Week 6 The Mobile Phone Bills - Plural!

Mobile phones, don't you just love them? Clearly we do because we now have an average of at least 2 per person or some other crazy statistic. If you have any old ones in your draw, send them to your favourite charity and they can at least raise £5 for charity for each one. If you haven't got a favourite charity my friend works as a Charity Fund Raiser for East Anglia Air Ambulance and would love your old mobile phones; website at http://www.angliaone.org.uk/

They say charity begins at home, and that's exactly where the mobile phone bills end up each month, but here's the million dollar question how many mobile phone bills do you pay for each month?

I ask that question on the back of Anne Diamond's appearance on the Martin Lewis programme this week as it looked as though she felt she was responsible for all 4 of her children's various mobile phone bills on top of her own. ( There is more on the Blog about this )

The most ridiculous story I ever heard about mobile phone bills was during one of my training sessions with Utility Warehouse, a young man in his mid twenties and his girlfriend/partner/wife had an average mobile phone bill of £750 each every month! The most amazing thing was they worked together!

The key to getting the best from your mobile phone is to select the right tariff for you. Do not let the sales assistant select a tariff for you, it's no good having a text bundle if you don't text much, equally if you talk or communicate with the office all day long on a mobile phone ( that you have to pay for ) you need to find the best tariff for the amount of minutes you use each month. Around 85% of people are on the wrong tariff and it is costing you a small fortune.

Beware of the small print! An offer of FREE texts, two months FREE then an 18 month contract may not be as cheap as buying a phone & fitting a SIM CARD. You need to check the price per minute rates on your Pay As You Go and some mobile networks are more expensive to ring than others.

Take some time over the weekend to gain control of this expense each month. I have seen people literally cut their mobile bills in half just by switching to the right tariff. I would also ask you to check what budget constraint you have on any of the household mobile phone users that expect you to pick up the bill each month. It is one thing to have a mobile phone handy in an emergency, it is quiet another to change your ring tone four times, and watch videos at someone else's expense.

With the complaints rising on unforeseen charges recently, do yourself and your bank account a favour and check what measures you have in place so you do not get any nasty surprises.

For the purpose of this challenge, we are going to take the average mobile phone bills saving by switching to the right tariff as being around £25 per month. With a more stringent approach to your kids mobile phone bills, I would say you can gain an extra £10 per week per phone quite easily. ( If they want to pay the extra that's fine, but if they were using Kids Money Packs it would be a whole new experience. )

Saving Per Month by switching tariff : £ 25.00
Saving Per Month by budgeting the kids phones better : £ 40.00
Total Saving as Part of The Challenge : £ 65.00 per month

Any savings that you make should be added to your Freedom Payment each month and used to Pay Off Your Mortgage in 3 Years or Less. Anything else & it simply will not work.