A Few Months With My Virgin Mobile Custom Phones
I like saving money and chances are, you do too. Whether it’s making extra returns out of an obscure investment or simply lowering my monthly bills by trimming the fat, I enjoy the game of living on less and making more whilst balancing an enjoyable but not too frugal lifestyle. And almost as much as I enjoy saving money, I enjoy sharing my finds with my friends.
One of my more recent finds includes the Virgin Mobile Custom phones. I won’t go into a ton of detail, but basically you buy the phone’s outright from Wal-Mart for as little as $60. From the phone you choose how many minutes (talk), texts, and data you want to share across all devices and you pay only $7 to add a device, up to 5 devices. You can play with different scenarios on their website.
For my needs, I have 3 phones, one for me, one for my wife, and one for the business. I decided a few months ago that I would jump in feet first and replace all three phones (previously with AT&T) without doing any test runs. And as it stands, I am very pleased with my decision.
Here are a few features that I really love:
1) Phones run Android operating systems so in every way that I was used to working with my phone, it is by-and-large the same.
2) I can adjust how much talk/text/data I want on the fly as I use it, so I never pay for something that I’m not using. In months where I don’t use much, my bill for all three smart phones is ONLY $53. That’s only $18 a phone! And when compared with my AT&T plan which was costing around $140 a month, I’m saving a significant amount of money.
3) It is very easy to see your usage on the phone and it is constantly updated.
4) Like any good Android, the phone automatically connects to known networks so I am not paying for as much data as I’m actually using.
5) I can add unlimited text or talk to individual phones as needed at a very reasonable price ($10 for unlimited text and $18 for unlimited talk). So my wife can text her heart out while I can pay less for the few texts that I send.
Here are a few things that may annoy you:
1) You must be diligent about your data use. For me this is easy. I was buying phone plans and managing my usage when cell phones first came out. So making sure I use less than 2G of data is just like the good ‘ol days of needing to talk less than 400 minutes a month.
2) The phone selection is extremely limited. Only 3 phone options to be exact, 2 LG and 1 ZTE. If I had my way, I would love to see HTC, Galaxy, and Apple options for the custom plan.
3) Service is on the Sprint network. I haven’t had any real issues with it yet, but it does seem like the coverage is much narrower than AT&T and Verizon’s networks.
4) Customer support can be a bear. One of my phones had trouble bringing in my existing AT&T number and I spent a lot of time on the phone with customer support. Like almost all large companies, the customer support is farmed out to a foreign country, and the language barrier (English accents), especially when dealing with technical information, can be quite frustrating. I just chalk this up to; They’re saving money, so I’m saving money.
In short I am very happy to have made the switch and am very happy with the quality of service of the phones. And I’m especially happy with the extra money in my budget!
Jim Post Real Estate Broker is a local
Long Beach Realtor specializing in making the buying and
selling process simple, smooth, and inexpensive. Working in
Long Beach Real Estate for over 10 years, we can provide
valuable representation for any transaction.
Long Beach Realtor specializing in making the buying and
selling process simple, smooth, and inexpensive. Working in
Long Beach Real Estate for over 10 years, we can provide
valuable representation for any transaction.