9 Genius Tips On How To Lower Your Cell Phone Bill
One of many great ways to save money is by learning how to lower your cell phone bill. By reducing your monthly cell phone bill, you can potentially save hundreds of dollars every year. The sooner you start applying these money saving tips, the more money you will save.
Get into the habit of saving money every month by knowing how to lower your cell phone bill.
Even if you have one of the best cell phone plans, it shouldn’t have to cost an arm and a leg.
As someone who has had a much lower cell phone bill these last couple of years compared to when I first got my phone, I know which tips to follow!
You will be learning how to lower your cell phone bill so that you too can begin saving money.
That way you can have one less monthly bill to worry about that is costing you way too much money!
This post is all about how to lower your cell phone bill using some of the best money saving tips.
This post may contain affiliate links, which means I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you, if you make a purchase through a link. Please view the full disclosure for more information.
How To Lower Your Cell Phone Bill
What Is The Average Cell Phone Bill Per Month?
According to T-Mobile, which is the plan I use to have for many years, the average phone bill per month is around $141.
At this time, they don’t specify whether this is the average phone bill per month for one person or the average cell phone bill for 2.
Regardless, I don’t believe any one should be paying this much every month! Luckily, there are many ways to reduce your cell phone bill, which I’ll go over in a few moments.
Why Is My Cell Phone Bill So High?
There are a lot of different reasons that could be causing your cell phone bill to be high.
Here are just a couple of those reasons:
- Data overages
- Activation fees
- Upgrade fees
- Taxes
- Fees and surcharges
- Roaming charges
- Promotional period ended
Once you know your way around these, lowering your bill becomes a lot easier to do!
How Can I Make My Cell Phone Bill Cheaper?
Listed down below are some of the best ways to lower your cell phone bill!
Using these money saving tips will make it so you no longer have to wonder, how do I lower my cell phone bill?
1. Set Up Automatic Payments
One of the easiest ways to save a couple of dollars each month is to sign up for automatic payments.
Most wireless carriers will reduce your bill anywhere from $5 to $10 when you go with this option. Nowadays, every little bit you can do to end up with lower cell phone bills truly helps!
Along with saving money, going this route ensures you never miss a payment. Which means, saving a couple of extra minutes as you will no longer have to manually make your phone payments.
As each payment gets made on time, you will prevent having to deal with late fees.
Just make sure to check your carrier’s requirements first. As some cell phone service providers only allow you to enroll with a bank account. While others only allow you to enroll using a credit or debit card.
2. Ditch The Phone Insurance
Any time you buy a new phone, sales associates will try their best to get you to purchase phone insurance. Depending on the coverage you go with, your cell phone bill per month increases by a certain amount.
Oftentimes, you can find yourself paying way more for insurance compared to actually repairing or replacing your phone. This is because most people don’t use their insurance enough to get their money’s worth.
Take me for example. I once had phone insurance for many years and never once used it. However, I did pay hundreds of dollars over the many years that I did have it!
So you’ve decided to cancel your phone insurance, now what? A great option to make sure your phone stays protected is to place a screen protector on it along with a very durable phone case.
By protecting your phone at all times, you decrease the chances of having to deal with a broken phone!
3. Use Wi-Fi When You Can
Whether you’re at home or out and about, always connect to wi-fi when it is available! Not connecting to it and using your own cellular data instead can quickly consume your mobile data.
If you don’t happen to have a plan with unlimited data, this leads to data overages which causes your monthly bill to be high.
Since most public places have some sort of wi-fi service you can connect to, you shouldn’t run into this issue. Just make sure that it is a secure connection.
Another way to prevent massive data from being used is to download content ahead of time. This comes in handy when you know you’re going to be in a place where there is no wi-fi available.
Doing so allows you to enjoy watching any shows or movies as well as enjoy listening to music without the need of having to eat away at your mobile data.
4. Keep Your Phone Longer
Cell phones are meant to last you a couple of years before needing to buy a new one.
Now I know it can be exciting when a new phone gets released. It can be even more tempting for you to buy it when you actually see it in person with all of the features it has to offer.
However, most of the new phones that come out are now costing as high as $1,000!
On the contrary, taking good care of your phone delays the need to upgrade, allowing you to hold off on having to spend a lot of money.
If you do find yourself actually needing to upgrade because your current cell phone does not work, meaning, it no longer does what you need it to do on a daily basis, there are two options.
The first is to make sure you trade in your current one, if you’re able to, before getting a new one. That way you’re saving at least some money.
The second option is to use a shopping app like Back Market where you can find cheap cell phones for sale. Not only will you find high-quality refurbished electronics on here, but you will also find that they have very affordable prices!
5. Stop Paying For Unlimited Data
When selecting a phone plan, most people think the more the merrier when it comes to data. Because of this, they choose to sign up for a plan with unlimited data.
This was definitely me for many years. Just to give you an idea, I ended up going with T-Mobile and was paying $90 for my plan alone. Luckily, I was able to reduce this, which I’ll discuss how a bit later.
The problem with this is that most don’t end up using as much data as they think they do. Therefore, having to pay for a significantly higher than average monthly cell phone bill than is necessary.
Now if you happen to have your whole family on your plan, then it does benefit you to get one of the best cell phone family plans with unlimited data.
However, if it’s just you alone, you’ll greatly benefit more from choosing a cheaper plan. Especially if your data usage is fairly low every month.
One of the best ways to make sure you’re signing up for the correct plan and truly getting your money’s worth is to be aware of how much data you actually use. Which I’ll go over in the next tip.
6. Keep Track Of Your Data Usage
In order to ensure you are selecting the right phone plan, keeping track of your data usage is crucial. On average, most people really only use a couple of GB of data each month.
If you fall into this category, then there really is no need for you to have a phone plan with unlimited data. Stuck wondering, how much phone data do I use?
You can check by going onto your service provider’s website and logging into your account. Or if they have an app, you can also check on there.
From here, check your data usage over the last couple of months to see how much you actually use. This only takes a couple of minutes, but can be the reason why you start to see huge savings!
Doing so allows you to then see if you can instead go with one of the cheapest cell phone plans your provider offers. One that is very affordable, but that still provides you with the right amount of data.
7. Be Smart With Data Usage
Now that you know how to track data usage, let’s move on to how to lower data usage.
The first way is to make sure you are connected to wi-fi whenever possible. I mentioned this earlier, but wanted to bring it up again as it really prevents you from using up your data quickly!
The second way to be smart with data usage is to go into your settings so that you can limit the use of background data. If you didn’t know, apps can drain your data even when you’re not using them.
The third way is to always pre-download any content you plan on watching ahead of time. Especially if you’re going to be in an area that doesn’t have wi-fi. Constantly streaming shows, movies, or really any video at high resolutions can have you going through your data at a pretty fast rate.
Though there are other ways to be smart with your data, these are just a couple of easy ways for you to get started!
8. Buy A No Contract Phone
On average, most phone contracts last up to 24 months and can be rather difficult and expensive to get out of if you’re trying to terminate it early.
This is where buying a no contract phone can help you save money as well as prevent any future headaches. Keep in mind that doing so can oftentimes save you money if you buy a phone up front rather than paying it off over time while being locked in a contract.
As crazy as it may sound, Amazon is actually one of the best places to buy phones!
More specifically, the Amazon Renewed Store.
Here, you will find plenty of unlocked phones to choose from that have been professionally inspected. And more importantly, rigorously tested to ensure you are getting your money’s worth!
When it was time for me to upgrade my phone many years ago, I did some research and ended up going with an iPhone 11.
Upon arrival, it functioned extremely well and only had a small scratch that was only noticeable if I were to point it out. Which ended up getting covered by the phone case I bought for it.
So before buying a brand new phone that involves signing up for a long term contract, browse the many no contract phones that are available first!
9. Switch To A Prepaid Plan
Not going to lie, this tip right here is what helped me drastically lower my cell phone bill!
Just to give you an idea, I originally had one of the many T-Mobile plans in which I was paying around $90 for. Because of how expensive it was getting to be, along with making budgeting and money management a priority, I decided to look into prepaid phone plans.
After discovering Mint mobile, I ditched T-Mobile phone plans completely. The best part was just how easy it was to make the switch!
Upon ordering and receiving my Mint SIM card, I simply removed the old one from my phone and inserted the one from Mint mobile.
I was able to keep my old phone number and go from paying $90 to now only paying $20 for my cell phone bill monthly. My only regret was not making the switch sooner!
So if you want to start paying significantly less when it comes to your phone, make sure to check out Mint mobile. As this is by far one of the top cheapest prepaid phone plans worth switching to!
This post was all about how to lower your cell phone bill so that you can start saving money.
Rather than going through the hassle of learning how to negotiate a lower cell phone bill, use these tips instead!
Though it doesn’t take a whole lot to start implementing these money saving techniques, the payoff is well worth it.
Once you see how much money you can save, you will wish you knew about these ways to save money sooner!
That being said, don’t let any more time pass by without using these helpful tips.
If you found even the tiniest bit of information from this post helpful, just know that it was made simply for you.