I would love to cut this bill by half - any ideas? suggestions?
PS: 1 phone for me, 1 for wife, 1 for mom and 1 for dad.
"Hello Retention Department. Two smart phones with data plans, two regular phones, total bill $260. What can you do for me?"
This will knock about a thousand bucks a year off your bill in about 5~10 minutes.
I am sharing a family plan with my inlaws at 550 minutes for the 3 of us. I also pay $15/month for data, so incrementally my 3rd cell phone adds $25/month + fees to the monthly costs. I keep cell data turned off most of the time except when I truly need to use it (typically Pandora or mapping while driving).
I typically use more than 550 minutes of phone time by myself each month as follows:
In office: Google Voice (free).
At home: My wife uses T-mobile@home service for $10/month. No longer available but you can use Google Voice comfortably at home with the right kind of phone router, such as this one: http://www.amazon.com/OBi202-Phone-Adapter-Router-2-Phone/dp...
Lots of high quality cell phone use on a single day: T-mobile $2 for the day (with my old Blackberry, which gives me much higher voice quality)
Our total monthly costs including fees and taxes are about $45. For that price we have unlimited domestic calling at home and in my office, I have an iPhone 4s with limited minutes and data and my wife has Virgin Mobile cell phone that she only uses for emergencies. Would only be $35/month if we got the above-referenced phone router and dropped T-mobile@home.
Check out Net10. You can get an unlimited plan for $50 for a smartphone, 750 minutes for $25/mo. and 200 minutes for $15/mo. The 200 minute plan has carry over minutes. Your net total would be $105, and ~$115 by the time you include sales tax. Granted, you still have to buy the phones.
You could also look at Walmart's family plan. http://www.walmart.com/cp/Family-Mobile/1076544 That would get you down to $150 for the whole family and it's powered by T-Mobile.
FYI, I'm not offering this simply as a suggestion. I did this back in 2009. I was looking to move away from Sprint (poor coverage where I moved to) to a regional carrier. They wanted $60 per live for activation. I was told they'd only charge for one but I ended up still getting billed for all three. They wouldn't honor the discount the sales person offered me saying the offer wasn't approved by a manager.
Fed up with the state of wireless companies at the time, I originally moved to Tracfone and later to Net10 when Net10 came out with monthly plans (both owned by the same company). Only this past August did I finally upgrade to Android. While my phone is no frills (800 MHz processor and 3.2 pixel camera), it keeps my calendar and contacts in sync, which makes life easier.
It's $19 a month for unlimited data/talk/text. Runs over wi-fi when you're around wi-fi or cell towers when you're not. That will save you quite a bit per month.
I called AT&T to cancel and got $130 off my monthly bill and about $140 in refund. This should keep me going until October when I can cancel and move to T-mobile which has the BEST prices I found for 2 smart phone + 2 basic phones. Thanks everyone.
Plan Costs would break down as follows:
2 Smartphone @ $45/line = $90 2 dumbphones @$30/line = $60
Total = $150/month
These figures don't factor in ETFs. Your existing AT&T phones will work without unlocking.
StraightTalk is an MVNO that operates on the AT&T and T-Mobile networks. You can pick which network.
Get google voice numbers, and use them for SMS and voice calls for personal business (like calling your bank).
I don't have 4 accounts like you, but I have saved hundreds of dollars this way.
Mostly my friends just text each other, not talk. Google voice provides SMS and voice mail, so it saves me a lot of monies.
Then I use my paid minutes to return calls if needed. For making calls where quality is not critical, I put on headphones and make SIP voice calls.