S/O: What age did your child LEAVE your cell phone plan?

[RegGuheert]

The two polls above discuss whether or not the children have their own cell phone plans, who pays, for how long and when do the payments and/or plan privileges stop.

 

Please tell us what you do with your children and their cell phones. Please check all boxes that apply, since we typically do not do the same thing with every child.

 

ETA: Modified the poll to accommodate Quill.

Edited July 13, 2017 by RegGuheert

[Melissa in Australia]

I have a prepaid plan, as do my older teens. Everyone pays their own.

[Guest]

Other. :) I intend to pay for their plans until they finish college. This priviledge could be altered, of coure, if they were untrustworthy/irresponsible with their phones, if they were not dutifully moving towards being an independant adult, or if our financial situation changed drastically.

 

My kids are not on our household plan, for different reasons. One has a prepaid plan because I don't want him eating up the (limited) data, because it is all we have for our household wifi. DD is on a separate plan because the location of her college makes it difficult to get reliable cell service. My 12yo does not have his own phone yet (though he does have an ipod.)

 

ETA: I did change it but it's still not precisely correct, because they are not on our plan. But we do pay for it until they finish college (or, that is our plan). 😊

Edited July 13, 2017 by Quill

[JudoMom]

We have Republic Wireless, so there is no price break. They boys with phones are on our plans because I don't really want them to use their debit cards online, so they just pay us each month.

[SparklyUnicorn]

No cell phone plan here (prepaid).

 

But here is a twist.  My dad just joined my sister's plan.  :laugh:

[RegGuheert]

Hey, everyone! I modified the poll at about quarter to seven AM EDT (see edit time in OP). If you voted early, please resubmit your votes.

 

Sorry for the confusion. I won't edit it again.

[Ottakee]

We are on a Verizon family plan with my mom, my brother and his family and ours....actually 10 of us in all. We all send my mom money each month for the bill.

[mytwomonkeys]

We have 4 lines with 15gb shared for $100 through Total Wireless. My kids can stay on our plan through college. It's so cheap and no bother to our budget.

[Night Elf]

All 3 of my children are on our family plan. I do not mind them being on our plan because they don't do silly things and they pay their shares when they can. I said 'other' about when will they leave the plan because there wasn't a good choice. Just yesterday dd25 and I were talking about her leaving our plan and letting her find a cheaper option. We pay a lot of money for 5 lines and I'm positive we can get all of these cheaper. So for the sake of the poll, I have no problems with my kids staying on my cell plan for as long as they choose to do so. 

 

As for who pays, we ask each child to pay as she/he can. Dd25 pays for her own. Ds21 works part-time and contributes to the household so we include his cell phone in that monthly sum. Dd19 doesn't work because she's in school so we're still covering her completely.

[mytwomonkeys]

We are on a Verizon family plan with my mom, my brother and his family and ours....actually 10 of us in all. We all send my mom money each month for the bill.

My dad does this as well. He's on AT&T and has 10 lines. It includes him, my mom, two aunts, my one sister and her family, etc. It was so cheap to go that route and they all love it.

[RegGuheert]

But here is a twist. My dad just joined my sister's plan. :laugh:

I think that's not uncommon since it is difficult to get a cheap, full-featured plan as an individual.

 

We have now added BOTH of our mothers to our plan. As such, I selected "forever" as one of the options for the second poll.

 

We put our children on our plan and pay for their service until they get their first full-time job. After that, they pay us for their portion of the bill. I decided to make their bills each $20/month plus taxes and fees, which comes to just over $24/month. That gets them unlimited everything with LTE data speeds up to 4GB of data and 128kbps thereafter. Our data is not shared, so I do not worry about anyone eating other someone else's lunch.

 

For the second poll, I selected both "forever" (for the moms) and "until they get married" for the children. Since our plan is maxed out, I don't see how we could accommodate any (purely theoretical) future spouses.

[Big Buckin' Longhorn]

My 24 year old is on our plan and he does live at home. There are some rumblings about moving out, so I'm not sure how that will all play out. It's an extra $20 a month or so, so it's no biggie either way to me.

 

The 27 year old is not on our plan and never was. She is married with kids of her own, so she probably would have her own plan by now regardless, but who knows. If she had ever been in our plan, I can't see myself kicking her off.

 

I pay the bill.

[Pawz4me]

DS18 and DS21 are on our plan (which we pay for in full) and will remain there until they graduate college and get full time jobs. At that time we'll all discuss and research how we'll proceed. It very well may be that we'll all benefit from keeping the family plan and having them pay us for their portion (25 percent). I don't know, but I've always assumed that would probably be less expensive than having an individual plan. But once they graduate and are launched in their careers they'll pay for their coverage and phones, whether they get their own plans or we keep the family plan.

[Rebel Yell]

Other for both.

 

In our earliest cell phone days, we had prepaid flip-phone Tracfones, so no "plan". Just refill every 90 days or when they ran out of minutes. The $20/90 day card was more than enough for a log time...

 

Diamond made several long distance friends through summer camp and the OYAN forums, and began texts more, so we'd refill her minutes before her 90 days were up. When she got to a point where she had over three YEARS of service days built up, we realized we were spending the equivalent of the ATT GoPhone monthly option- at the time, $20/month for unlimited talk/text. So she switched. When she wanted an iPhone (bought refurbished) and a data plan, she paid the additional costs for data, until maybe a year after high school graduation, then she paid for everything herself. Her old phone with service days was handed down to BabyBaby at age 9ish. She rarely used it.

 

SweetChild also had a flipphone Tracfone. She began texting a wider group of friends and a boy :rolleyes: which used up prepaid minut s too fast, and so she got an iPod which could do iMessage when she was in wifi, but only with people who also had iPhones or iPods. She still used the Tracfone for calls and texts to non I-People. After a year or so it made sense for her to also have one device, so another refurbished iPhone and ATT GoPhone prepaid plan. I think by then the talk/text only was discontinued so straight to the $40/month plan. Depending on how school allows her time to work, she'll begin paying for her own or a portion of it in about a year.

 

BabyBaby and I both have refurbished older iPhones, both Tracfones, we each get the $20 refill every three months. I don't expect she will pay for her own until a year or so after high school graduation as well.

 

So far, for our needs, a family plan hasnt been necessary, plus DH is adamant that we not be locked into a contract for phones.

[Donna]

Our kids were each added to our plan when they got their first phone around 13yo (each)...depended on when they started doing things where they might need to contact me to pick them up or let me know where they are. The oldest got his own plan at 21 when he wanted different services (unlimited data) that I wasn't going to put on my plan. The other two are still on my plan but all three have always paid for their own phones since they got them.

[DawnM]

We are on ATT.  Each boy is $15 additional.  We pay.

 

I think we will prob. pay until they have a job/career.  They can just pay us the amount once they get a job.  I don't see a reasons for them to pay $70 for their own plan when they can just be on our plan for a fraction of the cost.

[Twolittleboys]

My son has a prepaid card which so far I have paid for (I think I have put about $30 on during the 1.5 years he has had it).

 

Edited to add: I have a similar card but have put less money on it.

Edited July 13, 2017 by Twolittleboys

[Alisa in Florida]

My older son is 22 and in the military, so I've kept him on my Verizon plan, mainly because he doesn't get paid much. I have no idea how long I'll keep him on it, but not forever. My younger son is 19 and has some FASD related issues(still in high school.) I have him on a prepaid plan so that I can cut him off if he's misusing it or if his behavior gets out of control. I haven't had to do it, but just the threat has seemed to help him follow the household rules.

[Kassia]

DS18 and DS21 are on our plan (which we pay for in full) and will remain there until they graduate college and get full time jobs. At that time we'll all discuss and research how we'll proceed. It very well may be that we'll all benefit from keeping the family plan and having them pay us for their portion (25 percent). I don't know, but I've always assumed that would probably be less expensive than having an individual plan. But once they graduate and are launched in their careers they'll pay for their coverage and phones, whether they get their own plans or we keep the family plan.

 

This is how we handle it.  We pay until they graduate and start their careers, but keep them on the family plan and they reimburse us for their share.

[Pam in CT]

How about parents on our plans?  For a variety of reasons, my mom is on ours, and my aunt's is on my cousin's.  Every family has its own unique circumstances.

 

We'll keep all our kids on ours until they're finished with their educations.  Our goal is more to scaffold them until they are launched, than to define any particular age "number" as a hard cut-off point.  Same with health care.  We can afford it, and it's an easy way to help them in terms of logistics. 

 

 

Cellphone costs in the US are *ridiculously* expensive and *ridiculously* complicated compared to the rest of the developed world.  The two years my daughter lived in Scotland she paid 13 pounds a month for unlimited local calling, more international than she needed given Skype etc, and all-you-can-eat data.  She used it here when she came home for summer vacation -- even though she was burning international minutes in both directions, most of her life is by text and those were unlimited.  Same with my brother and sister-in-law when they were in Singapore - when we visited them we'd get 30-day SIM cards for less than 10 US dollars.  We also do SIM cards when we travel and it is invariably cheaper than going to Verizon and having them add some complicated expensive roaming add-on into our plan that is thereafter a two-hour phone call to get them to drop, grrr.

[regentrude]

We all have prepaid phones and recently consolidated into a single package for the family. We pay until kids are out of college and have a job. We are not quite there yet. Will see what happens then. I can see them stay  in the package if that is financially advantageous.

Edited July 13, 2017 by regentrude

[MeaganS]

My husband and I just left his parents plan a few weeks ago and we are in our early 30s. We paid for our share monthly. Dh's siblings are still on it. We left because we needed more data now that we don't have access to a normal residential internet plan. They also warned us that they will be ending their plan in the next year or so when they move out of the country. At that point we plan on offering his siblings spots on our plan if they are willing to pay their share because it would be cheaper for all of us.

[Bambam]

It will be different for both children.

 

Oldest - 19 - she wanted a new phone although old was sufficient for her needs, but she wanted. We generally aren't fans of buying things you don't need, so we offered the following - we'll buy you *this* new phone, and you can set up your own account with Republic Wireless (so very reasonable).  We were hoping she would look at the costs of the phone vs. the costs of the plan over time, but, alas, she didn't. Or she would realize that a new unneeded phone was a luxury item.  We have slowly been moving child to starting to fund her expenses (she attends college, we fund tuition, room & board) because said child has no clues yet what things really cost. We asked her to develop a budget. She thinks she can eat for $50/month. Ha. - probably not if she plans to eat regularly - not sure why I paid almost $2000/semester for a food plan. 

 

Youngest - no telling with her. 

[Guest]

We did not do our hw. It actually would have been less costly for college kid in a city to be on his own plan, since his city has more providers than our rural area and thus lower prices due to competition.

 

We do have grandma on the plan. There are no low cost providers here for her income level so its the best she can do as she doesn't have the ability to manage a pay as you go reloadable phone.

 

I will be turning mine off and moving to skype/wifi as soon as college is done and I dont need the reliable mobile service I have.

Edited July 13, 2017 by Heigh Ho

[TABmom]

My kids don't have phones yet- they're young. But we are on a plan with MIL/FIL and one BIL. They asked us if we wanted to join because it would make it cheaper for everyone, so we did.

[cjzimmer1]

Only my oldest has a cell phone and he got it begrudgingly.  So I put him on a prepaid plan of voice and texting only.  It's really so I can communicate with him.  Now that he has branched out more in his life, we have "upgraded" his plan.  He has unlimited texting (that I pay for) and he purchases a small amount of data.  My portion is only $3 and his is only $4.  So I could easily pay for it all but I told him I didn't need him to have data so he has to pay for it.  He's fine with it.  Since I'm still on his bank accounts, I just move the money into my account each month.  But the plan is to continue this arrangement until he decides he wants some better than what I'm willing to pay for.  Than he is on his own to pay for it.  He's mentioned several times about his phone not holding a charge as well as it used to.  I said he is welcome to buy a new phone at any time but I'm not buying him another one.  He looks at the price and decided it's worth it to just keep his charger handy.  It great when you've got a frugal kid!

[Cinder]

I voted Other as we don't use a plan; we all have pre-paid here. We pay for the dc's service until they graduate from high school at which time they're expected to contribute $10 per month toward their own service. They take over full payment after graduating college. Sometime during his junior year of college, ds1 decided to go with a different carrier than the one we use and he paid his own way--the cost was higher. At the time he had a good part-time job and it was well within his ability to take over payments.

 

There's more to it than just a son handing over $10 each month. We give them a monthly allowance while they're in school--starting senior year of high school--to cover phone and gas and sometimes food (depending on need, i.e. whether they're on meal plan.). The amount calculated for phone is reduced by $10. We also switch to them paying their own bill with their own debit card.

[maize]

No cell phone plan here (prepaid).

 

But here is a twist. My dad just joined my sister's plan. :laugh:

This is how my family operates--someone finds a good deal and invites other family members to join. My parents and I are all on my brother's plan to take advantage of price breaks.

[maize]

I vote adult kids (post college or so) pay their own way but can stay on a family plan for as long as that is mutually beneficial.

[Lady Florida.]

Ds 19 is at home, in college, and working part time. He's still on our plan and we still pay for his basic line. We had a shared data plan of 10g for three phones and he often went over. At first he would pay the cost for going over, but now he pays the difference in our monthly bill for us to upgrade to unlimited data. As long as he's in college and we're still partially supporting him we'll cover his basic line. Once he's out on his own he'll be on his own for the phone too. We'll probably keep him on our plan because it's cheaper for both us and him, but he'll pay the full cost for his line.

Edited July 13, 2017 by Lady Florida.

[lllll]

nm

Edited July 25, 2017 by tentwelve

[Kassia]

Only my oldest has a cell phone and he got it begrudgingly.  So I put him on a prepaid plan of voice and texting only.  It's really so I can communicate with him.  Now that he has branched out more in his life, we have "upgraded" his plan.  He has unlimited texting (that I pay for) and he purchases a small amount of data.  My portion is only $3 and his is only $4.  

 

What cell phone/plan are you using?  I need something for my daughter just for texting/voice.  

[Jackie in AR]

Our children use(d) our plan. We pay until they finish high school. Once they finish college, they get their own plan.

[SKL]

My phone is a work phone.  I don't have a personal plan to put my kids on.  So I bought them modest Tracfone plans.

 

I am not sure exactly how this will work going forward.  They are very set on getting iphones for a future birthday.  I assume that is going to get expensive.  Maybe I could get them on the company payroll by then, LOL.

 

Say, question - is it illegal, unethical, or tax fraud to put your kids on your work plan?  If you think about it, how is that different from putting them on your employer-provided health coverage?

[Pawz4me]

 

Say, question - is it illegal, unethical, or tax fraud to put your kids on your work plan?  If you think about it, how is that different from putting them on your employer-provided health coverage?

 

Typically you pay for spouse/children to be on an employer health plan. I believe the employer only gets tax benefits for the part of the employee's coverage it provides.

 

I think it would be illegal, unethical and tax fraud if you took any sort of tax deduction/write off for the cost of your kids' phones. Assuming, of course, that they (1) weren't legitimate employees who (2) had a verifiable work-related need for a phone.

[Jaybee]

Ours doesn't quite fit into the poll, so I didn't vote. We put them on our plan, and we pay for it until they are self-supporting (out of college). Then they can stay on our plan if they want, but they pay for their portion. It has worked well, and nobody has abused it. One may be leaving the plan soon due to marriage and a move that means another carrier is more suitable in the new place.

[J-rap]

We don't have any cut and dry rules.  When our ds went off to college, we didn't yet have a cell phone plan!  He had a tracfone, and that seemed to suit him just fine.  Our oldest dd went to college in another country and our plan didn't work there, so she was not part of our plan either.   Once those two were married, they were both living out of the country and of course handled it all themselves.  But when they moved back to the U.S., money was tight for awhile as they were getting re-settled, so they (and their spouses) joined our family plan but paid their share, and they continue to do that now.  So, they pay for their own phone and monthly fees, but it was quite a bit cheaper for them to just join our family plan and we are happy to help them out in this way.  (We're not out anything financially.)

 

Another has completed college but works abroad 9 months/year, and is only home in the summers.  We kept up her line for the first year (we were able to put it on hold until she returned), but now we've cancelled it altogether because she found a different phone company that enables her to use it both here and internationally at minimal cost.  It's all her responsibility.

 

Another hasn't gone to college but is starting up her career differently, in the arts, and we are supporting her in many ways as though she were in college.  So, we still pay for her cell phone and plan, as well as for our youngest dd who is currently in college.

[EMS83]

DH and I are each still on our parents' plans, lol.  They seem fine with it; I've offered to exit a few times, or pay for my share, or for overages, etc.--I get a "no, that's fine" each time.  And my dad offered to add DD on a 5th line recently; said his bill would actually go down?  So speaking theoretically, if it were a better deal all around, I guess we'd do the same, but likely have them pay in.  So they can "feel" the phone, if that makes sense?

[SKL]

Typically you pay for spouse/children to be on an employer health plan. I believe the employer only gets tax benefits for the part of the employee's coverage it provides.

 

I think it would be illegal, unethical and tax fraud if you took any sort of tax deduction/write off for the cost of your kids' phones. Assuming, of course, that they (1) weren't legitimate employees who (2) had a verifiable work-related need for a phone.

 

I don't think so, I used to be in employee benefits and I think it is more common for the employer to pay a % of the whole shebang, and the whole bill is deductible as long as it passes the discrimination tests.

 

I would be willing to pay the increase in the cell phone bill that relates to my kids getting on the plan, but I don't know that it would work in our company's setup.  Our company pays one giant bill for all the phones.  I don't know that it's possible to mix up a family plan with a business plan.

 

[Anne]

We paid for our children's cell phones (regular phones, no data) until they were financially able to manage it themselves. It was the last thing we paid for before they were completely independent. It was somewhat selfish of me - I wanted to be sure that I would still hear from them!!! :-)

 

If they had run up big charges or something, we would have revisited the idea.....

 

Anne

[Corraleno]

Both of my kids were originally on cheap Republic Wireless no-contract plans ($10/mo for unlimited talk/text but wifi-only data). DS is still on that, and I'll pay for it as long as he wants. I'm guessing that at some point he will want to upgrade to a newer phone and a plan with cellular data, at which point we'll discuss who pays for it. Last year when DD went to visit her dad, he gave her an iPhone on his Verizon plan, so it's up to him how long he's willing to pay of that.

[TravelingChris]

We have all three children on our plan. I had thought that my married dd would get off the plan but she wanted to stay. As to funding-currently we pay for all with oldest paying sometimes in money and sometimes in goods or services. My middle child is currently waiting for a good job (security clearances take a lot longer than they did when I needed one 25 years ago). But she told us that her IL's pay for her hubbies phone and can we just keep paying for hers. Considering they do things like buy trucks outright for them, bought their house for them, etc, etc, we have decided to keep the piece and pay the 40 bucks. I am sure that when they move up here they will also pay back with goods and services, and they have already kind of done that a lot of times. Youngest is in college and we totally support her at this time. We are the deep pockets here and we do things like generally pay for events for all kids if we are attending with them and usually pay for meals, snacks, etc. for anytime we are out. But that is because we can and both dh and I have decided we love having the closeness our family has and we continue to foster that by having pleasant meals and joint activities. The cell phones are kind of the same thing.

[dsmith]

Our cell phone plan is paid by our business. My son works for us, so his is also on the business plan, and will probably remain on there unless/until he decides to do something else.

[goldberry]

We plan to pay as long as DD is in school full time, so I selected out of college.  Of course I would allow her a transition period if she is unemployed at that time.

[amy g.]

I'll probably pay my kids' phone bills forever.

 

Dh's phone is paid by his work. He doesn't want an additional personal one. I pay mine plus my 3 grown kids' and my youngest has data on her iPad so that goes on the bill. At Christmas, I'll probably give my then 11 year old one of our hand me down iPhones so then I'll be paying for 6 and will probably just budget that amount into eternity.

 

I love to spoil my kids and they rebel by being very independent. There isn't a ton that they let me do for them, so taking this one bill off of their plate is my pleasure.

[gardenmom5]

I put other - because it was a mix.

 

for the girls -  when they went away to college, we had to put them on other plans for the area code.  (doesn't matter now - it did then.)

2dd got on a different plan in grad school because she wanted texting - and dh hated texting.  (when you had to pay per text.  I finally put my foot down and said we're getting texting too.)

the boys were so in and out of college before figuring out what they really wanted to do - they lived at home, so didn't need a parent provided phone.  they have their own plan through ting.  (which is cheap - and accountant boy has taken charge of the bill and collecting from his brother.)

 

no one had a phone in high school - more an issue of money.  2dd's schedule was such it would have been a good thing.

[BusyMom5]

I'm not voting b/c my kids don' thave phones yet and I"m not sure what we will do.  I wanted to say that my MIL is on our plan b/c it's the most economical way for all of us to have phones, she pays her part.  I am going to assume that when we add our kids, it will be the same way- as long as it's more economical, that's the way we will go.  My brother is in his 30s and still on my parents plan- he pays his share.

[nixpix5]

We added our kids and paid for it through high school and some of college until they had good paying jobs and were already paying their own bills. One son got on his own plan but one son is still on ours (he's 24yo) and he just pays his share. It is a win win for both of us since it is more cost effective. He just recently built us a new homeschool desktop and dropped it by so while he didn't ask for anything, I told him I insisted on paying his bill for a few months for the gesture. Other then that though, our system has been working out well for years.

Edited July 13, 2017 by nixpix5

[cjzimmer1]

What cell phone/plan are you using?  I need something for my daughter just for texting/voice.  

He's using tello.

[Guest]

I'm another other. My ex is in charge of the "family plan". My kids wanted more features so they switched when they could afford it, and I have no idea when.

 

My older son sent his old phone to me when he was in Basic Training because it isn't healthy to sit by a landline as long as I was doing; if you've never had a kid in the Military, you don't understand and don't have to.

 

Anyway, I don't recommend delegating to exes as I mentioned in the other thread. The money savings was not worth the philosophical and parenting differences. About the only thing exy and I DO agree about is that he handled that one part of parenting, letting them learn to fly without the "family plan", extremely well.

 

Yay, exy.

Edited July 13, 2017 by Guest