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Money

How to Save Money on Your Monthly Phone Bill

Written by Mukesh Agarwal
Professional Blogger

Families in the United States squander around one hundred and thirty nine dollars each month on cellular phones according to J.D. Power and Associates. This is above the one hundred and twenty seven monthly in the year 2009. And based on the reports of the Bureau of Labor Statistics in 2011 household spending on cell phone services shot up by above 4.5% and since the year 2006 has increased over 20%. While there are methods to get free home phone using Google’s GV service as I talked about on this post on CorVoIP website, we are mostly talking about cellular phones.

Avoid Wireless Charges You Don’t Use

Todd Dunphy used to work closely with Verizon and he helped develop the mobile phone analytics organization called Validas. Todd has partnered with ABC News “Real Money” team in an attempt to do away with “wireless waste”, which is data, minutes, and texts that haven’t been put to use. Validas is a business that executes evaluations of cell phone utilization for big organizations, and they just lately released Savelovegive (SLG) the very same service for no cost at all to consumers. Its creators plan for the website to turn that “wireless waste” into something useful although the service is free, inviting people to pledge a small amount of their savings to charity. The company doesn’t take a cut from users’ donations. Even if you do not want to take your phone with you in case your CDMA does not work abroad, you could get same apps on your laptop through the infamous hack of emulation.

“So you have your savings linked to a foundation for the empowerment of women we built in microphilanthropy inside the app”, according to Dunphy. You can take a bit of that savings and redirect it. Or you can preserve it all for yourself, it’s no big issue. But we developed a vehicle.

Validas claimed that when it comes to monthly mobile phone bills 80% of the American population overspend by about $200 every year. As soon as Dunphy looked over the bill of Barry at SLG, he figured out ways to save much more than that almost instantly.

Though SLG automatically prepares an email that customers may send to their carriers to switch plans, Barry went into an AT&T retailer to switch his plan face-to-face. Because Barry changed his plan to a MobileShare with 6GB of data monthly and adding a corporate discount he’ll go on to save about $1,400 within the year.

Pro Tips to Save Your Cell Phone Bill

If you are ready to lessen your bill and make sure you have a cellphone that fits you perfectly check out some of Dunphy’s effective tips below.

1. Let free sites figure it out on your behalf—just plug in your cellular phone number. At SLG, you log in with your carrier account information, giving the site access to your previous bills. By taking a look at usage and charges the website analyzes the bills. Once the analysis is complete it will compare your plan to other plans on hand and give you ways to switch up the plan you currently have and save. At the moment customers of AT&T and Verizon are who SLG works for, but the website expects to expand to other carriers soon. Another analysis site is Billshrink. When it came to Barry he was only utilizing 2.5 gigabytes of data each month, but he was purchasing a total of 8. By bundling talking and texting into one new plan, he could save nearly $1,200 a year. You can also check out VoIP plans to use when you are at home or even there are VoIP plans for small businesses.

2. Look for sneaky charges like horoscope texts, roadside assistance and 411.
Very small charges can be added onto your bill without your knowledge. According to research done by the Citizens Utility Board and Validas it’s over five dollars each month on average. If you notice a charge doesn’t look right call your carrier immediately to get them to get rid of it.

3. Obtain your discount.
In order to get their employees discounts many companies work with mobile phone carriers. It’s not merely for corporate workers – teachers, government workers and even students can qualify. But the key is that you must ask for it, entering your company email on the carrier’s discount site. Examine the discount pages at AT&T, Verizon and Sprint. Barry will qualify for a discount of upwards of twenty five percent since his employer was just bought by IBM – check yours here. The discount may save him yet another $200 yearly. Dunphy told ABC News that Barry’s situation was standard.
A good deal of it is awareness, he explained. Awareness of what’s out there and then also figuring out what you use and what’s out there. It’s like going and acquiring a suit or a dress, getting it perfectly customized to you.