Mobile phone plans for kids - what are you paying?

[Anonymous]

No one keeps their phones for 10 years, especially not teenagers.

[Anonymous]

I pay $10/month unlimited everything. Just added to my plan. Tmobile.

[Anonymous]

Verizon family plan. Total of 5 people (2 teens) on our plan- $30 per line, $50 total for phone insurance (covers the 5 phones) and only one we are making monthly payments on the phone ($18).

[Anonymous]

US Mobile for $16.48 per month. You choose everything a la Carte and can go even cheaper. It suits us since the phone is mostly just for emergencies. We use an old iPhone. As a bonus it also serves as a WiFi hotspot. You won’t find a better dirt cheap plan.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My teens cell phone bill is roughly $92/month each with ATT.

~ $55 for service
~ $18 for insurance on phones
~ $12 for device installment (netted for trade in of prior phone)

Is this in line with the norm?

Why not go with a cheaper unlimited plan. I pay $45 for an unlimited plan that includes international calls with t-mobile. Also $18 insurance is high, that's $216 a year to insure a phone that is $1000, brand new, doesn't make sense to me.

If you buy a 1200 phone and break it, you still owe the 1200, if you pay per month for 24 mos, plus another 1200 for new phone = 2400.

If you "break it", the repair would cost about $200 to $300. Dont need to get a new phone. Say you are going to maintain a phone for 10 years, that is $2000+ you are paying. You can "break it" at least 6 times over the next 10 years and come out ahead without the insurance.

Insurance is for things where you cannot afford to pay if it something bad happens. The insurance companies have a large margin to pay for not only the payout but to run their business as well.

-Investor who specializes in Financials and especially insurance companies.

You assume the phone can be fixed, and expeditiously. DH needs his phone for work. I need mine for kids. We have no land line. Time value of money. We need new phones, yesterday. The $36/mo is worth it for us.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My teens cell phone bill is roughly $92/month each with ATT.

~ $55 for service
~ $18 for insurance on phones
~ $12 for device installment (netted for trade in of prior phone)

Is this in line with the norm?

Why not go with a cheaper unlimited plan. I pay $45 for an unlimited plan that includes international calls with t-mobile. Also $18 insurance is high, that's $216 a year to insure a phone that is $1000, brand new, doesn't make sense to me.

If you buy a 1200 phone and break it, you still owe the 1200, if you pay per month for 24 mos, plus another 1200 for new phone = 2400.

If you "break it", the repair would cost about $200 to $300. Dont need to get a new phone. Say you are going to maintain a phone for 10 years, that is $2000+ you are paying. You can "break it" at least 6 times over the next 10 years and come out ahead without the insurance.

Insurance is for things where you cannot afford to pay if it something bad happens. The insurance companies have a large margin to pay for not only the payout but to run their business as well.

-Investor who specializes in Financials and especially insurance companies.

You assume the phone can be fixed, and expeditiously. DH needs his phone for work. I need mine for kids. We have no land line. Time value of money. We need new phones, yesterday. The $36/mo is worth it for us.

Upgrade your phones and give the kids the old phones. That's what we do. Poor kids get ancient phones as we rarely upgrade but they work. Get magic jack for the home phone for an emergency. $35 a year plus a bit extra for 911.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:No one keeps their phones for 10 years, especially not teenagers.

I am talking about total cost of insurance for 10 years. Not keeping phone for 10 years.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My teens cell phone bill is roughly $92/month each with ATT.

~ $55 for service
~ $18 for insurance on phones
~ $12 for device installment (netted for trade in of prior phone)

Is this in line with the norm?

Why not go with a cheaper unlimited plan. I pay $45 for an unlimited plan that includes international calls with t-mobile. Also $18 insurance is high, that's $216 a year to insure a phone that is $1000, brand new, doesn't make sense to me.

If you buy a 1200 phone and break it, you still owe the 1200, if you pay per month for 24 mos, plus another 1200 for new phone = 2400.

If you "break it", the repair would cost about $200 to $300. Dont need to get a new phone. Say you are going to maintain a phone for 10 years, that is $2000+ you are paying. You can "break it" at least 6 times over the next 10 years and come out ahead without the insurance.

Insurance is for things where you cannot afford to pay if it something bad happens. The insurance companies have a large margin to pay for not only the payout but to run their business as well.

-Investor who specializes in Financials and especially insurance companies.

You assume the phone can be fixed, and expeditiously. DH needs his phone for work. I need mine for kids. We have no land line. Time value of money. We need new phones, yesterday. The $36/mo is worth it for us.

We had 2 iphones for the last 9 years and it would have costed us $3900 if we paying that $36 monthly for insurance. The phone was completely dead only twice and had screen damage 3-4 times. Total cost for us to replace or fix is about $1500.

You can just buy a new phone right away and get it ready faster that any insurance. And most of the time with insurance you have a deductible as well. So for us the cost would have been $4500 or so for insurance vs. $1500 actual costs.

And you are getting faster service when you pay for repair or buy a new one yourself rather than calling an insurance company.

This is more directed towards others who might find the calculations useful when making the decision to purchase insurance.

[Anonymous]

Bought a used iPhone online for $90.

Added her to my TMobile plan. $98 a month total for both of us. Unlimited everything.

[Anonymous]

I just got my kid a iPhone SE and 6 months of service for $180 through Cricket Mobile. After 6 months, I can cancel or continue for $30 a month.

[Anonymous]

Visible plan, $25/per person as long as you have at least 4 in the family, unlimited
(Visible is Verizon's cheaper sibling)
Also got a great deal on an iphone through them.

[Anonymous]

I think we just pay $5 more a month for his line and got the iphone for free from Verizon bc they were running a special when we were getting him a phone.

[Anonymous]

We have Mint Mobile for my three teens (19, 16, and 14). They all have iPhones. It is $180 per year per phone (which works out to $15 per month). They get 4 GB of data, unlimited texts and calls. If data runs out, it just slows down but they still have it. Data refreshes each month.

[Anonymous]

We use the "party plan" on Visible, which runs on the Verizon network. We brought our unlocked iPhones and service is $25/month for each of our four lines. Unlimited calling, texting and data. 4G only but we can live with that.

One of the things that I like is that $25/month on Visible is the actual cost. That's $25 including taxes and whatever other fees companies like Verizon invent to make the monthly rate appear much lower than it really is.

[Anonymous]

I pay $10/month unlimited everything. Just added to my plan. Tmobile.

+1. I think the extra lines are usually $20 but they run half-price specials 3 or 4 times a year. I waited for the deal to sign up.