{"id":2827,"date":"2012-10-22T02:10:31","date_gmt":"2012-10-22T09:10:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/add-vodka.com\/?p=2827"},"modified":"2015-07-09T12:47:16","modified_gmt":"2015-07-09T19:47:16","slug":"my-phone-bill-a-horror-story-with-a-happy-ending","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/add-vodka.com\/my-phone-bill-a-horror-story-with-a-happy-ending\/","title":{"rendered":"My Phone Bill: A Horror Story With a Happy Ending"},"content":{"rendered":"

In last Monday’s post, I asked my readers to analyze my budget to bring down some of my expenses so I could save $4,000 by January 1st.<\/p>\n

Almost all of the commenters mentioned how high my phone bill is. At $160\/month, that’s only if we really, really watch our minutes. If we go over, which we regularly do, that number can increase by 40%.<\/p>\n

The phone bill that I mentioned is a family plan under which both my boyfriend’s phone and my own phone are covered. So the price is really for two phones, but his is only about $45 of the cost. The rest of the balance is all me.<\/p>\n

The boy doesn’t have a smart phone<\/a>, which dictates that his bill is lower than mine. But the fact is, my phone is grossly overpriced and I’m horrified every time I see the bill.<\/p>\n

I have a contract with Rogers. I hate contracts and I hate Rogers almost equally as much as contracts, so that puts me in a very bad position. I can’t imagine ever thinking that the ability to call, text, and email on a tiny device is worth $115+\/month. But I signed my contract and no matter how many times I’ve tried to change my plan, I always end up paying around the same amount.<\/p>\n

Now, for all of you American readers, please keep in mind that $10\/month cell phone and data plans don’t happen in Canada. Ever. In Canada, we pay a lot more than you guys do for cell phones, for some reason\u00a0unbeknownst\u00a0to me. I’d say it’s nearly impossible to find a plan with data for under $50\/month. And maybe I just haven’t looked into it for awhile, but I’d say it’s not likely to even find anything under $60\/month.<\/p>\n

But after all of the comments and surprise at how expensive that is (and many of them were likely due to you thinking that I paid $160+ for one phone, when really it’s two), I decided to explore my options.<\/p>\n

I’ve mentioned before that I work i<\/a>n <\/a>a big organization. Because of this, I knew we had some corporate discounts that are made available to my industry, and I had heard my colleagues talk about the phone plans. I looked into the plans awhile ago but didn’t pursue it. I didn’t really absorb how inexpensive they were compared to our current plan.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

But I looked again after reading the comments on that post and did a quick analysis of the costs.<\/p>\n

After seeing that I could save $80+\/month on our phone bills, I called right away.<\/p>\n

The Savings<\/h2>\n

When I called in, I was a little leery as to whether or not this would actually save us money. I’ve tried so many times to reduce our phone bill, but if it ever happened, it would only go down by less than $5. But of course then I’d have to call in and deal with long hold times and a headache trying to deal with Rogers call center employees, so I didn’t usually bother.<\/p>\n

This time, I had a clear plan and when I called in, as a corporate customer, I didn’t have to be on hold.<\/p>\n

That was the first bonus. I hate being on hold probably more than I hate spending so much on my phone bill.<\/p>\n

The customer service agent\u00a0marveled\u00a0at how high our bill was currently, and made the switch to the corporate plan right away.<\/p>\n

She told me what the price would be with\u00a0<\/em>fees and taxes and explained to me what I get with my new plan. These are the differences:<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n<\/colgroup>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
<\/td>\nNew Plan<\/strong><\/td>\nOld Plan<\/strong><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Cost<\/strong><\/td>\n$77\/month<\/span><\/td>\n$153\/month<\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Includes<\/strong><\/td>\n500 mb data<\/td>\n1 G data<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
<\/td>\n400 anytime minutes\/line<\/td>\n400 anytime minutes pooled<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
<\/td>\nUnlimited text SMS<\/td>\nUnlimited text SMS<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
<\/td>\nBasic voicemail<\/td>\nVisual voicemail<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
<\/td>\nCall display<\/td>\nCall display<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
<\/td>\nUnlimited evening\/weekend<\/td>\nUnlimited evening\/weekend<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

 <\/p>\n

As you can see, the difference will add up to almost $1,000 savings per year. The biggest difference is that we have more anytime minutes and less data.<\/p>\n

Because at work we have WIFI , and we also have it at the gym, at home, and in most other public places, I don’t use all that much data. I don’t anticipate ever going over the 500 MB. The only time I ever have was when I was travelling and needed to use my Google Map app a lot more frequently than usual.<\/p>\n

The old phone bill also came out to far more than the $153\/month almost every month. This was because the minutes were usually inadequate, costing us more every time we went over the allotted minutes.<\/p>\n

With $1,000\/year extra, we could put that toward early retirement, buy a new TV, revamp our wardrobes, do a minor renovation on our future house, buy a plane ticket, go on a weekend getaway, save for a new car, or any number of things.<\/p>\n

Do you have any discounts through your workplace? Have you taken advantage of anything like this? Did it end up saving you money?<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In last Monday’s post, I asked my readers to analyze my budget to bring down some of my expenses so I could save $4,000 by January 1st. Almost all of the commenters mentioned how high my phone bill is. At $160\/month, that’s only if we really, really watch our minutes. If we go over, which …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[231],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\nMy Phone Bill: A Horror Story With a Happy Ending<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"My phone bill is the biggest area of my budget that readers suggested I cut. 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