Reduce your cell phone bill by $50/month! (Part 1 of the Series)

In a world of iPhones, Droids and other smartphones, this may not be the most popular post ever. However, for those looking to save money or cut back on monthly expenses, read on!

I have to admit, I’m lucky. My company pays for my phone, so we haven’t seen a cell phone bill for me in almost five years.  When Leandrea’s 400 minute/month Verizon contract was nearing completion almost four years ago, I thought, “There has to be a cheaper way to get cell phone service.” We were paying nearly $50 a month for something that we just weren’t getting $50 worth of value from.

So what’s the answer? Prepaid wireless. No, I’m not a drug dealer and I don’t have bad credit. Get over the stigma and let’s talk about how much money you can actually save.

To start, let’s take a look at the costs of a typical smartphone on ATT/Verizon:

$39.99 400 min plan + $25.00 data plan + $5 for minimum txt plan = $69.99/month

+15% tax (average, some states are as high as 22%!) = $80.49/month

$80.49 x 24 months = $1,931.76 for ATT/Verizon

Not taking into account the cost of the phone, you will be paying nearly $2k over the course of that 2-year contract.

Now, let’s take a look at a simple solution: Page Plus Cellular. Page Plus has a few different plans, but for this first article we are going to talk about the Talk n Text $29.99 plan.

Page Plus is a reseller of Verizon Wireless service.  They purchase airtime from Verizon and resell to it their prepaid customers. So you can grab nearly any Verizon phone and have it activated on Page Plus.  Coverage is great as well, check out the coverage map.

So, what do you get for $29.99? How about 1200 anytime minutes, 1200 texts and 50 mb of data. No taxes, no fees.

Page Plus cost over two years:

$29.99 x 24 months = $719.76 for Page Plus

That is a $1,212 savings over 24 months, or just over $50 a month.

We used Page Plus for three years and were impressed with their service.

Now, is this plan for everyone? Absolutely not. However, take a look at your actual cell usage and see if you are really getting what you are paying for!

Disclaimer: Coupons Are Great has no affiliation with any cell phone provider mentioned in this post.  We do not get any referral or affiliate credits (but will surely get a ton of spam from the bots on this post).  We simply want to help people save money by educating them on alternative cell phone options.