In a new study, one in five adults said they pay more for their cell phone monthly than they do for groceries.
Furthermore, 33% responded they pay more in carrier monthly charges than they pay for utilities like electric, gas and water, 57% pay more than for cable, and the huge 71% pay more in cell phone bill than their home Internet service costs
Hmmm. It occurs to me that this could be a misleading statistic (or, in other words, a statistic just like the majority of them):
- A young person who lives at home with parents might have an abnormally low grocery bill.
- A person who hits the drive-through for breakfast, goes out with co-workers for lunch, then has leftovers or makes something small (after eating those two large meals earlier in the day) might be spending big money on food . . . but little of it at the grocery store.
- A person on food stamps or WIC could be bringing home a large amount of groceries, yet not actually paying much for them.
- And perhaps the biggest of all: So many people just run into the store 2-3 Xs a week, grab whatever looks good, and go (sometimes paying cash, sometimes paying with plastic). If they spend $30, $40, $50 each time, they might never add up the actual food cost, and they might underestimate it badly -- people do tend not to grasp just how much those little costs add up. In contrast, the cell phone bill shows up as a nice big number at the end of the month, making it easier to track.
So what's the problem? People put priorities where they want to place them. If folks think their cell phones are more important than food or lights, that's on them.
If that were true, I would be fine with it.
But the truth is that all too many people overspend on this and that (cell phones are a great example, but hardly the whole story), then when they find that they can't pay comfortably, they wail and gnash their teeth . . . crying that things are just too expensive and the government should do something about it. And many of those people go on to do things that hurt our collective society -- things like fall into debt, perhaps declare bankruptcy, fall behind on their mortgage and then walk away, drop "invisible bills" like insurance, rely upon us to pay for their kids' school lunches, and more. And in the long run, they won't be able to retire, so they'll stay on in their jobs; that means that I can't move up the ladder to another job, and when my kid finishes school she can't get an entry level job.
No, when large numbers of people in a society live beyond their means, it does affect the rest of us.
If you're paying a huge cell phone bill and can afford it -- fine! But IF this statistic is honest, it strikes me as rather scary.
So what?
My Car costs more than all my utilities and cable combined. My car costs more than I spend a month on groceries. Does
that mean something? A lot of us here spend more on our Disney vacation than we do on our retirement fund. Does that mean we are messed up?
You're asking, but I don't think you really want my opinion.
Cell phones - ALMOST entirely are a luxury and even fewer data plans on them can come close to being considered even somewhat needed.
A phone of some type is a need -- okay, you won't die without it, but you really do need phone communication to keep in touch with family, friends, work, to make business calls.
In my opinion, what's a luxury is maintaining both a house and a cell phone. You can only talk on one at a time, and the portability gives the cell phone an edge. Also, the data plan is a luxury. We don't actually need to check facebook all day long, we can read maps instead of using the locator feature, and we can wait 'til we get home for most of our search-needs.
CC debt would be a much more telling stat because that would indicate a disparity between income and expenses (both optional and essential).
I agree, but this is an interesting comparison.
a car!! with the price of tuition kids expect wheels when they graduate. 
