How do families afford these smartphones?

[debrapagliasotti]

I have a phone through AT&T. I paid approx $350 for my smartphone. My phone plan is $50 for unlimited talk & text, then I purchase a data package each month. My data package is $25 for the biggest package (which easily gets me through the month and I am on the internet quite frequently). So, my bill comes out to approx $80 per month with taxes. I am not on a contract.

My DH has a phone through a different company, US Cellular. He also has a smartphone (not sure what he paid, around $400) and then his phone bill is just over $100 per month for unlimited talk, text, data.

 

[patsal]

It is a priority thing. Some people feel they have to have the technology some don't. I just switched to a smart phone because my phone of 6 years took a dive on the concrete and did not survive. I figured I'd get the smart phone. DS is coming off my plan, though he only has the old kind as well. He is a mooch and freeloader but that is a story for another time! If DD does not come up with a Christmas gift I may get her a smart phone for Christmas, the regular phone bill will go down when the mooch with high overage charges is cut off anyway. With three smart phones it will be less than having him on the plan with us.

 

[MINNIEmeetsTINK]

Hi!

I am on my own plan by myself but this is how I made it work for me

I purchased an Iphone 4 from an individual online for $150. I then went to a carrier and signed up for a pre-paid plan which I recieve 250minutes and unlimited texting for $25 a month. I just use wi-fi to access the internet. Seeing as I never used the GPS or Pandora while riding in my car having a data plan didnt mean much to me anyway (I was using around 125mb a month).

Sad but true Cellphones are moving to a heavily DATA based market. Thats why you see so many carriers offering unlimited talk/text with the "Data" part being even more expensive than the rest of the bill.

I work for a major cellphone provider and looking at the walls of my store I have about 5 (flip-phones), 5 (Messaging phones w/ keyboards), and 18 Smartphones.

Seeing a $200 cellphone bill is common in my world.

ALOT of people are moving to pre-paid! I see people doing it everyday.

P.S. Seeing a 7year old with a fully functional iphone (data plan, texting, calling) that is there own phone on there parent's plan still scares me... (no offense)

 

[baldy6060]

P.S. Seeing a 7year old with a fully functional iphone (data plan, texting, calling) that is there own phone on there parent's plan still scares me... (no offense)

Yeah, that's bad but what's worse is walking down the toy aisle and seeing toys that incorporate mommy's iPad or iPhone geared towards toddlers. Technology and advancements are great and all but (though I say this on a discussion board on the internet) unfortunately technology has become God to many of us. And socializing face to face is dead.

 

[ceecee]

they put them on charge card and some do not pay hence I (and 49 others) have a job collecting for them. for all we collect there are thousands that do pay for them. except once the card wrote off then that is considered a loss and figured into prices for the next year no matter if collected or not

Hopefully you get a discount on your plan!

 

[Styx Fan]

To answer the OP's question, "how do families afford these smartphones?"....my answer is the same way they afford all the other "toys" that people now think they "need".

My thoughts here are not an indictment of what choices other families make, as long as they can afford those choices for the long term and their families thrive. But for my family, we have learned to say no to most of the things others think they need. Many folks choose to have gadgets, but don't have nearly enough in the bank/investments/under the pillow to for retirement or to take care of themselves if they lose a job. Many folks are in debt up to their eyeballs. For many people a major car repair is a deal breaker and causes a panic. Unexpected illness wipes them out....and that's not just a major illness like cancer. And lots of 2-parent working families.

Our consumer oriented population has a serious streak of entitlement going on. Everyone "needs" a data plan. Has to have cable TV and a flat screen high def huge screen to go with it. Ipods, Ipads, etc, etc, etc.

My kids think we are poor. My DS15 is dying for an Iphone/data plan. We only have enough cable so we can get maybe 10 channels...pretty much what we could get with an antenna in the old days. Off-brand MP3 players (except DS who has an Itouch has a bday gift from grandma), 10 year old TV that will stay until it dies. Our cell phones are around $130 per month on a family plan that includes 2 grandparents. Get a discount through DH work. Oh, I do spring for Hulu streaming only. Only debt is our house payment, but we will probably end up with a car note soon as both of ours are around 100K miles and one is 11 years old. One vehicle is a mini-van, the other a Pontiac g-6. No sport utes.

But we do have retirement funded, some money for college, a stash in case of an emergency. My kids have taken some fun trips. We do not panic about money...just worry about how to prioritize it some times.

Again, these are choices my family has made...I have no problem with anyone making whatever choices works for them as long as they can pay their bills, both today and later. Just don't live a lifestyle that means you'll need help living when you retire and make you can cover routine unexpected expenses. I don't want to hear you whine on facebook about money woes while you are posting from the grocery store on your smart phone!

Sorry about the rant....this question obviously hit a hot button for me. Guess I am tired of being responsible!

 

[Phatoomch]

It's not the one-time hardware charge that gets you . . . it's the monthly service fee.

True - we have a good deal. 5 smartphones unlimited $180 per month.

 

[nchulka]

Everyone has different priorities. DH and I both have iphones. We love them and can't imagine not having them anymore. We could care less about TV though, no cable, no satellite, we don't even get basic reception. We have an ancient 15 year old 24 inch TV and pay 8 bucks a month for netflix. The kids can watch all their Disney/Nick shows on that. We also have no home phone service. So what we pay for in cell bills we save with other things we go without.

 

[meggiebeth]

In our family, we have one Blackberry and three iPhones. Blackberrys aren't too expensive but Apple products are SO costly just because- they know people will pay that amount I suppose.
We do find iPhones to be so convenient. My mum had a Galaxy S- which was meant to be better than iPhones but it was horrible and she hated it.

The best thing to do is get a contract. My mum and brother just got iPhones and they had to pay around $75 for the phone and then $50 a month for the package which includes something like 500 minutes, 2000 texts and unlimited Internet.

The trick is to buy the second newest model. For instance, the iPhone 4 and 4S are both available now. The 4 is considerably cheaper though. We don't find the upgrades of the 4S to be worth it anyway.

I have an iPhone 3GS which I love. I paid $300 for the phone approximately and then about $35 a month for the contract which didn't include much at all- 75 minutes, 125 texts and 1GB of Internet I think. Once the two year contract ended I switched onto a cheap sim only contract for a year for about $15 a month- which actually gives me more calls, texts and internet!

 

[DawnM]

I am in the process of switching over to a pay as you go plan (today actually!)

We have been paying around $225/mo.

Our new "plan"

1. Me on Straight Talk $45/mo plan
2. Son on Att GoPhone $7/mo. plan and wifi only, no data
3. DH on his work plan, he has to pay $20/mo so that he can use it for personal use as well.
4. Mom and Dad on pay as you go $7/mo each ($14 total) as they rarely use their phones and don't ever text or use data.

So, new "plan" will be $85/mo for 5 phones. Only 2 with data but a total of 3 smart phones.

I am hoping this will work out for us. It will save over $100/mo.

Dawn

 

[Swimalie]

Any phone (cell or landline) with service -- i.e., a signal or plugged in to the wall -- will reach 911, regardless of if you're even on a plan. We have a landline because it was included with our Comcast bundle and not any cheaper not to have it, but I would ditch the landline way before my cell.

Not always true. http://blog.seattlepi.com/seattle91...-work-to-call-911-even-with-no-phone-service/ http://www.fcc.gov/guides/wireless-911-services/

For us, we have a young child in the house and we can't expect him to tell our address in an emergency. The land line does that for him if he needs it. Plus it can take longer for the 911 call center nearest you to be reached when calling from a cell phone. It goes to one near you, not necessarily the right one.

As for debt that others have mentioned, we are comfortably on 1 income, no car payments, no other debt other than our mortgage. We are frugal and just don't feel that spending money on a smart phone is the right place for our money. We have the iPod Touch and iPad we can use if needed (both wifi)

 

[Chelley00]

We get a discount through DH's employer. That's how we get to have smartphones. Well, DH and I have smartphones, oldest DS has one but he pays the media package, we just pay the $9 a month for his phone line. DS16 and DD10 have regular phones only (DD has one because she gets off the bus alone and even though I'm usually always here, we wanted her to have a phone just in case.....she's not allowed to use it except for emergencies or to text her brother at college or her grandparents)

 

[sillylily]

We get a 35% discount through DH's employer, which makes the bill for our two
iPhones very easy to stomach. We also have the grandfathering of unlimited data. However, it would be the first thing to go in financial difficulty. We don't consider it a necessity, just a really cool toy.

 

[Ennazus8810]

We both have them, and at least for my husband it is a work related need. He works for a company that develops smart phone software. We get a discount, and were grandfathered in for unlimited data. Almost everyone we know has iMessaging, so we only have the very basic texting plan.

We don't have a landline, haven't for at least 8 years. Our iPhones are also a blessing for our autistic daughter, and our older daughter actually used some apps on it in her speech therapy.

 

[dawnhaze]

As far as the hardware cost, here's what my iPhone replaces: handheld video game system, mp3 player, digital camera, camcorder, portable video player, GPS, ebook reader. At that point, the fact that it also provides talk/text/web access is a bonus. And yes, I would own all those things otherwise. (I do also have a tablet, but it's more like a computer in my life these days. My desktop exists as a media server and for gaming and video editing.)

The service cost is partially offset for me by a discount through my employer. But I'd have it anyway. I'd give up my cable TV before I gave up my iPhone. It's like my connection to the world and I like it that way.

 

[Colleen27]

We use MetroPCS. Depending on the phone, unlimited everything is $40 or $50 per month even for smartphones. The downside is higher up-front costs - no contract means no big discount on the hardware just for signing up - but we're not frequent upgraders (only one smartphone in the family; the kids have QWERTY sliders and DH still has a flip-phone) so the per-month savings more than balances out the higher costs for the phones themselves. We pay $110/mo for unlimited everything on 4 lines, one of them "smart".

As far as rewarding loyalty, that just doesn't seem to be how it works any more. New customers get the best rates and incentives with the major carriers, just like with the cable/satellite/internet providers. I guess apathy is supposed to be incentive enough to stay.

 

[Halbleib1]

I'm with you. I don't understand how people afford several people on data plans. But, every budget is different. To me, I would never get rid of my home phone. One, it's more comfortable to talk on and 2, I can reach 911 so much faster. So with that in mind, I would rather spend the money on safety of the home phone than a smart phone data plan. I have the lowest texting plan there is an pay $45 a month through Verizon. My husband has a cell through work but it's restricted. My son has an iPod Touch and we can enable the internet through wifi when needed (it's disabled normally, though).

Even if you get rid of your home phone service you can still dial 911 from it.

 

[thejunker]

Even if you get rid of your home phone service you can still dial 911 from it.

Warm line access differs from provider to provider, as well as state to state. Many places the line is simply turned off and you will not have access to 911 from a home phone.

 

[TyTysMommy]

We have smartphones through Verizon. Our plan is $165 a month, but Nationwide pays half of our phone bill since he has to use his phone a lot for work. That makes it easier to afford.

 

[akayek31]

DD and I have smartphones through Sprint. We have unlimited talk to another cell phone, text, and web. We share 1500 minutes a month and we never get anywhere near going over. I pay $147 a month. My DS has his own smartphone that he pays for which is $80 a month with Sprint. This is with a 25% discount with his job on his and my plans. I just budget it in each month when I get paid. I don't have a credit card to put them on so it is paid from my paycheck solely. I need to find something cheap and prepaid to take to WDW with me in October since my phone won't charge. They gave me extra batteries and a wall charger for the phone so that won't last at the parks or on the road. I can't upgrade until January.