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4 Ways to Save on Your Cell Phone Bill

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As a military family, you are probably looking for different ways to save money each month. One way to do so is with your cell phone plan.

4 Ways Military Families Can Spend Less on Their Cell Phone Bill

Are you shocked by your monthly cell phone bill? Are you looking for ways to reduce it?

We all need cell phones especially since the service member can be away from their family so often. Cell phones are how we communicate and we need them to work well but do we need them to cost so much?

The good news is that there are ways to lower your bill and all military families should look into the different ways to do that.

Here are 4 ways that you can save on your cell phone bill and add a little bit more money back into your budget:

1. Ask for a military discount. With any cell phone company, you will want to ask for a military discount. All of the major carriers; AT&T, Verizon, Sprint and T-Mobile give a 15 percent discount.

If you are with a smaller company, make sure to ask and find out what they offer the military because they might offer a discount too. You will have to show proof that you are a military spouse or service member and usually that is done by submitting your military ID card or even your LES statement. Find out what the company needs you to do so you can be sure to save that money off of your cell phone bill.

2. Compare plans. One of the best things you can do to lower your cell phone bill is by comparing plans. You should do this with the different cell phone companies but also within the same carrier. You might be surprised at how different the prices can be.

Make sure you are only paying for what you need and use and not a lot of extras.

The easiest way to lower your cell phone bill is by making sure you have not added too many of the extras the cell phone companies want you to buy. Think about if you really benefit from paying the insurance every month.

3. Go the pay-as-you-go route. One option to lower your cell phone bill is to switch to the pay-as-you-go method. This means you would buy a phone and then would add minutes and data to the phone as needed.

You could add the amount that you needed on a month-to-month basis instead of being locked into a contract. You could quit using the phone when you wanted to just by not buying the data or minutes for that month.

An example of this would be the Go Phone by AT&T. In the end, you would save a lot of money using these types of phones as you would not be locked into a regular contract.

4. Use less data. One way to lower your cell phone bill is to use less data. Think about how much data you really need. If you and your spouse are only using about 4GB then make sure you are not paying for 10GB each month.

You might be able to lower your cell phone bill by switching to a plan that makes more sense for your cell phone usage.

Use WiFi as often as you can to see if you can lower the amount of data you really need. Although having extra data can be a good thing if your spouse is traveling a lot, think about how often you really need to use that data and see if you can lower your cell phone bill by lowering the amount that you use each month.

How do you save money on your cell phone bill? Share your tips in the comments section!

5 Tips for Saving Money During a Deployment

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Deployments are never fun. Whether it’s your first or fifth, it doesn’t get any easier. One thing is for sure, deployments can offer families some relief by giving us the opportunity to save money.

save deployment money

Is your service member is deployed? Here are the top 5 tips to save money while your loved one is away.

  1. Know the Servicemembers Civil Relief Act. This is an important one and it should be on your radar before a deployment arises. There are some critical benefits that help military families during a deployment (and in general), thanks to this special piece of legislation. By utilizing the Servicemembers Civil Relief Act, families can break leases that could potentially help with moving to areas that have lower cost of living as well as saving renters for their traditional Permanent Change of Station (PCS). Military members are able to cap their interest rates on loans (mortgage rates and credit cards). Most importantly, military members can cancel or freeze accounts due to a deployment. For instance, my husband’s cell phone bill is about $100 a month stateside. Because he had orders taking him overseas, he cancelled his service that subsequently saved us $1,200 for the year. The same applies for auto insurance or any other account that may have a subscription. They are not going to need those accounts while  downrange.
  2. Put Deployment Pay in a Savings Account. Depending on the type of deployment, TDY, unaccompanied tour, etc., your military member is given additional pay. Only 14 days into our marriage, my husband left for an unaccompanied tour to a location that gave him Hardship Duty Pay (HDP). Because I stayed behind, we were given Family Separation Allowance (FSA) as well. I encourage military spouses to understand as much as they can the different military financial terms to help prepare for any situation. We got married while my husband was still living in the barracks and I with roommates, which meant we didn’t have any practical household items like a sofa or kitchen goods. It was really important for us to save, save, save! We put ALL the additional money into a savings account to gain interest for the year he was away along with building a reasonable amount of money to help us get started in what I call the “real start to our marriage.”
  3. Unplug Unused Items in Your Home. My husband has a whole side of the room that is plugged with his electronics. Not to mention, he has an Xbox, Playstation that he keeps in the living room. Unplug everything, especially if you don’t use it because it still uses a bit electricity. Every voltage counts in your bill and that could save you dollars that add up in the long run.unplug electronics to save money
  4. Establish a Tight Budget. Honestly, this is a difficult task, even for me, but it’s a tip that can seriously help with long term planning. I immediately went into a budget funk when my husband left for the very first time and began coping with retail therapy. Let’s be honest, a separation messes with your mindset a bit and it goes for both parties involved. After a month of spending anarchy, I snapped back and realized that I had some craziness coming (aka our PCS). Spend some time to crunch numbers and establish a strict budget. Aside from the deployment pay that’s going into a savings account, what else could you put into savings? What is the figure you have left after bills? There are lots of great resources out there to help military families budget. MilitaryOneSource offers a wealth of information and financial counselors to help you get on the right track. I entered everything into a Google Document and shared the file privately with my husband, so he was able to see how things were going when he got the opportunity to go online. Since then, my husband and I powwow before a departure to make sure we are on the same page. Keep the line of communication open when it comes to budget.
  5. Meal Plan. A relatively mundane tip from the rest, but still important. In my opinion, meal planning doesn’t get enough attention about how it can really save you money. Confession: I was guilty of eating out or ordering in a lot when I was alone. Why meal plan when it’s only yourself feed? Answer: it adds up. On average, a meal out would be around $10 (give or take) with 5 days of purchasing, that would be $50 a week! If you have children, the figure just goes up. I’m not saying to completely nix eating out, just to moderate spending (we all need a little time out). Instead of spending $50 for one meal a day for a week, I use that figure to feed myself all three meals for a week. Use your strict budget to set-up a special allowance that goes to your food. Take some time to map out your meals for the week. That helps with keeping yourself in check with your planning.

How much money have you saved during a deployment? How did you do it? Share your tips.