Mobile Computing News

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We all love our mobile phones, don’t we? But the reality is not everyone can afford contract bundles and, like teens, have to settle for pay-as-you-go options. The problem here is it’s really easy to burn through your call units, particularly if you use a lot of data and make frequent calls. Here’s a surefire way to reduce your phone bill by up to 50 per cent!

Step 1: Be disciplined

The most important thing is being disciplined. Do you really need to call that person during peak times, let alone at all? Will a text message suffice, particularly if you end it with a firm ‘Thanks, I’ll catch up with you soon,’ so as to avoid the classic back-and-forth messaging? If you answered yes, you’re already on your way to reducing your phone bill charges as long as you stay disciplined.

Step 2: Alternatives

If you have the Internet in your home on a fairly generous bandwidth bundle, do you use VoIP services? Convert all your friends and family to Skype, or just IMing, and watch your phone bill charges crater without having to reduce how frequently you make contact with them.

Step 3: Turn off always-connected apps

Some applications rely on ‘phoning home’ or ‘push notifications’, meaning you’re always bleeding data – and this costs you money. This may not be a problem if you’re on a contract with a data bundle, but it is a problem if you’re on pay as you go. Your credits just seep away. Watch out – this is a surefire way to eek out some recourse from your phone bill charges.

Extreme measures: purchase a budget phone

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Some people cannot help but use their phones. It’s like muscle reflex, particularly if the user interface is fun to play around with. One tactic I used for several months was to keep a budget phone on my person. Generally speaking, these handsets do only two things well – make/receive calls and send text messages. And they’re not as much fun to use as contemporary smartphones, which leads to using them only when absolutely necessary. It’s extreme, yes, but the tedium of use (relative to smartphones, that is) makes for an awesome deterrent. Think of it like reformed alcoholics’ relationship with alcohol – they go out of their way to not be in an environment where there is alcohol, so as not to relapse. The difference is your smartphone-dependent self won’t keep tossing coin after coin to your carriers at whim because you don’t have your vice on you.

What techniques and methods do you have for saving on your phone bill?