How do families afford these smartphones?

[HHSTigerFan]

Prior to smartphones, we were paying $90 for two regular phones and about $70 for a home phone, we decided if we went with iphones, would get rid of the home phone.. So now, we pay $190 for two iphones, so a monthly increase of $30..to us, well worth it!

 

[happygirl]

We do Smart Talk and got a smart phone. The plan is 45 a month for unlimited talk text and data.

I can't image people paying more.

 

[MissDaisyofTexas]

We don't. DH has an iPhone through work. I used an old flip-phone and have a pre-paid plan since I only use it rarely. I only spend about $20-$50 per year on minutes.

 

[pershing]

We all have iphones-4 of us. I'm a single mom with 3 boys. Iphones were important to my sons, so:

We don't have the latest iphone and we started with AT&T with flip phones and waited for our upgrade period. We upgraded to the iphone 3 when the 4's came out and got our phones for under $50 by choosing refurbished ones on AT&T dot come.

When the new iphone came out, we traded in our iphones by 'recycling' them at the AT&T store for $150 AT&T gift cards and again upgraded to iphone 4's by choosing refurbished ones.

We pay $220 a month to have these phones, but we do not have a 'home' phone or land line as some people call it. I took that number on my iphone. We also do not have cable, because the kids have no interest in TV anymore. Instead we stream from Netflix and everything they like is online.

So, I save about $70 bucks by not having a home phone and probably at least another $60 by not having cable. All that goes towards the cell phone bill.

That's how we do it!

 

[indimom]

We don't have them, and probably won't get them before our kids are out of the house. We just don't have the budget for it at this point.

 

[figaromeetsmarie]

Dh and I both have 3D smartphones and pay around $210 with tax per month. It is all about "opportunity cost."

 

[scbelleatheart]

We pay $250 a month x 2 on the family plan because we have 10 phones with verizon. 6 of us, DMIL, DSIL and home phone. 5 are smart phones, 3 with international calling. Since we were grandfathered in on unlimited minutes, text and data our bill actually went down because we were paying for minutes and somebody (kids) always sent the whole group over.

 

[pintamino]

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

Wow, rude to imply that everybody who has a smartphone puts it on a charge card! I use my smartphone for work extensively (no, they do not pay for it) -- for me I consider it to be more than worth the cost. There are also people who pay for cars, TVs, whatever on credit and don't pay.

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.

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.

 

[clm10308]

We pay around $200/month for 2 iPhones and 2 basic phones for the kids.
We have an old business plan that includes unlimited data from AT&T because my DH used to use his phone extensively for work. Now that he doesn't, we have not downgraded because we would lose our unlimited data and would save that much money. We don't really need the Data at home, but do use it whenever we go to the "big city"

 

[Nayan]

DH and I have 'dumb phones' through AT&T and pay $200 a year. Since our cable/internet company has put wi-fi hot spots everywhere now I can use my tablet if I need to when I'm out. I only use my phone for talking so I don't need all that fancy stuff.

 

[clori]

I have a tmobile family plan for 5 and pay about $130 a month. We have 1000 minutes and unlimited texting. My phone is the only line that has a $20 a month data plan which is 2 gig of data a month. Since I use it on wifi most of the time I have never even hit 500mg yet. My dd12 uses very few minutes (tmobile to tmobile calls, weekend calls and after 9pm don't use minutes) since her friends just text. I do get a AAA discount of 15% on my bill.

 

[Marionnette]

5 iPhones on one account. My older son has had an iPhone almost from the time they first came out. He is grandfathered into an unlimited data plan for $30 per month. The rest of us are not data hogs and each pay around $15-$25 per month for data.

Our monthly bill is easily over $200. The kids pay for their own part of the plan. That's how we do it.

((That, and what Crisi said.)

 

[apnep]

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.

I have thought about ditching the landline but for the 911, and my younger kids I don't. I have always thought the emergency service can locate you instantly via landline where as if you call on a cell it will take time to get you location because they have to look up GPS or something. I don't know how it works...just guessing. DH and I have smartphones which we got when i was working onsite and I didn't have access to personal email. Originally intended to dump them after the contract was up but his phone broke and he got another by redoing the contract for another two years. ( I was a little ticked about that). DS worked, bought and paid for his own cell/service as an add on to our account. He's got a regular cell. The other two won't get one unless they can pay for theirs.

They are fun to have, but admittedly are a huge distraction and totally unnecessary.

 

[SC Minnie]

We have 4 cell phones on our plan- 3 smartphones and 1 regular that will get dropped. DH and I both use our phones for work. While they are our personaly phones we get to expense part of the cost of the plan. When DD wanted to upgrade to a smartphone she paid us the $30/month for the data plan. When she got her tax refund in April she prepaid DH for her data plan for the next year. I have an iPhone, DH and DD have Droids.

Like a PP said, everyones budget and needs are different. Now that I've had a smartphone for a couple of years it would be very hard to go back to a regular phone. I would need an iPad or tablet to be able to check email.

 

[palmtreegirl]

We have Sprint. Everything's included, we have 4 phones, 2 of them smart and pay 180.00 a month with taxes. We get 1500 shared anytime minutes, unlimited mobile to mobile, text & unlimited data.

We don't pay any extra charges for the smart phones because we have 2 Samsung Replenish and they are "green" phones. We got all our phones for free with new contracts.

We don't have a landline, dumped it more then 5 years ago.

 

[MrsPete]

We just upgraded phones, and I don't think it'll be long before ALL phones are SmartPhones. Really, they're pushing us in that direction:

- The selection of "dumb phones" is growing smaller, and the store had very few in stock. We ended up driving to a second store to get the phone my youngest daughter wanted. This lack of stock feels purposeful to me.
- The companies are pushing their data plans and offering specials for new data plan customers, trying to get us to leave the old plans.

I think my $143/month for four plain phones with unlimited talk and text is outrageous, but when I talked to the people at Verizon, trying to see what options I might have, they were amazed that I was paying less than $200/month. They say NO ONE has a bill that low. Now, in all likelihood, they were full of crap and were trying to guilt me into going with the SmartPhones by making me feel behind the times (huh, it's like they don't know me at all -- that particular line has no effect on me). But I do think a whole lot of people are paying huge phone bills every month.

As for how families can afford this, I don't know. I suspect it's like so many other things: Too many people really can't afford them, but they buy into them anyway because phones are such a status symbol these days -- especially among young people. Personally, we could afford them, but they're far from a priority for us. We need phone service; we do not need bells and whistles. Moving up to SmartPhones would've cost $5280 over the course of the two-year contact -- roughly 2K more than my four plain phones.

 

[blessedby3]

I hate paying the cell phone bill
We have 4 phones. My dd22 had an iphone, my ds17 has a droid and dd13 and I have a basic phone with keyboard. DD22 pays us for her part of the cell bill and our total bill for 4 phones with unlimited everything is about $210 or about $150 without dd's part of the bill....
I remember back when I was pregnant with dd22 in 1989...DH came home with a bag phone for the car. He said "dont panic, we can take it back if you dont want it, but I got you this phone to keep in the car so I dont have to worry about you". I about passed out and said "we are not the Rockerfellers!!!" and promptly told him to take that thing back. Too much of a luxury These days, everyone...even 7 and 8 year olds...have their own phones!

 

[luvmy3]

Our budget would allow us to afford $200+ a month for smartphones, but we don't think that is smart We have a landline and internet at home, so we don't see the need to pay so much to be able to have it while we are out and about.
I have a $50 smartphone (nothing like an iphone) and I pay $12 a month through Page Plus. I am the only one in the family that has a smartphone right now, but I do plan on upgrading dd for Christmas. I'll get her a phone for under $200 and put her on the $30 a month plan. Since I don't think having a smartphone is a necessity for her, that monthly payment for the year is her Christmas present.

 

[Phatoomch]

We still have old flip-style "dumb phones" with T-Mobile, 2 lines and less than 60 bucks a month. Looking into getting my daughter her first cell phone, she is 12, and upgrading our phones to smart phones but I cannot believe the pricing out there. Cannot afford to have my mobile bill go up 100 dollars more a month to just add a third line and all have smartphones. I see everyone out there with these devices wherever you go and cannot understand how everyone can afford to pay that much a month. Am I missing a secret here? Should I switch carriers, have been with tmobile for over a decade, you would think a loyal customer could get a good deal.

We have never paid more than 1cent for a phone, that includes our smartphones. We are with AT&T.

Also, having foresight, I added data plans to our phones when they were first available which meant I got grandfathered in, we didn't need them but I knew we would get locked-in which has proved invaluable now our daughter is older - that means for a set amount I get unlimited data .... and thats real unlimited data. Be careful of those plans that offer unlimited and then say in the small print *up to 4gb* mine is unlimited as in unlimited, I can hit as many gb's as I like and still pay flat rate.

 

[left210]

Look into straight talk sim card for 15 bucks and buy a used iphone off ebay and pay 45 dollars a month. You can either get a ATT or t-mobile sim card for 15 bucks and put the sim cad into smartphone.

Option 2 Go Virgin Mobile 300 minutes and unlimited text and data for 35 bucks.

Option 3 Cheapstake way is Buy a smartphone which can be had for 29.99 samsung vitally and put groovelite on get a google voice number for free. I can text and receive calls from the phone using groovelite as along I am wi-fi range for free. Target has ZTE Score for 49.99 that can be use with groovelite. I don't have cricket service either.

Option 4 Buy a dumbphone that is unlock can use opera mobile and have full access to internet. I have that this works great. But I have aging LG Prime and I have not found a phone to replace yet because of the features I want. My next phone is unlocked Nokia Asha 311. I am just waiting for it be release.

What does it mean to unlock a phone? When you unlock and use the opera mobile do you not have a data plan charge for internet on your phone?