Cell Phone Minute Craze
Jodi and I first got our phones a little over a year ago. We jumped on a sweet monthly price of $29.95/per phone that offered us each 1,000 minutes a month. We also decided to upgrade a little bit and get Voicemail and Caller ID but that was only another $5.00/month - why not right?
Over the months those 1,000 minutes (2,000 for the both of us) was more than enough. I usually ended up with somewhere close to 500 and Jodi kept the minutes much closer to 200.
When I started Elevator Up L.L.C. my minutes doubled, then tripled. My first month I went over my plan by 501 minutes that made my usage minutes 1501 for the month of March. My bill was insane.
I ended up calling Alltell and asking if I could upgrade my plan and if there was any way they could drop my current bill down if I did upgrade my plan. At the end of the day I ended up saving well over a $100.00 and I now was able to talk for 1400 minutes a month.
With 1400 minutes a month I felt that was quite a bit and going over that again would be pretty hard to do. That was until I got my bill for this month and my minutes totaled 1630.
Not only was a shocked that I talked that much but that my bill was now $251.19. I was being thrown over hot coals as punishment for my minute overages (40 cents a minute).
So the routine started up once again - I called Alltell and asked if I could upgrade my plan yet again. They happily agreed and bumped me up to 2200 minutes a month and even gave me some sweet deals like free long distance, web browsing, and road side service for two months.
Also - while talking to them, I found out that moving to a family plan was much cheaper and we could also share minutes. So how it broke down was - my phone would cost me $100.00 a month and I would get 2200 minutes. I then could add Jodi onto the family paln and it only costs me an extra $20.00 (plus taxes for both of us)
As for recalculating my current month’s bill of $251.19 - that took me a couple minutes. The lady wasn’t so quick to redo the bill, but after a couple minutes of talking she finally broke. My bill was now broken down to $130.00 instead of the orginional $251.19 price tag that was filled with things like Roaming Charges, Airtime & Dir. Assistan Changes, Taxes, and other charges and credits.
I’m really hoping that this isn’t a month occuranance for me. I don’t like spending more money and I don’t like having to wade through corporate phone services to get done what I need done. With that note however - I will say that Alltell’s phone system is probably the best in the world. It’s just frick’in awesome.
Howard Says:
I had to finally break down and get c ell phone service. Ended up with Illinois Valley Cellular for my folks $39.95/month + taxes for 500 minutes (free nights and weekends) and Sprint PCS for me and the evil stepdaughter $92/month+ tax - 2 phones 1,100 minutes free nights/weekends.
It seems like between telephone, cable internet, cell phones, cable TV, etc it’s like another house payment! My dad always said it was OK to spend money as long as you had something to show for it. How times change!
So, are you going to perfoem the marriage or was it just for kicks, Reverend Schappy?