To save money, are you willing to give up/cut back on your cell phone?

Glad you are willing to do what's necessary if push comes to fall. Just curious, would it be one of the first things you'd cut back on or one of the last?

OK, it makes sense to cut back on things in an economic downturn. However, when it comes to your cell phone, I think it depends on what you use it for and which country you live in. For Americans, most of you have land lines, which are cheaper to use and cell charges are high. So it makes sense to reduce and even give up your cell. However, out here in the third world, the cell is often the only means of communications. As such, it's impossible to give up the cell if you want to make a living. Having said all that, you can save on your cell by using it more intelligently. Where possible use the land line for example. Then there's sms or short messaging service, which gets the point across in writing at a fraction of the cost. So, it's quite obvious that one of the best things people can do is to learn how to use this tool more intelligently.

that is one of the things that involves me.so i would cut back on that before opting for anything else.

Actually, we're already on the cheapest plan we can get to. I took us down in minutes when my husband lost his job this summer. I can always put the minutes back up when he gets back on the road.

Yes, those cancellation fees are terrible. Will you consider a cheaper plan when your current one expires?

That situation is quite understandable. I'm sure we'd get more use out of our cell phone, if we'd be in the same boat. Happy mylotting;)

Lol, we women are chatterboxes aren't we;)

If it is a job necessity it's different. It's even cheaper because the expenses are tax deductible... Now, if you re-evaluate your situation and take away the job requirements, would you still need to be connected 24/7? Would you still need all the things your phone can do that you have to pay extra for? Even in the current situation, would you consider cutting back on some of the services or re-evaluating your needs, if money would be tight and you had to scale back on something? Could you do it?

One of the reasons why I switched my phone to blackberry was because of my work... Before then, I had simple phone... I'd still keep the unlimited plan for the voice part because it would be cheaper for me to go that way since I really don't use the landline... But I didn't have all that extra stuff like emails & internet access to begin with... Like I said, only reason for those things were because of my job... If job wasn't the factor, I would get rid of all those options & go back to what I had before...

Ours is pre-paid, too, with roll-over minutes. We know have more minutes than the fully charged battery on the phone would last us. We hardly ever use it and buy the cheapest airtime card possible to continue our plan. For monetary considerations, since you don't want to let go of the phone, which is good to have for emergency purposes anyway, have you considered cutting back on usage? Wouldn't that provide some savings?

Sorry the customer service isn't that great. Sometimes the cheaper plan actually works out better than the old one. We'll keep our emergency cell phone, which is the only one we ever had in terms of cell phone. If one is out and about, there are hardly any functioning public phones left;)

Travel is the only reason we have a cell. Otherwise we wouldn't have one. It's so difficult to find a public phone nowadays, a functioning one is even harder to find. We only have a prepaid plan with rollover minutes. We use it so rarely, we now have accumulated more minutes than the battery of our phone would last, lol. Have you been trying to find out whether you might even find a better deal to suit your needs? There might still be some savings possible for you;)

Good for you. I wonder how many more people who dropped their landline in favor of their cell phone will take the step back to the landline once they can't afford the cell service anymore. We never dropped our landline, mostly because international calls are superexpensive on cell phones and cheap on landlines. Looks like it was now the good thinking to keep it and not get full cell service;)

Here both sides have to pay unless they are with the same provider, at least for some providers. Yes, having a cell phone can be very expensive. I know some people who pay $100/month and more for their plan. That's crazy. If they add on family to that they are easily at $200/month. But they are also connected 24/7 to the point that I wonder whether they go to bed with that earpiece still stuck in their ear, lol. It does free up a lot of time if you are not constantly on the phone. Good for you to cut back and realizing that you can use your time more productively and even create some income;)