Paying too much for your phone?

In recent years, some consumer surveys have determined that a good portion of individual American mobile phone bills approach nearly $200 per month. Your particular bill could be much more depending on how many lines of service you have. Of course, this amount doesn’t include cable, satellite, internet service, etc. 

Personally, I held off for quite a while before purchasing a smart phone. At the time, that seemed to keep my bill in check. I used Straight Talk service which cost me about $60 per month after taxes and such. Over a year ago, I heard Clark Howard talking about a service called Republic Wireless. I quickly calculated that paying the $300 upfront fee for the Moto X smart phone and subsequently carrying a $25 monthly fee, would eventually be a great deal compared to what I was doing. Now, my total bill comes to $29.40 per month and includes unlimited 3G data, text and voice.

Let’s just say if you are still paying more than $40 per month for mobile service, you are likely paying much more than you could be. There are quite a few low-cost but high quality services out there which compete with the big companies like Verizon and Sprint. Really, they’re not really competing with them as they essentially package, re-brand and resell the same services. Republic Wireless, for instance, uses the Sprint network while in cell mode. I’m a big fan of Republic Wireless and have been happy with the service for well over a year. 

There are other services you may wish to consider in addition to Republic Wireless. One of these is Ting. I can’t speak to the service directly but the a la carte method looks interesting. 

At any rate, the point is that there are options out there to significantly reduce this monthly cost. It may not seem like a lot but the savings adds up. Once you get the cell phone knocked out, move on to other bills like cable/TV/internet.

Before you know it, you'll be saving a bundle.