Are you still on your family's cell phone plan
or talking about it?
It's actually saving you money when it might be time to fly the coop.
So,
helping us navigate this tricky topic is
Philip Michaels managing editor at Tom's guide.
Philip.
It's great to have you on this show here as survey
this year actually found that 34% of kids share a phone,
a family plan
with their parents.
Why do you think that's the case?
Well,
because um uh escalating discounts for adding
multiple lines to plans generally mean that um
that you can save more money by being on your parents' plan or being on a family plan.
Uh So it makes a lot of sense financially.
I have my own plan.
Uh But I do know people who just Venmo, their parents, adults,
I should say who still Venmo, their parents because you're right to your point.
It is cheaper to stay on the family plan. What are the pros though beyond
maybe just the ease of staying on the family plan.
Um The pros of staying on the family plan again, you're,
you're paying less per month.
There's, there's a lot less hassle of, uh,
having to track down your own plan and it's, it's iii, I, it's AAA good way of just, uh,
managing one part of your life and, and, and sort of blocking that off to the side.
Yeah. Yeah, it's easy. Ok. So what are some of the cons is dangerous to
your parents plan?
Sure.
Well, the, the, the cons are,
obviously there's a financial entanglement there that maybe, uh,
can get awkward and maybe you want more control over your own uh uh,
expenditures also, if you end up moving to uh a new place where maybe the uh,
coverage isn't as strong as before that, that kind of can
mess up your, your, your, your experience as well with the cell phone. Ok.
So I think we've covered it from the potential money savers point of view. Right.
Probably the child, even the adult child, however you want to parse that.
But let's take a look at it from the parents' perspective.
Phil Up, what are the pros and cons for a parent to allow someone
to stay on their family phone plan?
Well, they're getting the benefits too and it's not just financial in,
in some cases you get more, uh, perks to your plan if you, uh have more people on there,
for instance, uh t-mobile, uh uh if you have two people on your plan, you,
you get your Netflix uh account picked up for free.
So that's a, that's a nice little, uh, uh, perk to the, having a, uh, a family plan.
Interesting, uh, bundle plans. Do you think they're always worth it?
Uh, sometimes they can be, I, I assume we're talking about bundle plans with, uh, uh,
uh, other services like your cable and your, your, your internet.
Yes. Tied to one provider. I mean, I see that
horizon,
uh, obviously it can be there, there can be that, that financial savings.
The difficulty is if you
end up needing to change one of those things, you need to change all of them. So,
um, that there's that potential, uh, hassle down the, the road.
It's, it's great for the, um, for, for a provider because they're tying you in and,
and eventually you just say, well, I'll,
I'll stick with them rather than hunt down three separate providers.
What about some of the lesser known providers?
How would you look at that when making this decision?
I,
I would definitely consider them particularly if you're
thinking about striking out on your own because
they can offer much lower rates. In fact, rates that
you would be getting with those, uh, family plan discounts.
For instance, Mint Mobile, uh, if you pay upfront, you can, uh,
really get some significant savings over the course of a year.
And right now they're, of course,
having their promotion where the first three months are $15 per month, which is a,
a very fantastic deal if you're switching.
Ok, let's say you want to make the switch. Where would you start?
I would start you at
the risk of uh promoting my own work.
You should go to Tom's guide dot com because we have a lot of
uh buying guides uh that can show you and compare different uh plans,
whether it's from the big carriers like t-mobile Verizon AT&T
and some of the smaller ones like mint that I mentioned or visible or any of those, uh,
uh,
carriers who might be offering lower rates so that you
can see not only what you'll pay each month,
but what kind of perks you can expect?
What plan is like most attracted to you right now.
Uh, I really like, uh, visible, uh, unlimited plan. There are two tiers.
The lowest, uh, tier is $25 a month, which is, uh, uh,
very affordable for unlimited data that includes, uh, taxes and fees, I believe.
Uh, not many perks to that.
But if you're willing to pay $45 a month, they, uh, offer some more, uh, uh, uh,
perks along the lines of international data and whatnot.
Um, mint is a very promising, uh, option. If again, you wanna, uh, pay upfront.
And, um,
yeah, those, those were the,
would be the two that I would look at if I was trying to break free of the, uh,
the major carriers.
All right, Philip Michaels.
Uh, thank you so much for joining, helping us stretch our Dollar?