Mobile phone plans for kids - what are you paying?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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.

Or, get a good case and be careful with your phones. We've never had a screen crack.

[Anonymous]

We pay $5 a month for an iPhone SE and another $5 to add the line to our at&t unlimited plan (it’s the 4th line, we also have my MIL on it). DD knows she will be on the hook if she loses the phone and she’s in MS and doesn’t need more than the SE.

[Anonymous]

Anyone with Google Fi on iPhones?

[Anonymous]

Our family of 4 shares 10 gig on Xfinity for $60/month plus tax.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

Or, get a good case and be careful with your phones. We've never had a screen crack.

+1 to this. The phone will last about 3 years before it dies of something else IME.

I have AT&T and our extra kid lines are between $35-$45 with paperless billing. Not sure why yours is so $$$.

[Anonymous]

$15/mo for my 9th grader via TMobile.

For 17 years, I had a plan with TracFone for about $10/mo. Last year, I finally upgraded my plan to AT&T for $25/mo. I get 8GB of data per month (any remaining will roll over for the next month).

I upgraded my 12th grader to the $25/mo plan from AT&T as well. I figured, she's a senior and needs to have a decent plan going into college.

Prior to this "upgrading" we all had the $10/mo. plan via TracFone.

So, what do I pay for teens? Either $15/mo or $25/mo.

[Anonymous]

Verizon $35/month unlimited calls and texts with 5gb data

[Anonymous]

Visible, $25/month for unlimited everything. Same plan I have for mine.

[Anonymous]

TracFone, $20 a month. We bought the phone outright and got AppleCare on it for insurance. DH and I also use TracFone because we have work devices, too, so rarely need personal phones for data, etc.

[Anonymous]

We are in Potomac and the call rep said that our zip code lists at $47 per phone plu insurance so with three teen phones plus insurance it comes out to be $189 per.