. Ting or Republic Wireless might be even cheaper.