Take That Verizon!

Burke and I have been wanting to switch phone companies for a while, so when our "new every two" deals came up with Verizon several months ago, neither of us filled them, thinking it was time to shop around for a new carrier.  However, when Burke got the job with Western Ag, they wanted his new number immediately so they could print business cards with his number on it.  With the time crunch, we just decided to bite the bullet and go into Verizon to get our new phones and sign the contract for another 2 years.  I had never had a smart phone before and I felt that I really didn't need one, especially when it came with a bill twice as much as my simple talk and text phone cost, but I was ready to take the smart phone plunge due to my desire to have a camera on hand whenever Daphne was doing something adorable that I wanted to capture in the moment.

After 30 minutes in the Verizon store we settled on new phones and were beginning to set them up when the salesman said it would be $130 bucks a month for our 2 phones with just 1 GB of shared data.  I couldn't stomach paying that much money just for a smart phone, so I asked to see the regular phone models, which as it turns out were only $10 cheaper a month and there were only 2 dinky options to choose from.  He said all cell phone companies plan to have nothing but smart phones in the next 2 years, so they are basically forcing everyone to switch over to the data plan.  That really rubbed me the wrong way and in fact, the whole situation just made me feel uncomfortable.  I felt like knew I was being scammed and it made me ticked off in a hurry.  The sassy kid then proceeded to counter all of our concerns with a heaping load of bull, making us more annoyed by the second until we finally decided we were through with Verizon and walked out without purchasing a thing.

A few months earlier my brother Gabe had talked about how happy he was with Straight Talk, so we went to check it out and immediately saw the sense in the product.  It's a NO contract, month-by-month, $45 plan for unlimited talk, text and data.  The catch is that you have to buy a new phone (or have your current phone unlocked) upfront, but if you keep that phone for more than a year, you can save loads of mula on the second year.  Let me show you a little comparison here.

Even with the "new every 2" we were looking at spending $200 bucks a piece on the new IPhone 5 or the new Samsung.  So that would mean $400 bucks up front plus the $130 a month which would equal $1,960 A YEAR on our phones, making it $3,520 over a two year period when you can get new phones and start the whole process over again.  Can you believe we are so dependent on our phones that we would pay that much money for phones?!  It's sickening.

With Straight Talk we would spend $300 bucks a piece for a refurbished IPhone 4 and then $45 a month for the unlimited plan.  That would make it $600 bucks for the phones, $90 a month for the plans, equaling $1680 in the first year and a total of $.  However, with the cost of the phones covered the second year, you are saving a total of $2,760 in a two year period.

Verizon 2 year cost = $3,520
Straight Talk 2 year cost = $2,760

That's a saving of $760 bucks on just your phone bill for 2 people!  AND if you already have a smart phone that can be used through straight talk, you're looking at well over $1,000 on savings!  That's enough savings for a family trip!  For us, it was a no-brainer.

I joined the IPhone world less than a month ago and I am SO thrilled with the change!  I love knowing I can cancel the plan at any time, I love that I can whip that bad boy out and snap a picture of Daph at any given moment, I love the GPS driving directions, I love having the scriptures/general conference talks/sunday school lesson, etc at the tap of a button and I especially love the Running Ap that clocks how many calories I burned on my run this morning and how far I went, etc, etc.

This post totally sounds like a commercial, but I really am so pleased with the change and hope if you are in a similar situation that you can fight "the man" and not buy into their outrageous prices because they think we have no other option.  Take that Verizon monopoly!