The stupid toilet paper subscription service
Imagine for a minute that you have a toilet paper subscription service. Your subscription package is called the Mega Twenty. Every month you get 20 rolls of toilet paper.
If in any particular month you use only 18 rolls, you have to throw away the two you didn’t use, and if on the following month you need 22 rolls, you have to pay for the extra two rolls you need.
Would you get that package? Does that package makes sense to you?
Hopefully, your answer would be “No.” But that’s precisely what we do with our phone service packages.
Phone packages are just as stupid
Most people sign up for a package of X amount of phone minutes, text messages, and/or data. Most phone plans range from $35/month to $80/month. If you don’t use your allowed time/data limit, that’s too bad for you, you paid money for nothing. If you use more than your allowed time/data limit, you will get charged more.
In a quest to pay less for my phone bill
I used to pay $35/month, but I wanted to see how much less I could pay.
Mind you, that I work from home and I have WiFi available most of the time.
I found out that I hardly use my phone to make phone calls. Through my Gmail account, with my Chrome browser, I can make free phone calls anywhere from Canada to Mexico. It doesn’t cost me one cent other than my regular internet service.
For international calls, I use WhatsApp. I call my cousins in Colombia and it doesn’t cost me anything either.
For texting, I use many different apps. I use WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, Google Hangouts. There are many other texting apps available to us such as LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram, all of them available with your Wi-Fi connection, and all of them available for free.
Of course, if you want to do a face-to-face call, there is always Zoom, Skype, Microsoft Teams, and Google Meet.
For Google maps, I have the map of my city (Montreal) already downloaded on my phone, and I can get directions, even without data.
I have already trained all my family members and friends to use one of these free means of communication when getting in touch with me. No one resisted. Hopefully they will notice that they too, they can save lots of money by using free means of communication.
I still pay for a phone plan, but I pay the bare minimum. I pay $15/month. I have those in case of an emergency. I am sure in the future I will reduce this amount to zero.
Connect with your friends, not with your phone
I think phone companies and society in general has taught us to be dependent on the data in our phone, all the time.
I find it sad when I see people outside texting other people instead of being present and talking to each other. If anything, this pandemic has taught us how precious human connection is. When we are face-to-face we should focus and be present with the person right in front of us and not texting with someone else.
But just in case we still need a phone number for one reason or another. For that, I suggest to get a pay-as-you-go plan or get one of the bare minimum plans available out there. Maybe you could check out Public, which has a phone plan starting at $13 per month. If the readers find a less expensive plan, please mention it in the comments or sending a private message so that I can update the information.
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