How to Save Money on Your Cellphone Bill

Save Money on Your Cellphone or Telephone Bill

Long-distance services in the dorms are a moneymaking venture for your school, but can be a budget-busting venture for you because the rates are so high. Make your cell phone your only phone, shop around for the deal that best suits your calling habits (see www.letstalk.com), and avoid exceeding your free minutes.

Another alternative to collegeprovided long-distance services is www.net2phone.com or other Internet phone services. If your dorm has unlimited broadband Internet service, you can use your computer to make phone calls for as little as two cents per minute. For around $35 a month, you can make unlimited phone calls, keep your home area code, and save your parents money on their calls to you.

Find a free chat room where you and friends or family can "talk" online. You'll avoid long-distance telephone charges, which are one of the largest expenses for most college students.

Use email or instant messaging instead of calling long-distance to keep in touch with friends and family. Save the phone for special occasions. When you do call long-distance, do so during off-peak hours to reduce the costs.

If you have landline phone service at school, get only the basics. Services like call waiting, caller ID, and three-way calling add unnecessary costs that add up over the course of the school year.

If you keep your cell phone calling plan when you go away to college, you'll incur roaming fees unless you have a plan that covers a wide geographic area and treats all calls in that area as local calls. Before you use your cell phone at college, call your provider and make sure you won't be incurring roaming fees. You may have to switch plans to a local provider.

Directory assistance is the lazy person's way of looking up a phone number, and can cost you between $.60 and $1.10 each time you use the service. Look up numbers in the phone book or online at www.anywho.com or www.switchboard.com, where the information is free. Even worse is the fee to have your phone ring when a busy number you tried to call becomes available. Fees like these, although seemingly inconsequential, are a waste of money and can add up over the course of a month or a semester.

Avoid making collect or third-party telephone calls. They're an expensive way to phone home.

Keep a calling card handy for situations where you can't make a call directly. You won't always be able to rely on your cell phone.

Consider asking your parents to get a toll-free number so you can call home whenever you want to. No extra phone line is needed.

Make international calls using a prepaid phone card. International calls from your dorm or college-provided phone system will be prohibitively expensive.

Stay away from calling card plans that use your credit card. It's much too easy to overspend and you'll end up paying interest on top of the cost of the call if you can't pay your credit card balance in full at the end of the month. You'll also tie up your available credit, which you may need for something more important.

If you switch cell phone plans, watch out for the termination fee. Most companies charge nearly $200 if you terminate your plan in less than two years, unless you sign up for a bigger and better (more expensive) plan. Get all the facts before you make a move.

Don't dial 900 numbers or other telephone numbers that involve a fee for a service like news, sports, weather, traffic, or the time. You can get this information free in other places, including the Internet, newspapers, radio, and TV.

Before buying a cell phone, make sure the carrier has service in the area where you'll be attending school. You wouldn't be happy to commit to a two-year plan with a $175 early termination fee only to find when you got to school that your carrier doesn't operate in that area. You'd be stuck with the cost of signing up for a duplicate plan (with duplicate costs) or incurring the dreaded, and wasteful, early termination fee. It's best to wait until you get to campus to buy a cell phone.

Don't buy cell phone insurance. It's a waste of money.

Plan ahead so you can make longdistance telephone calls during offpeak hours, when the rates are lowest. This is usually in the evening or on weekends.

Before choosing a cell phone plan or a long-distance calling plan, ask yourself these questions: How many minutes will I be talking on the phone each month? What time of day do I make the bulk of my calls? Where do I call? Consider your answers to these questions when choosing your plan and you'll save money by getting the plan that fits your calling patterns.

If you'd like a cell phone only for emergencies, any cell phone will do, without paying for a calling plan. All cell phones will work for 911 calls anywhere you can receive a signal. You don't have to pay a cent. Find a used cell phone at a yard sale or talk to friends who are planning to buy a new cell phone and ask for their old one.

Long-distance telephone costs can be a bone of contention among roommates when sharing a dorm room or apartment if it's unclear who is responsible for the cost of some of the calls when the bill arrives. Keeping a log near the phone where everyone records the date, time, and place of their long-distance calls can prevent you from getting stuck paying for calls you didn't make.

If a simple log doesn't do the trick to prevent confusion about which roommate made which long-distance calls, take advantage of the managed long-distance services provided by many telephone companies. You can block all toll calls from your landline by contacting your service provider, or you can elect to require a PIN number in order to place a long-distance call. Other options may also be available.