A decent smart phone is going to set you back at least a couple of hundred pounds. If you want a top of the line new iPhone, HTC or Samsung, you’re going to pay over five hundred for it. A mobile phone is a huge investment for a lot of people, and once you’ve got a hand set, you’re going to need to pay that monthly bill as well. In today’s economic climate, we all want to save a little cash, and as just one of the many monthly bills that you’ve got to pay, your mobile phone bill might need a little scrutiny to see if you can make savings. And just because you want to save money doesn’t mean that you need to compromise on service. Today we’re talking about how exactly you can save money on your mobile bill. So if you’re looking for a little extra cash, then read on to find out if you’re doing all you can to get the cheapest mobile service possible.
Have the Right Plan…
The majority of people simply don’t have the right calling plan, it’s that simple. Your calling plan should give you the amount of calling minutes you need, the amount of text messages that you need, and the amount of data that you need. Yet many people have plans that are just the wrong size. When your plan is too big, giving you calling, texting and data limits that are too high, you’re paying for services that you’re not using. When your calling plan is too small, not giving you enough calling, texting and data, then you’re going to be paying extra charges every month because you’re going over your plan’s limit. The first step to saving money is making sure that your calling plan accurately represents your needs.
Compare Pay as You Go Tariffs…
Rather than going for the traditional monthly contract option, you might want to compare pay as you go tariffs. PAYG means that you always pay for exactly what you use, no more, no less. And whilst PAYG services may be a little more expensive per minute, per message, and per MB of data than contract prices, you can still end up saving because you’re only paying when you use your phone. When you compare pay as you go tariffs you should obviously look for something that’s going to be cheaper than your monthly phone bill. For heavy phone users, you’re not going to find this. But for lighter users, PAYG makes a great, and cheaper, choice.
Change Your Provider…
Changing your mobile service provider can also result in savings. There are plenty of providers on the UK market, meaning that there’s also plenty of competition. Providers are anxious to get new customers to sign contracts, which means that many special offers, deals and discounts are reserved for new customers, rather than for people who are re-signing a contract with the same provider. If your current contract is at its end, then you might want to consider changing your provider to take advantage of some of these new customer deals. Switching providers is easy, and you can even keep your current phone number, no need to change.
Or Don’t Change…
Sometimes you don’t even need to change providers. Calling your existing provider’s customer service line and telling them that you want to change providers might be enough for them to offer you a better deal to stay with them. Whilst companies do want to lure in new customers, they want to keep their existing companies too. Customer service representatives actually have a lot of lee way when it comes to offering deals, discounts and special offers to existing customers. It’s definitely worth a try, and you could end up saving.
SIM Only is the Way to Go…
Given a choice between a SIM only contract and an incentive contract, you should always choose the SIM only contract unless you desperately need a new phone and really don’t have the cash to pay for it up front. The problem with incentive contracts is that you often end up paying a lot more. The phone that they offer you is neither free nor really discounted. You can easily see this by comparing the monthly cost of a calling plan on a SIM only contract to the monthly cost of the same calling plan on an incentive contract. The fees for an incentive contract are more expensive because the company is trying to recover the cost of the phone it has given you. Over the course of a normal two year contract you’ll end up paying far more than the retail price of the phone when all those extra charges are added up. It’s cheaper in the long run to sign a SIM only contract and then simply buy the phone that you want.
Add-Ons and Such…
If you’re stuck in the middle of a contract with a calling plan that isn’t meeting your needs, it may be possible to change it. Some providers won’t let you change your calling plan in the middle of a contract- particularly if you want to down size your package, but others will. It’s worth calling the customer service line and asking about your provider’s policy. Upgrading packages is usually a lot easier, though some providers charge a fee for changing your calling package. And easier way of doing this is to look for add-ons. Some providers, most notably O2 and Orange, have specific add-ons that you can add to existing calling plans to change your limits. Adding an extra 1 GB of data monthly, a few more messages or calling minutes, or even a roaming package that lets you call from abroad more cheaply is usually easy and quite inexpensive. Doing things this way also means that you can avoid the charges for changing your calling plan, since these companies don’t consider add ons as changes to your basic contract.
About the Author: When Sam Jones wanted to compare pay as you go tariffs he did it online. He found online price comparison sites like uSwitch really helpful in making sure he got a great deal.
