Big Cell Phone Decision
I remember when I bought my first cell phone. Maria was pregnant with Bridget, and I was working in downtown Baltimore.
Just in case the kid decided to come at an inopportune time, she needed a way to get in touch with me. So I headed off to the mall and picked out something cool, but affordable.
I remember looking at all the available calling plans. My instincts told me to pick the cheapest one, but I harbored odd fantasies of getting calls day and night from friends I hadn’t heard from in ages just dying to catch up now that I had a cool new phone.
Yeah, that never happened. In fact in the almost eight years I have had a cell phone, I have learned that I hate talking on the phone whether it’s in my house or can fit in my pocket.
I took a drastic step this week and discontinued my monthly service for a pre-paid phone. For someone like me who just loves the newest and coolest technology, this hurts a little deep down inside.
The epiphany came when I looked at my bill a couple of months ago. I didn’t always do that because I just paid the balance in full without really looking at it in detail. I hardly ever had any additional charges so I didn’t need to be bothered.
Then I saw that I had almost 5,000 rollover minutes at my disposal. That’s not because I had such an awesome plan. I just only used the phone when I absolutely had to, which meant I never got close to my monthly allotment of minutes.
I could honestly talk on the phone for more than three days straight without paying any extra money, but the thought of that just made me cringe. Sending an e-mail was so much simpler.
These days, you can do that from your phone. I didn’t always take advantage of these special features, something that demonstrates how little I care about cell phones. I used to have one of those cool phones with a foldout keyboard, but I never sent all the text messages I said I would when I bought it.
I did have fun buying ringtones for about five minutes. Eventually, I realized that that since I hardly ever got incoming calls, I couldn’t justify changing the sound very often.
The only extra I ever really used a lot was the Tetris game which I downloaded one day. That game has gotten me through a lot of meetings and events I didn’t want to go to but had to for some reason or another.
I don’t know if I can get Tetris on the new phone I bought, which is so flimsy I am afraid my habit of dropping my phone might end up costing me all the money I am saving.
I guess that’s how they get you. They probably know the cheap people like me are also clumsy. I might just have to resort to writing letters if I can’t protect this thing.
Kath Lockett
May 4, 2008Absolutely agree with you, RG.
I also got one when heavily pregnant and, nearly nine years later, have a newer model that is one of the basic phone available. I *hate* it – I avoid taking it places, I turn off the sound and would rather eat my own leg than waste time tapping out inane SMS messages.
How I long for the days of not being contactable 24/7 – even when the phone rings at home and we know it’s someone that we like/love, hubby Love Chunks and I still argue over who should go and answer it.
Bill-DC
May 5, 2008I scrapped my service when the contract expired this January. My wife and I were paying close to $70 a month for pretty much “Can you pick up milk on your way home?” phone calls. Sure, it was great to have when she was pregnant and thankfully we never had to use it for any emergencies then.
We just never used it that much so we each went the prepaid route with T-Mobile. Every three months we refill. They send us a text message when the minutes are close to expiring. This past April they had a special where if we reloaded by the expiration date, the minutes we had would carry over for another three months. I dropped ten bucks worth of prepaid cards in each phone and we’re good to go.
I use it for long distance calls now and I’ve started texting and I’m still on pace to have left over minutes at the end of June when I need to to refill again.
Once you spend $100 in prepaid add ons, the minutes expire in a year instead of 3 months. That’s pretty cool.
Faith
May 5, 2008I, too, loathe talking on the phone. We use our cell phones instead of having a landline, though, since Joe travels so much. He gets a little freaked out if he can’t instantly get in touch with me when he needs to. However, we share our plans, and since he also uses his phone for work, we definitely go through the minutes.
clint
May 7, 2008isn’t funny how people have come to hate talking on the phone? just imagine when today’s youth grows older…how much will they hate talking on the phone?
brian
May 8, 2008Seeing how much they rely on texting and AIM a lot, I bet they are already on that road.