Smart Phone, Dumb Economy: $10/year

One of the reasons I got the BenQ E72 without a service contract is because now I have total freedom when choosing a plan. Normally if you get a phone that's subsidized by the carrier, they tell you which plans you're allowed to use, and in the case of smartphones, they often require you to get a data plan that will cost you an additonal $20-$60 per month. We're all about being frugal right now, so I'm going to use a T-Mobile pre-paid SIM card for this phone. It has no data plan, only prepaid voice minutes and text/picture messages.

The prepaid “Pay as You Go” T-Mobile account can give you mobile phone service for as little as $10 per year! The cost of voice minutes vary based on how much credit you purchase at a time. $100 for 1000 minutes is the most cost-effective route, and with that fill-up, the minutes don’t expire for a year. What’s more, if you add a $10 credit before those minutes expire after that first year, all of them are renewed and rolled over for another year. Of course, this may be too much of a sacrifice for some, but also note that you can send text messages for 10 cents each and receive them for 5 cents each... which would be an even more cost-effective way to communicate.

Compare this to the least expensive plan on ATT for an iPhone: $70/month before taxes! That’s $840/year vs. $10/year.

Also see: Smart Phone Dumb Economy: BenQ E72 for $128