Is your cell phone dragging you down?

[devilc]

I see this so often where I work and amongst my friends -- people who struggle to make ends meet and yet the majority of them have a smartphone (with a dataplan).

A friend of mine who has 2 part time jobs and no health insurance recently had a medical emergency that landed her in the hospital for two days and she's dreading that bill. But, she's got a Samsung Galaxy SIII and a phone bill of over $100/month for it.

If you want to free up some money, ask yourself, is that smartphone a want or a need?

1) Is your phone your sole source of Internet connectivity? (Did you ditch your previous ISP when you got this phone? Or is this the first time you've had your own Internet connectivity?)
2) Do your job's work duties require you to have a smart phone? (And if so, is there a way to get your employer -- if you're not a temp or a freelancer -- to pay for it or subsidize it?)

If you said "no" to either of those, then, sorry, it's a want. There was life before Twitter, Facebook, etc.

It might not be cool, but a pay as you go feature phone with a plan that lets you call and text really is all you need, and many of these can be had for out of pocket cash of under $75, with calling plans of about $15/mo.

If what you really use your smartphone for is entertainment while standing in line or while in transit? Get an iPod Touch or a small tablet and load it up with books, music, videos, and games. It will pay for itself in 4 months, tops.

And the extra $50-75 of cash you can throw at bills or put into your eFund is a very good thing.

Comments

Other things that might make it more a need than a want...

[kyrielle]

(And mine is a want, so this is not "my" reasons, but I know people with some of these:)

* Large portion of time spent on the go and need to be able to access resources there. This is everyone from "two hours each way bus commute" folks to "travels for work almost weekly, this is cheaper than buying wifi access at every airport" folks.

* Lives in an area where free/reliable wifi is hard to come by while out and about

* Has a need for internet access while at work for personal reasons, but use of the company intranet is contraindicated (inappropriate by company policy even for good reason; or the reasons are private - for example medical matters - and don't want IT's monitoring to even possibly pick it up)

* Has a need for productivity tools that synchronize, including while out/about, including while wifi may not be (or definitely isn't) available.

(Shared grocery lists. Shared task lists. Etc.)

* Health issues that need additional security/safety inherent in such a phone.

* Health issues that make other workarounds suboptimal (keeping track of / carrying / using multiple devices; use of physical lists or texts rather than apps; etc.).

* Different cost ratios. There are some areas where only one provider - usually one of the big ones - has any coverage to speak of. The price differences may not be nearly as large / beneficial in those cases. Also, some people may have a discount with one particular provider due to where they work, in which case it may not cost as much as someone not aware of that might think.

* Health issues again, this time mental. I know someone whose little networked phone games help them A LOT with coping. Shall I criticize them for finding a solution that helps them tune out things they need to tune out, so that they can better deal with life, just because it involves a data plan? I've seen chemical fixes for that same issue that cost more than a data plan....

Certainly, if you're short on money, and your phone is a want, you have to weigh that against your other wants and weigh it hard against your needs. But I don't think someone else should be doing that weighing for a person.

(Also, having been hit with hospital bills, the phone is a drop in the bucket compared to the probable hospital bill.)

Re: Other things that might make it more a need than a want...

[jamethiel]

YEP.

I ticked off the first point, second point, third point.

I'd also add just a "safety" thing. Quite often unless I had access to mobile data, I wouldn't know that trains had been cancelled/stopped at a certain station. I went through some incredibly high-crime-rate stations to get to my work. If the train was going to stop at a station for a bus replacement which would require me to spend 20 minutes waiting for a bus at the side of the road while a drug addict harassed me for money (actually happened), I would generally choose to catch the longer bus ride to a different train line. But unless I had a smart-phone, I wouldn't know about it at all.

Re: Other things that might make it more a need than a want...

[kyrielle]

...I am now deeply grateful that my personal experience doesn't include stations like that. Yikes.

Re: Other things that might make it more a need than a want...

[jamethiel]

It was not fun. Other memorable instances include the time the police stormed the platform and tackled a guy 20m away from me to the ground and took a knife off him o.O There were two drive-by shootings there in a year.

Re: Other things that might make it more a need than a want...

[kyrielle]

Whups, and on my last point, I want to note I am *not* criticizing said chemical solutions *nor* am I saying that a smart phone with a data plan will substitute for them for everyone. I'm just saying that for the person I knew, it did in fact help them to that huge a degree, and that they needed it enough that had they gotten rid of that help they might in fact have needed the expensive chemical fixes.

Which are invaluable if you need them and they're what works.