What is your family's TOTAL monthly spend on cell phones?

[Laura Corin]

I'm on a Virgin pay-as-you-go tariff. I top up with ten pounds roughly every eight weeks. Husband is on a Virgin monthly plan - it's about fifteen pounds a month, I think. Calvin had a pay-as-you-go phone, but he broke it and we haven't replaced it.

 

Laura

[mommytobees]

What I'm looking for here is the TOTAL amount of cell phone expenditure you make each month, including all lines, all voice, data and text plans as well as any other taxes, expenses or discounts.

 

The goal here is not to find out what the best deal is, but to get an idea of what homeschooling families spend in this category.

 

Ours is $60-70 per month, depending on the exchange rate. It is Y3000 per phone, times 2 phones for Y6000

 

Kris

[KS_]

Dh has a cell phone through work where we bought the Iphone, his work pays for the cell phone bill, but we have to pay for the data portion of the plan. So I voted 0-$24.99 - I'm not sure exactly what it costs since it comes out of his pay before we get his check.

 

I don't have a cell phone and neither do the kids, so that's our only cell expenditure.

[Mrs.MacGyver]

Pay-as-you-go.... simply for emergencies - and DH always forgets to take it with him:D

[BikeBookBread]

We dumped our expensive family plan this year and got pre-paid with Verizon. We spend about $15 a month each...not 100% emergency calling, but almost. It's been completely adequate, and we are saving almost $75 a month.

[Pippen]

My husband's phone is completely paid through work. We have four tracfones for the kids and myself. I buy one card per year when there's a double minute special (about $100 each) for each phone plus I usually need some extra minutes. It's around $37 per month but the kids usually roll over most of their minutes to the next year since most of their calls amount to "I'm ready to be picked up."

[Macrina]

We spend $75 a month. We share a family plan through Verizon with my parents and sister. Our cut is $75 a month. And we have no land line so that's it on phone expenses all together.

[Just Another Jen]

We're cell phone only. 5 phones on tmobiles family plan. Our plan is so old they don't offer it anymore- but we don't use any minutes to each other, or when we talk on our at home router (home wifi). We share 1000 minutes outside of the house and have unlimited texts. It costs $139 a month.

[mbeaser]

I have a 500 min (only gone over once), unlimited text, unlimited data plan for $29 a month (one of those "not available anymore" kind of plans). I'd never sent a text before until 2 years ago, but now I do several hundred a month. If one must have an XH, texting can be an excellent way to communicate with him. I do not have a landline. My oldest is 9, so we haven't run into a need for any of them to have a phone, but when it gets there I'll probably get the type of prepaid phone my parents have (88 mins for $10, has to be recharged every 4 months, so $30 a year), unless XH wants to pay for something fancier for them.

[ereks mom]

...his employees. We use Verizon, and the phone bill goes to dh's office, so I never see it, but dh said that the total phone bill for 6 phones (unlimited Verizon-to-Verizon texting/pix messages on all 6 phones, unlimited out-of network texting/pix messages on 1 of the phones, & Internet-access data plans for 2 of the phones) is $300-$350 per month. That breaks down to around $55 per phone per month.

Edited January 5, 2010 by ereks mom

[MomtoCandJ]

about 115.00 a month for 2 phones that share 1400 minutes through Verizon we also have 250 texts each a month. We don't have a home phone, haven't had one in 5 years. Right now it is cheaper to have the cell phones because we move quite a bit and make a lot of long distance calls to family.

[6packofun]

I gotta say I feel like we are paying too much after reading this. We have Sprint 1500 minutes, unlimited texts and unlimited data on 3 phones for $150ish a month. Dh and I pay $90 for our phones - our oldest pays the other $60. This is because we didn't used to have data on our phones. On our old plan he could just have it on his. On this plan, it was not much more to have it on all the phones. It is cheaper for him to stick with our plan than get a separate plan for himself - so he treats us with the internet. Now, I am feeling like that is a crazy amount for all of us to be spending. Ugh!

 

 

Same here! We're spending a bit over $100 for 3 phones--one is an iPhone, though--and it seems ridiculous! I'm going to talk to dh. LOL