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


RegGuheert
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How do you manage cell phones as your children age?  

63 members have voted

  1. 1. Who pays for cell phone service for the children and are they on the parents' plan?

    • Our children do not get cell phones from us. If they want one, they get their own plan.
      1
    • We do not add our children to our plan but pay for them to have a separate plan.
      3
    • We add our children to our plan, but they pay for it from day one.
      3
    • We add our children to our plan and we pay for it forever.
      1
    • We add our children to our plan and pay for it until they get married.
      0
    • We add our children to our plan and pay for it until they leave home.
      1
    • We add our children to our plan and pay for it until they get their first job.
      11
    • We add our children to our plan and pay for it until a certain age.
      5
    • We add our children to our plan and pay for it until they complete college.
      15
    • We add our children to our plan and pay for it until we can no longer afford to do that.
      5
    • We add our children to our plan and pay for it until there is some falling out over the bill.
      1
    • We don't know, yet. We'll tell you when we get there.
      9
    • Obligatory other.
      11
  2. 2. If the children are put on the parents' plan, how long do they stay on that plan.

    • Our children are never put on our plan.
      2
    • Our children stay on our plan forever.
      4
    • Our children stay on our plan until they get married.
      1
    • Our children stay on our plan until they leave home permanently.
      2
    • Our children stay on our plan until they get their first job.
      4
    • Our children stay on our plan until a certain age.
      2
    • Our children stay on our plan until they complete college.
      14
    • Our children stay on our plan until they fail to pay us for their portion of the bill..
      5
    • Our children stay on our plan until they run up ridiculous charges on the bill.
      4
    • We don't know, yet. We'll tell you when we get there.
      12
    • Obligatory other. Do tell!
      17


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We've had our kids on their own plans since they got cell phones (late high school years) and paid for them until they told us they didn't want to anymore.  With oldest, this was around his junior/senior year of college and he was getting married.  With middle it was right before his senior year of college and his college jobs were producing enough income that he wanted to take that bill on himself.

 

With youngest... we swapped last year and put him on our plan because of a new deal we were going with.  I have no idea when he'll want to pay for it himself, but he'll tell us I'm sure.  He has one more year of college yet - half of that will be spent in Jordan - so I'm not worried about it at all at the moment.

 

Our kids really don't have anything they pay for themselves until they go to college.  Then their college jobs pay for their living expenses beyond room and board + books, etc.  Oldest got a job right out of college.  Middle is heading to med school.  We've told middle to keep us notified about how he's doing financially because we're willing to take on his car payment, keep him on our car insurance, and if needed, will pick back up his cell phone cost if necessary.  (He'll stay on our car insurance as long as he can anyway - oldest only got off that when he married.  At that point he took on all of his own expenses.)  I don't want middle son worrying about money and trying to study enough for med school.  We're a tight family so I know he'll pay us back, if necessary, when/if we were to need it at any point.  We're not keeping track of the $$ amount.  It's all just the way we do things.

 

Youngest will let us know if he runs short in Jordan too.  I know he's not going to spend money unnecessarily and just hit us up for more.  In general though, he's earned all of his own spending money just like the rest of his college years - though we still pay for his phone and car insurance.

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After paying for service for dh's phone and my phone, the kids' phones are only an additional $10 per month each. It's easy for us to cover and seems a lot smarter than having them pay $80 on their own for the same service. I imagine this continuing until they get married. Even when they have a first job and are out on their own (assuming that happens before marriage), this is just something that's easy for us to do that would help them out as they are getting started in life. Once you're married, you're a new family unit and should take over supporting yourselves fully.

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We paid for basic cell service with a flip phone when they started driving at 16. When they each decided to have a smart phone, they paid for it. My 2 older kids are on our plan, but they pay us for the monthly service. My ds 18 is on his own plan and started paying for it when he was 17. This was his choice.

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Oldest DD and I are on my parents' shared plan and it's a Christmas gift from them (through Consumer Cellular and I think it's $10/mo per line). I originally had DH's old iPhone 4 and DD had my dad's old hand-me-down phone. I bought us new iPhones for Christmas after both of ours needed to be replaced (I lost mine and DD's cracked screen worsened to the point where she could no longer use it).

 

DH has an expensive Verizon plan because he actually needs the better network and unlimited data (he's on a grandfathered plan). Years ago I was on it as well but during the Great Recession we had to cut back on expenses and that's when I switched to my parents' plan.

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My agreement with my kids is.... I will pay all of their living expenses through college, if they live at home and go to a local college. (if their major isn't available here that would be a different discussion)  We live outside of Portland Oregon, there are A Lot of colleges here. They are responsible to pay their own tuition.  

 

Ds22 is finishing his Masters. He works full time and barely spends money, He puts almost every penny into his loans. His goal is to be completely out of debt when he graduates.  He is considering another MA or possibly a doctorate. Which leaves me with the thought now of.....how long do we pay for everything if they continue in college for many, many years. LOL  Do we put a cap on this plan.   :lol:

 

 

It only costs us $10 a month to have the extra phone line and we have a higher data plan to make sure everyone has enough for what they need.  So, it only costs us $20 or so a month.  If he left home, I would likely just leave him on our plan and have him pay us.  It would be wayyyy cheaper for him that way.  In that case...maybe we will bump him off if he gets married? 

Edited by Tap
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No cell phone plan here (prepaid).

 

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

 

I have a similar twist- my mom and her DH are on our plan. They don't use much data and it's cheaper for them to add them on to our plan and not pay for any data. We have enough, so we can cover whatever they use.

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There's only my two parents and myself so for the types of phones/data we need, it's financially better for us all to be on one plan.  So, I'm almost 36 and have never had my own plan :)  It will work the same way when DS gets his own smartphone (he had a dumb pre-paid phone now).

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Well, we're not quite at the 'get them off the plan' part, so I put down what I thought might happen.

 

We put them on our plan when they got phones in high school, and since two are in college and we're still paying for it (and their college), I'm guessing we'll probably keep paying for it till they finish college.

 

At that point, I'd plan that we'd stop paying their portion, but if it's much cheaper for them to share our plan rather than getting their own (assuming it's allowed for them to stay on our plan if they're adults living elsewhere???), I wouldn't have a problem with them staying on it as long as they paid it promptly.  But that's very hypothetical at this point.

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