Thursday, November 20, 2014

$10 cell phone plan REVIEW!!!

Hey everyone! Sorry I haven't blogged recently, life has been CRAZY and soon I will post a complete update on EVERYTHING going on :-)

Until then, I just HAD to take a minute to share my review of my recent $10 cell phone plan adventure.

So if any of you follow me on facebook you'll remember when my poor little iphone 4 passed away.  For 2 weeks I tried to repair it myself- spent hours on the phone with apple to no avail. My 4 year old phone had bit the dust.

Im a penny pincher, frugalista to the max, so that made me super sad since I was on a great $30 a month pre-paid phone plan and this meant I would have to take the plunge and buy a new phone, OUT OF CONTRACT. ouch. That is, unless I wanted to sign a 2 year agreement somewhere and pay $80 + a month. No thanks.

Republic WirelessPer the recommendation of my brother, a super duper tech savvy genius, I decided to give Republic Wireless a chance. It is a cell phone company that uses the At&t towers but also uses wifi.. plans start from $5 (wifi only coverage) and go up to $25 (unlimited talk, text, and data on or off wifi networks). I opted for the plan in-between, the $10 a month plan (unlimited talk and text and then my data usage comes off wifi networks). yes that meant I would sacrafice being able to google a quick recipe while grocery shopping (although most places you can find a wifi connection any how these days), but I felt it was worth the sacrafice. The great thing is, you can switch plans up to twice a month, so if the no internet while away from wifi was really such a big deal for me, then I could always opt to switch to the $25 plan (still cheaper than what I was paying prior at $30 with page plus and $85 with verizon back when I had them almost a year ago now).

Moto GThe catch to using Republic Wireless is that you have to buy one of their phones to get started, you can't use your current phone and switch. For me, that was no big deal because I was at a place where I needed to buy a phone any ways. The phones range from $99 and up. I opted for the Moto G which is the $150 one since it had a better camera and Lord knows how many pictures I take with my phone (moms out there, can I get an amen?!)

So, just about a month ago, I took the plunge and ordered my phone. I must say, I truly love it so far! I waited until today to port my other number over just in case I didn't like it. See, they give you 30 days to try it out so I knew I didn't have anything but shipping to lose if it didn't work out and if it did, I could save a significant amount of money each month!

The phone itself is great, I love it...it has taken me a bit of time to adjust to it, but now that I am getting the hang of it, it is pretty similar to my prior iphone in what I can do with it, except its like a million times faster.

The no data while out and about has actually been great. It forces me into being more present which I think we all need. I mean, really, how many of us REALLY need unlimited internet access EVERYWHERE WE GO?! I get it, it is convenient, but it is also completely doable to live without it for the extra savings.

Now for the service. It has been really good. No dropped calls as of yet. It does sound a little choppy or muffled sometimes on the wifi connection but it automatically flips over to using a cell tower so while there have been a few times ive had to say "sorry, can you repeat that?", it resolves itself rather quickly, and for only $10 a month, I think that its doing a darn good job!!! I also love that I have unlimited minutes so I can freely chat without worrying that I am going to run out. Same with the text messages.

Overall I would highly recommend that if your contract is up, or you are looking to switch, you should really look into republic wireless. It is by far the cheapest no-contract service I came across and im really happy I gave it a shot!