Thrifty Thursdays - Cell Phone Plans (aka fat, bloated cows)

I am still an English teacher at heart, so I love, love, LOVE alliteration.  My daughter's name is alliterative, and hence all series on this blog MUST be too.  Also, I am allowed to make occasional grammar mistakes, forgive me.  I consider myself a modern Emily Dickinson with new words, breaking lines, and wild prepositions.  I digress.

Welcome to this week's Thrifty Thursday!  I'll share something thrifty that has worked for me, or something I really want to try.  I'm a newbie to true frugal living, and it's all a learning curve, right?

One way we have found to save is with our Verizon cell phone plan.

The world would have us think that we must have an IPhone, Blackberry, or other beautifully invented device.  We must be connected 24/7 to all our social networks.  What if your buddy Larry from Iowa bought a new shirt?  How would you know?!  Priorities, people.  Priorities.

Hence we are one of the last (if not the second to last) people I know who have not jumped on the Smart Phone bandwagon.  I see these handy phones as a true luxury.  I'm human.  I would love having something new, sleek and user friendly.  However, there are other goals and  motivations lately that keep me with my old LG sandwich phone.  My tried and true.

We recently got a little crazy and finally updated our old phones.  We had waited (drumroll please) over two years to finally update together.  Verizon is making it nearly impossible not to update to a smart phone and have recently changed their talk and text plans.  Amazingly enough, we were grandfathered in with our old plan and advised to keep it.  Ha!  The support tech was almost jealous of our old and outdated, simple plan.  I thought we were already a bit excessive with unlimited text and data.  Not until we realized the price of the new "tiered" data packages.  These would increase our monthly bill by $60 if we were to update to smart phones.  That's a saving of $720 a year!  We also opted for the simple and free phone upgrades.

The reality is that in years to come, I'm sure I'll have the phone I want.  But, for now, I'm happy with the simplicity of our plan.  It leaves me time to focus on other things.  Like the sweet sleep creases on my daughter's cheek.  Or the way her hair curls perfectly around her ear.

How much are you paying annually for the luxury of a smart phone?

Could that money be better spent on debts or other necessities?

Where can you tweak your monthly bill?

Small changes add up quickly.  Several small streams create powerful rivers.