(Note: I am using an affiliate link in this post. I'll explain more about this at the end.)
My husband and I are currently jointly writing a book about financial independence. The working-title at the moment is "FIRE-ISM" (One Couple's Journey to Join the Financial Independence Movement And Retire Early With Passive Income). In it we include an intro to the "FIRE Movement" and basic investment strategies, our personal stories, the four philosophies/mindsets that have helped us achieve our goals (hint: minimalism is one), and over 100 tips for increasing your savings rate. I can't wait to show you the cover and get this information out into the world! Be sure to join my email list so you don't miss the launch!
One of the 100 savings tips we've included in the book is how we reduced our phone bill from being a $160 bill each month to just a $36 bill each month.
We were previously paying a small fortune using Verizon for our household of two adults. Somewhere on the internet, we stumbled upon Ting as a cost-saving option and decided to give it a shot. After five months of these super-low phone bills, I had to start sharing with everyone I knew!
We all know about "pre-paid" phone services, but Ting is more like a "post-paid" phone service. In a nutshell, you only pay for what you use that month.
The greatest thing about this is that you have control over what you use--especially if you have regular access to WiFi! We figured since we are either at home (with WiFi) or at work (with WiFi), that this would be a great option for our family. Now, with the current stay-at-home orders, we are stuck at home on our WiFi more than ever! And with job losses and a global recession, there has never been a better time to really double down on your monthly expenses and SAVE.
Here's how Ting works. You pay for each line needed ($6 a line. So for the two of us, that's $12). Then you pay at the end of the month for what you actually use in minutes, texts, and data (and it's crazy low!). For us, we use 500 minutes ($9), 1000 texts ($5), and 500 MB of cellular data ($10). Glance at your current phone plan's dashboard to get an idea of what you've been using before. Then, if you follow my steps outlined below, you can start using much less than you did previously. Ting has a calculator on its website that will help you see an estimate of what your average monthly bill will probably look like.
Now here's the fun part: You are really only paying for items transmitted over cellular. Knowing this, you can use WiFi and apps to your benefit. Here's how to keep your cellular usage low. There are only a few tweaks/habits you need to introduce into your lifestyle to make this work for you:
- Turn off your cellular data when you leave the house. When you are driving, biking, walking, etc. and away from WiFi, you should just make this a habit to have it turned off. Every time I pass our mailbox, I've made that my "trigger" to remind me to switch the little toggle in my phone over to "Off." When I'm home or on WiFi, I turn it back on. (I've found I really only need this to receive group text messages).
-Download anything you want to listen to while you are out of the house and away from WiFi. When I'm driving or biking, I love to listen to podcasts, audiobooks, or music. I used to simply stream music on YouTube or Pandora, or stream my podcasts and audiobooks from their apps. It never occurred to me how much data this uses! So I've developed another "trigger" to form a helpful cost-saving habit: Every time I grab my keys and purse from the hook by my door, I glance down to see that I've downloaded what I was planning on listening to. In my library's Hoopla app, I download the audiobook I am listening to. In my Apple Podcast app, I download the next two episodes I want to hear. Or I make sure I have a good album downloaded to my phone. It takes mere seconds for these things to download. For a big audiobook, it might take 60 seconds. It's really not an inconvenience. It's just a matter of foresight/planning/habit.
Those are the biggest habit changes I recommend adopting. But in case you find you are cutting it close on the amount of phone call minutes or messages you are using, it's very easy to cut down on that as well:
-Use messaging and communication apps to cut down on text messages and cellular calls. Use Facebook Messenger, Skype, FaceTime or WhatsApp (via WiFi!) to send messages to friends and family. You can also use these for calls and video calls. Or try Zoom. I've slowly but surely gotten my family to start using Facebook Messenger instead of text messages and my friends all use WhatsApp. We use Facebook Messenger to do video calls with grandparents and friends, and some friends prefer WhatsApp for video calls. They all seem about the same to me.
- Enable WiFi Calling. Also, if you are an iPhone user, the Apple to Apple communications don't seem to count against you. To turn on WiFi Calling, go into your phone's settings, click WiFi Calling, toggle it to "ON"and then click "Enable." Here's a website with further directions, if you need it.
With these new systems in place, you too could have a drastically cheaper phone bill.
Other Notes:
Since we have iPhones, we needed to order a new SIM card from Ting. I believe it was $5 for the new cards which were mailed to us. You simply insert those into your phone. To find out if you need a SIM card or not, go to Ting's website and click the "Check Your Phone" tab. Enter in the numbers that they specify and you'll know your next steps. Yes, you keep your same phone number when you switch to Ting as a service provider.
Our coverage is great! We've had absolutely no problem whatsoever. They seem to be piggybacking on the towers used by larger carriers, which is why you may have noticed in my screenshot next to the Skype logo, you see it says "Sprint WiFi." So we're getting the fantastic coverage that a massive corporation like Sprint has already built, but paying Ting's smaller prices. Their website says "By partnering with the nation’s largest networks, Ting makes sure you’re covered from coast to coast."
For us, the switch to Ting has made a massive difference in our savings. Last year, we increased our "savings rate" to 75%--that's "financial independence jargon" for "We put 75% of our income into savings, and then invested it." (We explain this further in our upcoming "FIRE-ISM" book). By kicking our $160 Verizon bill to the curb, we have potentially saved ourselves $1,488 each year. A popular example that you'll notice on financial independence blogs is to determine how much money you saved over a ten-year period, if that savings were put into an investment. Usually the investment referenced is an ETF such as VTI, which can conservatively be estimated to give a 7% return in a ten-year period. So just for fun, I ran the numbers:
$160-$36= $124/month savings. If you invested that $124 each month, and it compounded at a 7% interest rate, you will have saved and made $21,330.34. Since we will need a phone for the rest of our lives, I ran the numbers for 40 years: $308,204.04. That's a lot of money you could potentially make, simply by investing your phone bill's savings!
If any of this piques your interest, please subscribe to my email list so you don't miss the launch date of our "FIRE-ISM" book. At the moment, it's looking like it will publish in early 2021, after my book "Have Yourself a Minimalist Christmas" publishes September 1, 2020.
NOTE: After posting this same information on my personal Facebook and Twitter profiles, simply because I wanted my friends to know about this, I got the wise idea to chat with Ting about any affiliate work I could do for them. Sure enough, I was granted an affiliate link, so if you visit the Ting website from my link in this blog post and then decide to switch to them as your new phone provider, then I will receive a small monetary compensation for my recommendation. And hey--every little bit helps! Thank you in advance!