Cell phone bills often carry unused and extra features that might cost you to pay a few hundred dollars annually. The trick in ensuring that you receive great value on your cell phone plan is to pay for only those services that you actually use. You can also use these five effective tips to lower your monthly cell phone bill.
- Use Wi-Fi as much as possible – Do this whether you’re at work or at home provided it’s available. In case you have no Wi-Fi access, be smart when using the internet. Avoid streaming or downloading podcasts, music, or movies using your data coverage as the costs tend to add up fast. In fact, there are providers who charge up to $15 for this. Ensure that you stick to your monthly limit by using 4G/LTE only when necessary. Also, keep track of your data usage by signing up for alerts sent by carriers when you’re already close to your limit.
- Make calls for free – Take advantage of apps that allow you to call someone for free, thereby reducing your cell phone bill. Some of the free apps that you can use are Skype Mobile and Viber. You can use these apps to call someone else for free provided he/she also has the app installed in his/her device as well. Monitor your talk time, too especially if you tend to go beyond your minutes monthly. If possible, sign up for a free service that will send you a text or email in case you’re close to running out of minutes.
- Bundle services – Find out if your provider offers other services that you can combine in a single plan. Your goal should be to move all the services you need, including cable/satellite, home phone, internet, and cell phone to just a single provider. Doing this will most likely reward you with a reasonable discount for availing a bundled service.
- Take advantage of unlimited texting – Note that each text message can cost at least 1o cents, whether you’re the sender or the recipient. If you’re one of those who send a lot of text messages regularly then you can save money by availing of a plan, which offers unlimited text messages. You can also take advantage of free texting services offered by certain apps, like Textfree and Heywire.
- Pay only those services you use – A lot of carriers entice their clients with plenty of add-on features and extras, like roadside assistance and additional cloud memory storage. If you notice that your cell phone bill is already too high then it’s time to analyze every detail and find out if you’re actually charged for services you don’t need. Talk to your provider and ask about how you can reduce your total bill by getting rid of those unnecessary extras. Skip the extended warrant too, as this will only increase the amount you’re going to pay each month.
Reducing your cell phone bill is possible if you just spend time keeping track of all the details in it. Your goal is to pay only for what you need and cut all unnecessary and unused features that your provider charged you in your previous bills.
