Day 19 - ET Phone Home

I have a love/hate relationship with AT&T our chosen cellular carrier. I hate their prices, that you cannot get what you truly want and have to take what you don't want to get what you would like. But we made the choice to go with them AGAIN much to my dismay. We looked at many other options and they were the lesser of the evils that the others had to offer. The costs was more then we wanted in the long run but it's the best for now. I can tell you that when the contract runs out I have more confidence that we will NOT stay with them.

I will be checking into StraightTalk for sure! I also have a few others I am going to be watching in the coming months so when the contract IS up we will be ready to make the switch. My biggest concern is being able to port our numbers without any issues!

Any way we do have two cell phones. I carry the contract phone and MiRV carries the prepaid.
It just so happens that we have Mr&Mrs Bud on our contract and they do pay their portion of the bill. We all have unlimited calling and texts and then share the 4GB of data. We have never not even come close to exceeding our data but we also all have great access for no cost wifi. So depending on our locations on the road the usage can vary dramatically and that is why we go with the 4GB at this point. Also after pricing it our lowering the data amount raises the per phone amount so it's basically a wash to go with less so we stay with more. Right now it works for all of us even if I don't like the price.

The prepaid MiRV carries is a basic no frills phone that came with the triple units feature on any cards added as well as an initial one year of time on it.  We will probably have to add a card to extend the time before we need to add more units as we only use it to text/call when we aren't together or get separated while in big stores! Again, it works for us; it would have been even cheaper had we been able to use the phone we already owned but that didn't work out so we ended up spending $40 on a phone (which did have the triple units feature and one year of time upon activation vs the double minutes are old phone had and no time when we would have reactivated it). I ebayed a card for the units and saved a few bucks, used a bonus code and loaded the phone with close to 2250 units. It's all good! It has a camera and wifi capabilities but those both eat units so don't usually get used. 

Our phones are our lifeline while on the road. We maintain them for contact with friends and family, to help us navigate our routes, to find coupons and deals , bank, pay bills and we are thankful to be able to afford this luxury. We are also happy that the one on contract (mine) is a bit fancy (iPhone 4s) and capable of making our own hotspot should we need wifi and none be easily accessible.  I am really not a phone talker but I do check in on my folks regularly (should be better at it) and daughter is a good caller and great texter. Honestly, texting is our main form of keeping informed and staying in touch with the family! Love getting pictures of the Littles especially!

 The Littles (our great niece and nephew) I know, I know THEY are adorable!!!

So that's our phone situation in a nutshell.

Want to know more about the 31 day challenge going on? Check it out right H E R E !