Fred Harteis News Articles – 5 Ways To Cut Your Cell Phone Bill

Fred Harteis News Articles - Is your cell phone bill becoming the size of a phone book? No wonder. Cell phone providers have been developing clever new ways of squeezing dollars out your wallet, from addictive services like text- and video-messaging to downloadable ring tones and video games.

The good news: with some nifty cost-saving tactics, your cellular dependency doesn't have to cost a fortune.

Here are five ways to save:

1.) Plan Out Your Messaging
Thumb sore from all that texting? Be prepared to pay handsomely. At 10 cents per text those little messages can quickly add up. To add insult to injury, most carriers charge for the messages you send and receive. Fortunately, carriers offer special text-messaging plans that allow you to save. Sprint/Nextel, for example, currently offers a bundle of 100 text messages for $5 a month, a more generous 500 messages for $8, or unlimited text messaging for $15.

2.) Follow Your Friends
Increasingly, carriers offer unlimited in-network minutes, which means you can talk for free with other subscribers until your phone melts into your ear. So it makes sense to go with the carrier that most of your friends and family use. Currently, only Sprint/Nextel and T-Mobile charge for this service (for an extra $5 and $7.99, respectively). With the other major carriers, the perk is free.

3.) Don't Overrule Prepaid Plans
If you don't use your phone all that often, consider getting a prepaid plan, says Allan Keiter, president of MyRatePlan.com, a consumer-information web site for wireless and long-distance plans. "With rate plans starting at $39.99 a month now, that's a lot of money to make one or two calls a month," he says. With a prepaid plan, you purchase a certain dollar amount to use for a period of time and pay only for the minutes you actually use. With Virgin Mobile's Minute2Minute prepaid plan, for example, you pay 25 cents a minute for the first 10 minutes of the day you use, and 10 cents a minute thereafter.

4.) Find Your Perfect Match
Most cell phone plans look alike, but the truth is that providers often differ on the special add-ons they offer with their plans. Going with the carrier whose offer fits your needs best could save you a bundle. Are you in the habit of grabbing your cell phone right after work to call your gal-pal Jane and talk until the wee hours of the evening? Go with a carrier that offers the earliest free-evening minutes. At Sprint, for example, nighttime minutes start at 7PM, while with other carriers 9PM is the norm. Cingular, on the other hand, allows you to roll your unused minutes over to the following months: a great perk if your minute usage is inconsistent.

5.) Trim the Fat
Roadside assistance for only $3 or $4 a month (which means your carrier will come to your rescue if you have car trouble and, say, tow your car to the nearest service station) and equipment protection for just $5 sounded like nothing when you signed up for your plan. But those additional costs quickly add up. And the fact is, you probably don't need them.

Source: AOL.com


About Fred Harteis: Fred Harteis leads Harteis International. Fred has a background in agriculture and has lead many successful business ventures.