Saving Money on Your Phone Bills

We all know that phones can be expensive to keep, especially alongside all your other bills and particularly for students or those on low incomes. However, there are simple ways in which you can save a lot of money per year on your phone bill, and while some of them might not seem very significant at the time, you will certainly save yourself some cash in the long term. Here are some of the ways in which you can reduce the amount you spend on your cell phone, especially if you're looking for a phone contract.

1. Spend time looking for good contracts

Don't take out the first contract you find - remember that you're locked into a contract for a certain period of time, normally two or three years. While you can get out of it, this will cost you a lot of money, since you'll have to pay a cancellation fee as well as other fees which may apply to you. When looking for phone contracts, see if you can find one which offers you a free cell phone. By doing this, you'll get a brand new phone too, which means you won't have to worry about saving up to buy the latest smartphone. Start looking a couple of weeks before you actually need to take out the contract, since this will give you plenty of time to discover a great deal.

2. Don't take out extra phone insurance

If you already have home and contents insurance for your house, you may find that it's completely pointless to take out phone insurance with your new phone. While a lot of companies will try and sell you their phone insurance, telling you that it's a great deal and won't cost you a lot per month, it's worth finding out whether your phone will be covered by the policies you already have. For example, most contents insurance will cover everything in your house, and if you're worried about something happening to your phone while you're outside of your house, phone your insurers and ask if your possessions are covered outside the home. If they're not, it might be worth simply upgrading your current contents insurance rather than taking out a whole new policy with a different company for your phone.

3. Be careful who you call

While you may think that you have several thousand or hundred minutes included in your plan, these are probably only to specific numbers. This means that if you call abroad or you phone certain company numbers, you'll be charged at the standard rate for national calls and even more for international calls. If you anticipate that you'll be calling abroad often, you should talk to the service provider before you take out a contract and ask them if they can include some international minutes in your plan. This will ensure that you only pay the fixed amount per month and you don't accidentally go over the amount of minutes and text messages which you've been allocated.

4. Take out contracts for your family

If you have a partner or children who have cell phones, why not take out contracts for them with your service provider? By doing this, you might be able to get the provider to offer you some great deals in order to encourage you to take out more contracts with them. Don't be afraid of sounding rude - try and get the best deal you can by telling them the situation. Inform them that you have a spouse and X amount of children who all use cell phones and that you'd be interested in several contracts at the right price. Sometimes, you can even get one contract which covers several phones, and many providers offer special deals for families. Even if you have separate contracts for all your family members, a lot of the time you can all call each other for free or much cheaper. Ask your provider if there are any special family deals which they can offer to you - most of them are more than happy to help and will be able to tell you about the best options which are available to you.

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