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How to Save Money on Your Cellular Bill
You think you have it all figured out. You have filled out all sorts of monthly bill saver calculators. Then a $200 bill hits your mail box and panic sets in.
If you really want to lower your monthly bill, we can provide you with some proven tips to do just that. And it all comes down to looking at your bill in detail.
1) Look at who's calling you and who you are in turn making calls to the most. It really doesn't matter if they are incoming or outbound calls, as you pay for both in airtime minutes. This is a common misconception as most people think that if someone calls them, then they are not using their own minutes. Ask the people who you talk to the most which carrier they are using. Write it down. Then swich to the carrier your friends/family/co-workers are using the most as most carriers offer FREE Mobile to Mobile minutes. This means that as long as you are on the same network, you are not eating up your monthly allowance. Two warnings: Firstly, make sure yor contract is over before switching. You might incur penalties. Secondly, make sure that you would have good reception with a potential new carrier.
2) Be careful of Night & Weekend minutes. A lot of people get them thinking that these free minutes start at 6:00pm. In actuality it's usually later in the evening, typically 9:00pm. How many people do you really talk to after 9:00pm? Unless you are a night owl, or a club going teenager, that is not a great plan feature for you. You may control the time you call your family or friends, but you don't know when they will call you. Our tip is that you may be better off getting more "anytime minutes" rather than electing for Free Night and Weekends with a lower anytime allowance. T-Mobile for example, currently (this may change) offers two plans at $39.99. One which gives you 600 anytime minutes along with Free Night and weekends; and one plan with 1000 anytime minutes (sometimes 1500 on special promos) and no Free night and weekend allowance. You may select the latter for the reasons explained above. You can always buy them separately. That is unless you really use more night and weekend minutes.
3) You may also want to look for incoming calls. If most of your used minutes are from people calling you, you may take a look at carriers who offer them for free. Sprint PCS has a plan offering them, but the monthly fee is higher than usual. I would suggest this plan if your incoming minutes to total minutes used is above 80%.
4) When you look at your bill look for how many minutes you used in each month and compare it to your allowance. If you notice that in many months you don't use all of your minutes, you may do two things:
a) Switch to a lower monthly plan (ask your carrier if any penalties apply; they usually don't).
b) Switch to Cingular Wireless as they offer Rollover minutes on most plans. Unused minutes from the previous month get carried over for usage in the next month. This way you accumulate precious minutes which you may need when you pass your monthly allowance and get killed on overrage charges. Note: rollover minutes currently expire after 6 months.
Stay tuned for more tips and feel free to send your own to our Editor
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