Revolution of the Smart Phone

Who knew that the revolution of the phone would have such an impact on your monthly budget? The whole house is wired but the sum total of all those phone overages, surcharges and usage fees is weighting down your budget and has gotten your attention.  In 2009, the service charges for an individual’s cell phone were about $54 dollars.  According to JD Power, today that individual is paying about $71 for the same phone services.  If you’re a family of four, your smart phones could easily run over $200 per month of more.  Isn’t it time to get your family’s smart phone costs in line with your budget?  Place your kids on hold, particularly if they are teenagers.  A recent Nielsen survey revealed that the average teen in the US send or receive approximately 3,000 texts each month.  You could solve this issue by having an unlimited texting plan, but if your child goes over on other allowances you could ask the carrier about parental controls on things like minutes, text, megabytes of data, amount spent on apps, etc.  If your child exceeds the limit then they are cut off until the next month.  You could even have your child’s phone blocked during school hours but tweaked to call 911 in case of any emergency.

When it comes to data allowance on your own smart phone each megabyte of overage can add as much as $10 or up to $30 for each line.  Streaming content is extremely expensive so you might want to avoid YouTube and radio over your mobile network.   If you switch from 3G to Wi-Fi when in a hotspot you could save a great deal.  When on the go and web browsing if you would use a site’s mobile version rather than the full (just type “M” in place of www) version helps.  Changing your e-mail setting from “push” to “manual” on your phone and get your messages only when refreshed could also save you some extra bucks.

Credit:  Zain Asher-Ejiofor