data

You don’t need a data plan

by Mike Pumphrey · Jul 4, 2019

Note: This post originally appeared on Empathic Finance (previously known as Unlikely Radical), a partner site to The Smartphone Free Life. It was first published on October 22, 2015.

I willingly raised my cell phone bill by 17% recently.

That sounds punishing and predatory, until I tell you that it went from $30/month to $35/month.

While my new plan had a limit of minutes and texts per month, my new plan gives me unlimited talk and text, so I no longer need to keep track of how many minutes I’ve used.

Sure, laugh at my quaintness, but how much is your cell phone bill? According to a recent JD Power report, the average is $73/month. If I’m paying $35, that means that, statistically, some poor soul out there is paying $111/month. My condolences.

But I’m not bragging. I’m not even going to suggest that you ditch your smartphone. (I’ve already done that.)

Instead, let’s look at what separates my situation from yours. I’m going to assume that you have a smartphone and plan on keeping it. That’s fine.

But one thing you don’t need, even with a smartphone plan? You don’t need a data plan.

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Things I don’t need to worry about when my phone is lost

by Mike Pumphrey · Apr 11, 2019

I talked last time about my phone dying, and what I did about it. Despite the withering cultural pressure to buy a smartphone, you don’t need to, and I showed how.

In fact, not only is it possible to live without a smartphone today, it’s probably safer and less risky if you don’t have one.

After all, phones die. Phones get lost. If you don’t have your smartphone, all of the ways that you rely on it become painfully obvious.

So here are some things that I didn’t have to worry about when my phone was lost.

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Saving money is not the point (so what is?)

by Mike Pumphrey · Feb 21, 2019

I currently pay $25 a month for phone service.

This gets me unlimited talk and text. I don’t have a data plan, which is fine by me. No data means that I can’t be tempted to get on the internet, something that would be difficult with my phone’s browser anyway.

I wish I could offer you the $25/month plan, but T-Mobile doesn’t offer it anymore. These days, the cheapest unlimited plan they offer is $40 prepaid, which actually isn’t bad when compared to their standard price of $70 for a single line.

The cheapest monthly phone plans

For reference, here are the cheapest plans I was able to find on the major carriers:

T-Mobile: $40/month (prepaid)
Verizon: $30/month (prepaid)
Sprint: $40/month (prepaid not available)
AT&T: $30/month (prepaid)

What we can learn here are as follows:

Plans are on the whole cheaper when they are “prepaid”, meaning, no-contract, month to month billing.
The more data you want, the more expensive the plan is

For that last point, see this chart:

But while I’m all about saving money and lowering my monthly bills, I have to be honest, I really don’t care too much on whether my phone bill is $25 or $40, or even $80. I pay more than that in car insurance each month. Maybe this would have significantly affected my situation a decade or so ago, but not now.

Saving money is great, but it’s not really about the money. So what is it about then?

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