Save Money By Sharing a Mobile Plan

September 23, 2013

My mother-in-law was trying to make a call with her cell phone, but it froze up. She wanted to turn it off and on to try to bring it back to life, but since the power button was broken she had to remove the battery to power her phone off.

“Mom, time for a new cell phone, don’t you think?" my wife said while laughing.

My mother-in-law and her husband have been in need of new mobile phones for quite awhile now, but just weren’t sure what to go with. Quite frankly they were in need of a plan change as well because theirs was as out of date as their phones, having limited texting and calling minutes for an unusually high price. We have been trying to coax them to join our shared plan for the past year, and that night’s battery fiasco finally pushed them over the edge.

We walked into our cell phone provider and explained to the salesman that we wanted to add our in-laws to our plan just to make that it would be allowed. He said it was absolutely fine, and started probing them for what kind of phone might fit them best.

Advantage: The Bill

It will cost $30 per line to add them to our current plan. Add to that their share of the data plan charges, and their bill will decrease by about $15 a month from what they have now even with a significant upgrade in service. Our bill will decrease by about $28 since we will now be sharing the cost of the shared data plan.

A win-win scenario for all of us!

Disadvantage: The Bill

Since all of our lines are on the same plan, a single bill is sent to our home. Each month they will have to send us their portion of the bill. The good news for us is that we use a common bank, and have transfers between our checking accounts setup as we have had to do this several times over the last few years.

Adding the in-laws to our mobile phone plan looks to be a great deal for all involved since we weren’t using even close to our 10GB of data each month, and it will save both parties a little money. After adding our in-laws we will have 5 lines on our plan, but are allowed to have a maximum of 10. Maybe we’ll see if we can find other friends and family to buy in as well!

Do you share a mobile plan with friends or family? How is it working out for you?

Brought to you courtesy of Brock