{"id":9211,"date":"2015-03-08T17:31:10","date_gmt":"2015-03-08T21:31:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/?p=9211"},"modified":"2015-03-08T17:31:10","modified_gmt":"2015-03-08T21:31:10","slug":"why-you-should-never-sign-a-cell-phone-contract-again","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/why-you-should-never-sign-a-cell-phone-contract-again\/","title":{"rendered":"Why You Should Never Sign a Cell Phone Contract Again"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Why You Should Never Sign a Cell Phone Contract Again<\/h1>\n

Like rocket science and high school relationships, cell phone plans are complicated for a reason. Two-year contract or early-upgrade plan? Month-to-month or pay-as-you-go? Individual or shared data?<\/p>\n

Big carriers like AT&T and Verizon love it this way \u2014 they know most consumers won\u2019t know a good plan from a bad one. When every choice is filled with exceptions, limitations and fine print, how can you even begin to compare your options? You\u2019d be a fool to even try.<\/p>\n

Well, call us fools, because we sat down and did just that. In order to keep things straightforward, we made a few assumptions up front:<\/p>\n

1. You want a recent premium phone, not a clunker. We\u2019re talking iPhone 6 or Samsung Galaxy S6.<\/p>\n

2. You want about 2-3 GBs of data per month\u2014enough to use GPS, browse the web, and check email on a regular basis.<\/p>\n

3. You don\u2019t want to worry about how many messages you\u2019ve sent, so the plan needs to allow for unlimited texts as well.<\/p>\n

Just by making these assumptions, the options\u2014and the math\u2014get a lot simpler. Yes, you can certainly save even more if you optimize your exact number of texts, minutes and data with a pay-as-you-go plan, but who wants to think that hard about their cellular service? So long as you just want a decent plan on a good phone, we\u2019ve got you covered.<\/p>\n

The four options, from worst to first
\nWhen it comes down to it, there are roughly four types of cell plans. We\u2019ll order them from worst to first here, then break it down below.<\/p>\n

4) a payment plan, like AT&T\u2019s Next or Verizon\u2019s Edge
\n3) a two-year contract
\n2) a pay-as-you-go plan
\n1) a month-to-month plan (requires an unlocked phone with no contract)<\/p>\n

The payment plan: A wolf in sheep\u2019s clothing
\nPayment Plans: The Big Two | FindTheBest
\nIf you\u2019re just looking for an individual plan, the first option is arguably the worst. The way the plan works: you pay $0 the day you get your new phone, but then you pay about $20 on top of your normal monthly fee in roughly 30 installments (the exact rate and number of installments vary by plan, but the overall concept is very similar). After 30 months of payments, you end up paying about $50 more under this method than if you had selected a two-year contract.<\/p>\n

That said, the payment plans allow you to trade in your phone early for a new one\u2014typically at the 12-, 18-, or 24-month mark, depending on which option you choose. On paper, this makes the payment plan a cheaper option than the two-year contract\u2014by our calculations, you save about $40 compared to a two-year contract if you trade in at the 24-month mark.<\/p>\n

But all of this ignores one key wildcard: the resale value of your phone. A top-shelf phone like the iPhone 6 can potentially net you $400 after one year, or around $300 after two years, using a site like eBay or Gazelle. Once you factor in the resale value of your phone, the payment plan option is simply the worst way to go, whatever way you slice it. It\u2019s no wonder the phone companies are pushing these the hardest.<\/p>\n

The two-year contract: Still subsidized, still a bad deal<\/p>\n

2-Year Contract Plans: The Big Two | FindTheBest<\/p>\n

The two-year contract lets you buy an expensive phone (say, the $649 iPhone 6) for a seemingly inexpensive, subsidized price ($199). Naturally, however, the cost of the phone is baked into your monthly fee, and by the time two years have passed, you’ve paid the full price for the device…<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Read the rest of this article at Time.com\u00a0<\/a><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Why You Should Never Sign a Cell Phone Contract Again Like rocket science and high school relationships, cell phone plans are complicated for a reason. Two-year contract or early-upgrade plan? Month-to-month or pay-as-you-go? Individual or shared data? Big carriers like AT&T and Verizon love it this way \u2014 they know most consumers won\u2019t know a good plan from\u2026 Read More »<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,1426,1674],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9211"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9211"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9211\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9212,"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9211\/revisions\/9212"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9211"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9211"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9211"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}