Tired of spending so much money on your cellphone bill? This is how we easily save at least $250 a year on our cellphone bill!
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You all know how I love saving money. So it’s no surprise that when first learned about the budget cellphone company Ting, a couple of years ago, I immediately knew that it was the perfect solution for us to save money on our cell phone bill.
I mean who wouldn’t like to pay less money for two cell phones than they were paying for one plus have a better phone too?
Why I Love Saving on Our Cellphones with Ting
1. A lot less expensive!
We pay less for two phones with Ting than what we had been paying for one phone on a very inexpensive, basic plan with AT&T. Most months we pay just under $30 total for both of our phones and that includes taxes and regulatory fees.
2. We could afford a phone for my husband.
Because of the low cost, we finally felt like we could justify getting my husband a cell phone. He had never had one but due to some new circumstances, it was feeling like a definite need!
3. I got a smartphone and still pay less than before!
I’ve wanted a smartphone for a long time and I love that with Ting, I could get one and still pay less than what I did for my old flip phone plan. Plus, I’m able to use various free apps on my smartphone and save money too! In fact, there have been a few months where the money I saved via favorite frugal apps covered the cost of our bill!
4. We only pay for the minutes/texts/data we use.
I can’t tell you how much I love this! It’s just so, so simple.
What You Should Know About Ting’s Cheap Phone Plans
1. COVERAGE
Ting is hosted by the Sprint Network which simply means that they use Sprint’s towers. If you have decent Sprint coverage in your area, then I think you’ll be happy with Ting.
2. RATES
Ting implements a pay-for-what-you-use method of billing. They have levels of voice minutes, texts and data that come in different sizes (XS, S, M, L, XL, and XL+). At the end of the month you pay for however much you used in each category plus a $6 per device fee.
This means you have control over how much you pay. If you are getting close to using all your minutes one month, have plenty of texts left and don’t want to hit the next level, just use your texts instead!
Here’s a chart that shows you the various levels and how the billing system works:
3. CUSTOMER SERVICE
I’ve been super impressed with Ting’s customer service. I was pretty confused when I was trying to bring my phone over to Ting and when I contacted customer service they were prompt and super helpful.
I’ve had to contact them several times since and have always had prompt thorough help. In fact, get this: when you call them you will actually get to talk to a real, live person instead of a computerized system! How awesome is that?
Oh, and one month I used 1 megabyte of data (and actually this was accidental). I didn’t even contact Ting to explain what had happened, but on their own, Ting was awesome enough not to even charge me for it!
Also, when my husband joined Ting several months after me, he joined partway through the billing cycle. So instead of charging him the full $6 device fee for the month, they only charged him $4.80 which reflected the number of days that he was actually with Ting. That’s what I call looking out for your customer!
Extra Tips For Using Ting Successfully
* ALERTS
You can set up an alert to let you know via email or text when you hit a certain limit of usage. This is a great way to keep yourself from spending more than you want to spend!
You can also just log into your Ting account online at any time and see your usage- it appears as an easy to read chart like you see above.
* DEVICES
Ting allows you to use almost any Sprint device on their network.
While you can purchase your phone through Ting, when I was looking for our phones I found that it was cheaper to buy them through Ebay.
We went with a very basic flip-phone that cost us about $40 for my husband. And for myself, we got a used HTC EVO 4G smartphone for less than $100. It’s been simple to use and I’ve been extremely happy with it!
Interested in giving Ting a try?
Angie
I love this blog. I used ting but prefer Mint mobile. When I want a newer phone I purchased unlocked used/new phones on swappa.com. It’s normally cheaper than amazon and EBay. I just stumbled on your website and principles you use are what my husband and I have been using for over a decade. The most important thing is to keep God first.
ThriftyFrugalMom
Thanks for the Swappa tip, Angie! And I know there are lots of different budget cellphone options anymore. I definitely recommend that everyone does their research to find a plan that works well for them, since all of our needs will be different.
And totally agree that keeping God first is what grounds everything!
Doreen
Hi, I just discovered your blog yesterday! I’m impressed and excited about following it. My husband and I have been living in Romania for 4 years and are planning to move back to the United States. Since we have been married we have kept the commitment to living debt free. It’s been super challenging and now moving back to the US looks even more challenging. . . we’ve been trying to figure out how we are going to do everything. 🙂 This phone thing is a big thing we wondered about. I loved this idea because we really don’t need cell phones too much. . . One thing I wondered is if you pay for incoming and outgoing minutes both or just outgoing.
ThriftyFrugalMom
Welcome, Doreen! So glad to have you join us here!
Living debt free definitely is a challenge! But, it’s always amazing to me all the ways you can save and the things you can do without if you determine to do it. Still, not easy for sure! And I’ve had my fair share of days where I’ve struggled with it. 🙂
You do pay for both incoming and outgoing minutes. If you are thinking you’ll use a fair amount, there are some other companies that cost a bit more that give unlimited minutes and might be a better fit. For us, we just don’t use our phones a lot and between texting and talking, we can easily stay in the lower brackets for Ting.
Side note…thought you might enjoy the fact that my husband lived in Suceave, Romania for 5 years. His family was there for 10 years with a Christian mission. We had the privilege of visiting twice and I still remember the beauty of the Carpathean Mountains! Many blessings as you prepare to return to the US. I know it’s a big transition!
Doreen
Thanks for the info about the cell phone thing. We will have to crunch figures and figure our plan out for sure later on, but this piece of info is tucked away in a corner of my mind ready to be pulled out and used later on! In looking at your ABOUT page, I thought your husband seemed like someone I should know. I think either I’ve met up with some of his family or possible with him. Would they have been in Suceava in 2003 or 2004? I worked at the orphanage in Paltinis back in those days. . . never dreaming I would someday marry a Romanian and come to Romania and adopt from here!!! Americans can’t adopt here, but we managed it because we are a dual nationality family. God’s ways are amazing!
Doreen
by the way, is there anyway to do an e-mail subscription to your blog?
ThriftyFrugalMom
Yes, they would have been there those years. And so special that it worked for you all to adopt!
As for a way to subscribe, you can sign up for my email newsletter here. I don’t always do so well at getting emails sent out and sometimes they aren’t related to any blog post, but rather other things that I feel like my readers might find useful. But I do hope to get into a better routine of emailing regularly and including links to recent blog posts in my email. At any rate, feel free to sign up. You can always unsubscribe if you end up finding it annoying or unhelpful! 🙂
Doreen
I subscribed! Thanks. I don’t think I will find the e-mails annoying or unhelpful. I am pleased to find your blog and have already gotten some great ideas!
ThriftyFrugalMom
You’re very kind! 🙂 And if you ever have feedback or ideas for things you’d like to have me give my opinion on in a blog post, I’m always open for suggestions.
K
Do they have a signal booster thing? Where we live, cell service is poor in our house. So ATT gave ($0) me a thing that somehow uses our internet connection to boost our service. (We currently use flip phones, if that’s important to know.) I know Sprint has decent signal in our area, but have been afraid to switch because using the cell phone in the house is important to me.
ThriftyFrugalMom
I totally get the thing of wanting to make sure you have good service at home. It’d be totally frustrating otherwise! I honestly don’t know about the signal booster, but my guess is that if Sprint does well in your area, that you’d be okay. I’d recommend giving Ting a call and asking them though. Calling them is super easy (no long holds etc.) and the reps that I’ve talked to have always been very helpful. The number to call is 1-855-846-4389.
If you know someone that uses Sprint, the other thing that you could do is see what kind of service they have when they are at your place. That might help you know more too.
Celena
Are you still happy with Ting? It’s a company/service that I have never heard of. We have always used tracphone, but my hubs needs a new cell phone and we have been contemplating discontinuing our home phone.
ThriftyFrugalMom
We are, Celena! If you use a lot of minutes/data/texts, then it might not be the best option, I don’t know. But for us only using our phone minimally, it has been absolutely perfect. Obviously, just make sure you have Sprint coverage in your area. And as I said in the post, you can probably get a phone cheaper on Ebay if you are willing to take the extra time and hassle to do that.
When we signed up, I was a bit worried that maybe we wouldn’t be happy with Ting. But I finally figured that with the $25 credit, we really didn’t have much to lose because if after a month we decided we hated it, I could probably easily resell our phone without losing much money, if any at all.
Hope that helps and hope that you and find something that works well for you hubby. If you are anything like me, you dislike trying to decide things like this. 🙂