As we are heading into another month and all striving to cut our budgets by 2% a little more each and every month we wanted to share another tip to help your in your journey. And if you don’t know what we’re talking about, check out our 2×2 plan and the 2% monthly budget cuts as they are the meat and potatoes of becoming debt-free and working towards financial peace. It’s how we finally had success in paying off $100K of consumer debt in a short time period. Plus, it’s how we live today to continue to build financial peace.
Today’s tip specifically is how to deal with the family cell phone plan.
To many, these words are a little frightening because it conjures up images of that massive cell phone bill that you may have gotten locked into with those fancy contracts, only to find out that you go locked into a number of features that you actually don’t need – all of which you are still paying for.
This aspect of telecommunications has always been such a frustration for us. We just want a bill that is given to us straight! If you are going to tell us that it is going to cost $XX.XX amount, then why does our bill show $XXX.XX amount!?!
And of course the answer is always the extra fees, the extra services and those features that you really have no idea what the purpose or benefit of those features are to you!
We consider ourselves quite frugal, filled with questions to cover the bases and pretty meticulously careful when signing up for things. But even for us, more often than not, those cell phone plans just do not turn out how they sounded at the time of sign-up.
They seem to make it so confusing that at the end of it, your head is spinning and you just want to walk away being able to communicate with your family and friends easily.
That’s the funny part – you are trying to make your life easier by getting a cell phone and plan in the first place, but it is such a complicated and confusing process.
No.More.Games.
A while ago, we shared how we found a super easy, super quick, affordable and most importantly, a reliable cell phone plan for our children during the busy summer months – the new Total Wireless pre-paid, no-contract, month-to-month service that was also part of America’s Most Reliable Network. We wanted to have an easy, but affordable, way to communicate with them while they were doing their busy summer activities.
It was a huge blessing! In fact, all we had to do was walk into the Walmart electronics department and pick out an affordable cell phone (we got the LG for $39.99 – now it’s even lower at $29.99) and grab a pre-paid plan card. We chose the $35 plan that gives unlimited talk and text and 2.5 GB of data. We then proceeded to the checkout, purchased the phone and the card and walked out. No hidden fees, no contracts, no bills in the mail that say something different than when we signed up! Just.Pure.Ease.
Then every month that we would like to use this cell phone, we just simply buy another plan card and enter the codes online or we can buy another monthly plan online too! No need to even step foot in a store as you can do it all from your browser at home.
Well, we looked further into the different plans that would work for a family or a couple. And the news is that it is even cheaper than their single phone option! Total Wireless has a family plan that consists of 2 lines, unlimited talk and text and 5 GB of shared data for only $60 per month. For us, 5GB is perfect. We like to use the internet for researching, apps, email, GPS and miscellaneous short YouTube videos here and there – not to mention that when we do this at home we are connected to our WiFi meaning no data usage. So it is enough for us. We don’t watch movies or TV from our phones, but if you did need more data for this purpose, they have a $10 rollover 1.5 GB add-on as needed so that you don’t run out of data – or go over your data limit and then pay a high price like you may have normally with other plans.
And the plans get even cheaper per phone the more you add-on. Here’s the plans and straight-forward pricing:
Based on what we are hearing from many of our readers and frustrations in the high price of cell phones, this could be a great option for many families to drop their cell phone bill by a decent amount, and it may be just enough to help you cut that 2% (or more) this month!
You can actually buy your cell phones and plans online on the Total Wireless site too with free overnight shipping! In fact, browsing online is a great place to start to see all of the options they have. The shipping is free and you can have your new affordable smart phones and plans the next day. Or you could also walk into Walmart right now and get all you need in a few minutes.
Have you heard of Total Wireless or have you used Total Wireless before? What are your thoughts?
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Disclosure: We are Total Wireless bloggers and are compensated for our time although all opinions and cell phone experiences are truly our own. Please know our continual goal is to provide you good products for a value to help you save you both time and money. Please see our Disclosure Policy for additional information.
Tina
This is great! Can you tell me more… How has your coverage been? Do you seem to drop calls? Is there any additional fees you pay? We are currently paying for 3 phones and need to add one more. Were paying more than double of of what Total Wireless charges.
melissa
republicwireless.com is the way to go. $10 a month if you just use wifi. You buy the phone but its so much cheaper in the long run.
Sandra
I was so excited about this, until I read the reviews. The phones and cost sound great, but the customer service has really bad reviews. Shame.
Jane
Check out the 4G Antenna shop, they have great affordable plans and their customer service is extremely helpful! 4gas.online