Is Cut Price Mobile Service Really Possible?

If you're mobile bill is taking a hefty chunk of change out of your pocket every month, then you might be thinking about down grading your service to a cheaper plan. But there are actually a few things that you can do that will cut your mobile bill without having to sacrifice your service. Today we're telling you how to cut the price of your mobile bill, without having to down grade your service. So if you want to save a little cash, here's what you need to do...

1. Check Your Calling Plan...

The first thing that you should do is to check out your calling plan. Every mobile contract comes with an included calling plan, which is the set of monthly limits for the amount of calling minutes, text messages and mobile data that you can use for your monthly fee. And the wrong calling plan could be costing you a significant amount of money. When a plan is too big for you, you pay for services that you don't actually use. This is because you have to pay the same monthly fee whether you use all thirty of your included thirty calling minutes, for example, or only five of them. But when a plan is too small you're also spending too much. When you go over the limits included in your contract you have to pay premium rate charges on any extra services that you use. Check out your phone bill and see if your calling plan is the right size for you. Some operators will let you change your calling plan, even if you're in the middle of a contract, though they might charge you a small fee. But even with the fee it might be worth it if you're getting savings by changing your plan.

1. Use Free Txt and Calling Services...

If you're not already using free txt and calling services, then you should be. Just download a free app onto your smart phone, like Skype, WhatsApp or Viber, which will allow you to send free txt messages or make free calls to other people that have the same app. These apps will use your phone's internet connection though, so you'll want to make sure that you don't go over your contract's mobile data limit. It could be worth switching to an unlimited data plan to make the most of these services. You can always cut down on the number of calling minutes and text messages that are in your contract to compensate for the extra cost of the big data plan, since you won't be needing as many if you're using apps to call and text for free.

1. Think About Pay as You Go...

This is not always the cheapest option, in fact rates are usually higher than on contracts. But there are certain groups of people who benefit from PAYG deals. Light phone users, those who send three to four texts a day, use less than ten calling minutes a week, and who use mobile data only for casual browsing or email, tend to do better with pay as you go plans. This is because these users rarely use the big calling plan limits in contracts and so pay for services that they don't use. Also, people who regularly connect to mobile internet over WiFi rather than 3G often don't need to pay for a contract that includes a 3G data plan, and will do better with a pay as you go plan. It's not going to be for everyone, but keep the pay as you go option in mind, because it might save you money.

1. Don't Sign Incentives...

Something that adds a big chunk onto your mobile bill is signing an incentive contract. These are the contracts with mobile operators that include a calling plan and a free or low cost mobile phone. It's tempting to get that new phone, but it is going to cost you. The phone isn't free; in fact you're paying for it in instalments. Your monthly phone bill will be higher because it will include an instalment payment on the phone that you get. Even worse, when you add up all the instalments over the course of the contract, you'll be paying more than actual retail price for your phone. Most instalment plans work this way, with you paying a little more for the convenience of not spending a large amount of money all at one time. It's far better to sign a SIM only contract with a mobile operator and then to buy your own phone if it's possible. This will make your monthly bill lower, and will help you save money in the long term, even if your initial out lay is higher.

1. Change Mobile Operators...

You also might want to look at changing mobile operators. The vast majority of people are still signed up with the same operator that they signed their first contract with, and this could be costing them money. There's plenty of competition on the mobile market, and this means that operators offer lots of special deals to get customers to sign up for service. However, once you're signed, the operator takes it for granted that you're probably going to stay. This means that most of the best deals are saved to get new customers to sign contracts, rather than for keeping old customers. Changing mobile operators is easy. It won't take you more than a few minutes, you will only be without phone service for at most a couple of hours, and you can take your current phone number with you when you switch. Switching operators might mean that you get a much better deal, since you can take advantage of new customer deals with a new operator. You'll have to check and see that your current contract has finished before switching, because you'll be penalised if you leave a contract early. But if you can, it might be worth your while to consider another operator for service.

Free txt messages were something that Sam Jones's children always wanted.  For this reason he always checked the deals on comparison services like uSwitch so he wasn't paying more than he had to.