Going from a carrier to no contract

[wellyes]

We are up to $140 a month for 2 phones (Verizon) and that seems ridiculous.
If you switched to a no-contract, did you regret it?

[belovedgandp]

I've loved it. I'm a year into being with Virgin Mobile after many years with T-Mobile. The up front cost of the phone was a bit of a shock after years of doing long contracts and cheap phones, but it's definitely already paid for itself.

We used to work some family plans with DH, myself and my parents cominbed, but DH has an employer provided phone now and my parents went on their own, so a single phone was getting nutty expensive.

[AngB]

We are a year plus in. We use straight talk with att towers. (I like with straight talk you can pick which signal/towers you use and easily switch if it isn't working.) We pay 45/mo unlimited talk text and data a month for each phone. (Tax is like $2 total so maybe 47ish in reality.)

If you can bring your current phones over then its an even better deal but we bought Motorala Moto G smart phones which work perfectly for us and were under 200 each (more like 120ish) even buying without contract, and we have 4g, decent cameras, Sd card slots to expand memory, etc. I even use it to swipe credit card sales when I do direct sales parties.

[twowhat?]

Just switched about 6 months ago. It's great. We went with AT&T. It's cheaper, I get a $5 discount for signing up for automatic refills. Now we just pay $60ish/month on each phone (accounting for the $5 discount), 2 GB data (plenty if you are usually connected to WiFi), unlimited talk/text. Verizon was really starting to get ridiculous with their family plan pricing and the limits on buckets of minutes. And $10 extra a month just to get 1000 texts? Robbery. No thanks, had enough. We put the grandparents on prepaid phones since they use theirs very little.

DH, who travels a ton to not-so-major cities, says Verizon coverage tends to be a bit better when you're off the beaten path (so you may not have much of a choice if you're in a "dead" area for other carriers) but other than that, it has been GREAT to BREAK FREE from Verizon and their nickel and dime-ing.

[vludmilla]

We switched to virgin mobile over 3 years ago and we love it. We live in the NYC metro area and coverage has been great here and when we travel but perhaps there are areas with worse coverage. We pay less than $40 each a month and we use Samsung Galaxy phones.

[jgenie]

We switched to virgin mobile over 3 years ago and we love it. We live in the NYC metro area and coverage has been great here and when we travel but perhaps there are areas with worse coverage. We pay less than $40 each a month and we use Samsung Galaxy phones.

Can you do this with an iPhone? Is there a store front to set it up or is it all online? TIA

[liz]

DH and I switched about 3-4 years ago. We have the Walmart/Tmobile plan for $30 and have been very happy with the service. We bought Samsung Galaxy phones. I have also heard great things about boost mobile and straight talk from co-workers. Definitely do your research to see which company and plan works best for you. I would also ask around to see if friends/neighbors get good coverage (ie cell towers) in your area. You can also look online to see coverage maps and DH said there are apps to find out this info as well.

[klwa]

I switched from Virgin to Straight Talk when DH switched from Verizon to Straight Talk. I had always had a very basic plan, and even though my cost went up, the amount his came down more than covered the extra for mine. And, we added data at that point, which neither of us had. We made sure to get phones that work on the Verizon towers, since that works the best for us. This article is a little old, but it will show you how to figure out which network each phone can run off: http://www.prepaidphonenews.com/2011...-straight.html

[crispychicky]

Try ting or Republic Wireless. If you want to keep your existing phone, I'd start with ting. We pay under $50 per month for 2 phones. Zero regrets.

[zukeypur]

We are up to $140 a month for 2 phones (Verizon) and that seems ridiculous.
If you switched to a no-contract, did you regret it?

We are paying $180 for two smart phones and a basic phone with verizon. And that's with a discount.