Much Cheaper And Better Cell Phone Service
For a little over a year I was able to destroy my cell phone budget by switching from Sprint to Ting. Ting is a very low-cost and intelligently operated business that uses the Sprint network for service. They have their own devices or your can bring your own. Activation was free. I had to pay $6 to have the device active every month even if I made no use of it. Then I would get charged only for every increment of service that I used in each category, text, talk, data.
Most months my charges were in the $18 range. I started getting better at using more free WiFi for my text messaging and phone calls and data.
I sent all my text through Google Hangouts by setting up a free Google phone number and giving that out to people instead of whatever number Ting assigned me. I also gave the same number to people who wanted to call me, I could then receive calls and make calls through Google Hangouts as well. My smartphone, a Galaxy S2, loved gobbling up data so I was able to control that with some free apps and also through the Ting app.
I should say that Ting is all about helping you cut costs. It’s actually a very intelligent business because their mission is aligned with yours. They are on your side, they handle a lot of their service questions through their online forum and it just works!
After some time with Ting back in 2013, my company ended up giving us free cell phones with paid service so I no longer needed Ting. I made sure to get my mom on Ting and I think 1 of my friends also converted. After all, need to spread the wealth!
My company now no longer offers free cell phones or service to its employees so I am back to using Ting. I still have the same Galaxy S2 from the dark ages. It needed a new battery but hey, that only cost me $10. The cracked screen is still functional and quite hipster for the city of Portland. The phone is slower than the DMV but I only need it to serve very basic functions. I still send and receive all my text messages through Google Hangouts and almost always from my laptop.
With no text and no data it should cost me only $9 per month to keep this phone on me. If I decide to use up to 100 MB of data then that would bump me up a few more dollars.