I’ve been making a conscious effort not to worry about every last penny (hence the name of the blog) and instead tackle large recurring charges. The most success I’ve had has been with AT&T. To show how much we have saved, here’s a breakdown of how much we pay and how much we save:

• AT&T Family Plan 700 Minutes 200 bonus minutes per line (800 total; added by customer service representative)
• Unlimited Text Messages for the entire family (added by customer service representative; expires in 4 months)
• 1700 rollover minutes (1,000 added by customer service representative)

• 18% employee discount

We use about 1,600 or 1,700 minutes a month as a family, so right now, we are dipping into our rollover minutes slightly (only 22 last month). When those run out, we’ll have to upgrade to the 1,400 plan, or get more rollover minutes added.

Here’s a breakdown of how much our cell phone bill would be each month if we paid for all of our features. They are the cheapest plans and features to cover our usage:

• AT&T Family Plan 2,100 minutes – $109.99 for 2 lines + 2 additional lines @ $9.99 each
• Unlimited Text Messages – $30 for the family

This comes out to about $160 + taxes.

Our bill this month? Less than $75 + taxes. So I save about $85 a month, which over the course of one year, comes out to over $1,000 in savings. That’s a lot for just a few minutes of research and a couple of phone calls.
 

This month, it turns out that his texting again went over his limit, and halfway through the month he was already at 200 texts. So, it was time to make a change. I had a 1,500 text message plan for $8.99 that was put on awhile ago with a special code that has since expired. Finally, my father uses 10-15 text messages per month ($2-$3) and my mother usually calls 411 and gets text messages sent to her phone, but does not know how to access them ($1).

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For the last few years, I’ve monitored my family’s AT&T plan by adding text messages for my brothers and me and arguing unnecessary charges from time to time. We started with 200 text messages, but there came a point where I was exceeding that limit and needed an upgrade. $15 for 1,500 text messages seemed like a lot, so I found a code online, spent an hour finding a representative who would add the code for me, and I now have 1,500 text messages for $8.99, which is must more reasonable.

What I didn’t consider until a few months ago is that while we were on a 2,100 minute plan, we were only using about 1800 minutes a month. So while we had lots of rollover minutes, we never had a need for them. I wanted a solution. I found another code online, this one for 200 free bonus minutes. I called up, talked to several different customer service representatives, and finally one agreed to add it to my line. Nervously, I asked the woman if she could add it to some of the other lines, and she said that it would be no problem. So suddenly we had an extra 1,000 minutes for the month that we weren’t paying for. I was able to drop us down to 1,400 minutes and reduced the monthly cost from $109.99 to $89.99 (plus an employer discount). I was pretty happy about saving the family about 200 a year.

My biggest accomplishment was not this, however. With 1,400 minutes, plus an additional 1,000 a month, we were now at a 2,400 plan for the price of 1,400. We were racking up rollover minutes an alarming rate, but they were never needed. I wanted to drop us down to 700 a month (for $69.99), but was aware of the AT&T policy that the number of rollover minutes could not exceed the number of minutes paid for each month. So with just 1,700 minutes (plus 700 rollover minutes to start), we’d be dipping into our rollover minutes and after a few months, we would need to go back to the 1,400 minute package. I called AT&T and negotiated reducing our minutes to 700 under the condition that as a buffer, they would add 1,000 rollover minutes. After getting this applied, we now had 700 minutes a month, plus 1,000 free minutes a month, plus 700 rollover minutes, plus an extra 1,000 rollover minutes. So 1,700 a month plus a 1,700 buffer. Our phone usage has increased steadily an we now use about 2,000 minutes a month, so I expect our buffer to last about 5 months. At that point, we’ll be forced to increase back to the 1,400 minute plan.

While that seems like an appropriate amount, AT&T has introduced a new feature, “A-List” which allows you to select 10 out of networks numbers that anyone in the family can call at any time, without using minutes. That’s a great deal, and would reduce the number of minutes used each month, but the offer only applies to plans with 1,400 minutes of more.

So eventually we’ll be stuck between a 700 minute plan (+1,000) that won’t cover our minute usage and a 1,400 minute plan (+1,000) that would cover us and give us many hundreds of rollover minutes a month. Neither plan is ideal, and the best idea seems to be to switch between plans every few months. It’s not ideal, but likely worth the little time and effort required.

Overall, I was able to reduce our monthly costs by $40 a month ($480 a year!), even while our phone usage increased. A little research a lot of haggling can sometimes go a long way.