Monday, March 24, 2008

Picking colleges for the kids won't be this hard...

or require this much math.

That is right. We are at that union of the holy and the unholy. The end of a 2 year cell phone contract. Deciding what we should do next has become my obsession.

For the time being I am holding onto my 2 year old flip phone, which once was The Boss Lady's one year old cell phone. But we are contract free. Old-school flip phone technology meets financial freedom. Or something like that...

I have been lusting after a web-enabled smart phone. Checking email and blogging on the go sounds really cool. Then I found out that all those bells and whistles cost an extra $15-$30 each month. As it is now, I hardly use my phone. We have the fewest minutes available from our cell provider and never go over on talk-time.

So the current quandary: leave everything as it is now, but get laughed at every time I pull the old flip phone out of my pocket, renew for another two years with our same contract and get new, but not totally cool, freebie phones, or drop the bomb, get a discount on the high dollar Smart Phone by signing up for a new contract with our current provider.

Of course, that does not take into account all of the other providers. they may have discounts that are just as good as our current provider. And most of them have cooler phones. But trying to compare plans between companies is like doing calculus while swinging on the monkey bars. And I have never been any good at EITHER of those things...

So which is more important? Ensuring that I don't get laughed at for a couple of more years or pinching every penny until my current phone bites the big one?

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

There is something both exhilirating and slightly creepy when I pull out my Motorola Z3 (it's a cool blue slide phone) in front of teens and I catch them look at it with an approving glance. But like you, I hardly use the thing. I have 300 minutes per/month plan and most months, I only use about 1/3 of that.

Anonymous said...

At the very least, Mike, I would sign up for a new contract with the same plan and get new phones. Most phones are free (at least from the providers over here) when you sign up with a 2 year contract.

The phones you currently have will start to have battery life issues. It always happens after several years of charging, discharging - even with the newer Lithium batteries. My father had this probably and finally just broke down and signed another 2 year agreement just to get the free new Motorola Razors.

BTW, his ringtone is the theme to Curb Your Enthusiasm. It's pretty funny. :) Good luck!

Terry said...

I agree, go for the new phones, and renew the contract...if you are happy with your provider....I have used the same provider for 10 years with great success and just get the new freebie phone each renewal period...