Switching Family Cell Phone Plans - Save Money (2024)

Okay, Dad or Mom. You’ve had those phones for a while. You feel like you are missing out on some cool stuff. Really, though, as parents, your cell phone is really about the camera and the video camera, and while that iPhone 12 is just fine for most things, the camera could be better. Honestly, you were find until everyone started posting their eclipse pictures and then their aurora pictures and you were like, “Is my phone not good enough anymore.”

Cell Phone Company Ads and Commercials

Free iPhone on Us. Just $25 a month for four cell phone lines.

Yeah. You’ve seen them, but do you believe them? Too good to be true still exists, and it’s better than even money if anyone is sneaking in fine print on too good to be true deals, it’s the cell phone companies.

I’m in the same boat. Those iPhone 12s I mentioned up there? That’s not just a random example. That’s me. Right now, while sitting on Verizon after switching from Comcast/Xfinity in order to get my last free phones. I dug through all the fine print then and I’m going to do it now. I’ve got better things to spend my money on than cell phone company tricks.

Verizon Get iPhone 15 on us

Let’s start with Verizon. Thanks to AT&T running all of those our existing customers get the best deals too commercials back during the Super Bowl, the other major mobile carriers had to step up and more or less match that thinking. It’s about time.

The dumbest thing in marketing still has to be screwing over your long-term, paying on time, customers until they switch to another cell phone carrier in order to get the deals that are only for new customers. That’s what happened to us with Xfinity. We were perfectly happy. Had a sweet discount because we also have Xfinity internet and TV, but they would only give free phones to new customers, so down the mobile phone company churn road we went to Verizon.

Why We Chose Verizon Back Then

I used to be on top of everything tech. Then, I became a work from home dad, and knowing everything about every new technology didn’t seem so important. So, I gave up being a tech know it all for being an internet advice dad. Ahem.

Before I stopped knowing everything, Verizon was the best. They had the best network and the best service. They cost the most, but they were worth it. Verizon was brand name, everybody else was second tier.

So, when Black Friday rolled around, I checked out all the deals, and finding similar offering from all the different cell phone carriers, I jumped at the chance to be on Verizon since it finally fit in my budget the way I wanted.

Oops.

Somewhere along the line, Verizon made a bad strategic decision and ended up with a worse network than others. The gaps in its service are not just a common lament online, but also among my fellow Ingress players who wander into alleys, middle of nowhere trails, and sometimes military bases to “hack portals.” All of which require a wireless connection.

Sure, one bar of 3G is available in some of those places, but what is that really worth other than Verizon getting to color that area red on its coverage map?

The worst part of Verizon’s coverage? The deal knell as it were? My own house gets just one bar of coverage. The Indian restaurant down the street where sometimes I need to wait for my takeout? Zero bars. Not just zero bars, but SOS. I literally cannot make phone calls from my own house when the Wi-Fi is down because the reception is so bad.

Ouch.

What kind of sucks is that it is really great in other places. Verizon is the best where it actually has decent coverage. I get 5G and 5GUW, and whatnot in tons of great places. It’s just that there are so many holes.

According to everything I’ve read about it (real stuff, not marketing fluff) says that Verzion’s signals are fast but not strong enough to bridge the distance they established for older tech, so there are a lot of holes. The better network belongs to T-Mobile who at long last were able to achieve their only strategic goal for the last decade by buying Sprint. Apparently combining the networks worked good for them.

How Much Is Verizon for My Family Today?

To analyze which mobile phone carrier is best for your family you need to start with your current situation. For me, that’s my current plan at Verizon. Use the cell phone budget checklist and spreadsheet to help make your calculations.

Current Phone Liability

Those free iPhones were mostly free, but they weren’t free in a “Here is your free phone. Now run along you little scamp.”

They were free in the form of 36 monthly credits. We got two iPhone 12 and two iPhone 12 Mini. We get $19.44 a month credit toward the 12s, and $16.66 toward the Minis resulting in almost free phones because I got the bigger storage. So, we pay $1.39 a month out of our own pocket. What really matters is that we have 10 more months of credits coming totalling $229.13 for the 12s and $198.55 for the Minis.

At this point, the analysis has taken a huge turn toward staying with Verizon. You may remember some of the cell phone ads language and while, “free iPhone on us,” sounds good, it’s missing “and we’ll pay off whatever you owe to switch.”

Looks like we are probably waiting for Black Friday again.

If you didn’t do the math– or didn’t want to– we would owe $855.40 on our four cell phones to leave Verizon.

Is Verizon a Good Family Cell Phone Company Now?

Alright. Enough history. Time to look forward. All things being even, I will be moving to a new cellphone company to get better coverage, but all things are never even. There is a way where Verizon still comes out as the best deal for my family and we’ll just get over it on the whole network thing.

It turns out Verizon kind of sucks compared to T-Mobile at least, but will get there in a second.

Right now, we have older Verizon plans called Play More and Play Start. Play More comes with the Disney Bundle FOR FREE as well as mobile hotspot tethering. Play Start does not. Play More costs $49/month (with the discount for auto bill and online statements) the Play Start costs $39/month. If you’re doing the math, that’s $176 for four lines plus all the junk fees and taxes.

Verizon iPhone On Us Offer Legit No Scam Fine Print Teardown

Here we go. The big headline says iPhone on us. The fine print says that you get a $830 credit over 36 months. You can get an iPhone 15 with 128 GB of storage for $830. So, that’s the free offer. The rest are not really free.

• iPhone 15 – free
• iPhone 15 Plus – discounted by $830
• iPhone 15 Pro – discounted by $830
• iPhone 15 Pro Max – discounted by $830

That’s not a scam by Verizon. It’s careful wording and fine print. After all get an iPhone free on us doesn’t say which iPhone. Still $830 off is a good deal and results in you just paying a few bucks more each month to get a better iPhone or one with more storage.

Free Verizon iPhone Plans

The iPhone on us catch is that in order to get it, you must choose one of the two most expensive plans for your free phone cell phone plan. In this case, you can get Unlimited Plus or Unlimited Ultimate, neither of which comes with free Disney+ bundle. It’s a $10 add on.

• Verizon Unlimited Ultimate costs $55 per month
• Verzion Unlimited Plus costs $45 per month

You can add other stuff. Much of it is a good deal but you need to pay attention. For example, you can get YouTube premium for $10/month on each line ($40 total). But, you can get YouTube Family plan directly from YouTube for $23/month.

Is Verizon Worth It For Our Family Plan?

I think you can already tell where this is heading. Verizon will give a free iPhone. It’s not some Verizon scam. However, they will not pay off our current iPhones. Seemingly, our credits would disapear and we’d owe a lump sum. You can’t even use the $830 to pay it off because you only get that as little monthly credits over three years.

Is T-Mobile a Good Family Cell Phone Company Now?

Okay. If T-Mobile has the best network now, and won’t put my phone and favorite restaurants in coverage dead zones, can I use the T-Mobile Get 4 ON US promotion to switch?

First off, remember that there is no offer to pay off my existing phones or pay to switch, or anything like that. All you get is the free iPhone.

Like Verizon, T-Mobile free iPhone is legit, it just has to be the iPhone 15 (no plus, pro, max). You can get the better phones or one with more storage. You just have to pay for the difference.

However, here is a major difference between the T-Mobile iPhone on us offer, and the Verizon iPhone on us offer. T-Mobile gives you the $830 over 24 monthly credits instead of 36. That means you are only on the hook for 2 years instead of 3 years. We’d already be free and clear if we had a two year deal.

There is a partial downside. If you do go with a more expensive phone, you are also paying that over 24 months instead of 36. Instead of us paying off getting an iPhone Plus at the rate of $2.18 per month, it would be more like $4 or $5 per month. That’s not a huge deal, but remember when you have a family you have to multiply everything by four, or how ever many of you there are.

T-Mobile Cell Phone Family Plans Analysis

Instead of jamming you into their most expensive plans to recover the cost of that free iPhone, T-Mobile is offering a money saving deal on their cheaper unlimitted plan called Essentials. In order to get the cheapest price you need four lines, so either give Jimmy a cell phone earlier than you swore you would never do in the parenting forums, or shell out extra. If there are five of you. It’s time to get creative.

The T-Mobile Essentials plan on this offer is just $25 per month (plus junk fees and taxes). That makes T-Mobile way cheaper than Verizon for families like ours. For now, we get free Disney+ that you have to figure into the mix, but that’s hardly worth it.

You can, presumably, upgrade to better T-Mobile plans and still keep the overall discount, but WOW are the higher plans crazy overpriced. For an extra $85 per month you get free Apple TV+ and Netflix, but you can get those for much less.

There is this insulting difference to hide a the fact that the $25 per line plan actually costs at least $28.49 per line plus whatever Federal & Local Surcharges come up compared to its other plans, but I still don’t think that will get you to an extra $85 per month.

For the purposes of our analysis, I currently pay $176 per month plus fees and stuff and I would get $100 per month with T-Mobile. That’s a no brainer. It’s almost enough to make me switch even if we have to take it in the shorts on the Verizon phones. After all, 10 more months times $76 difference = $760.

That still comes up a bit short on the $855 we owe, especially since better offers are likely just four or five months away. Even if they aren’t, we’d be $175 to $200 lower on the amount to pay off, so it makes sense to wait.

What about AT&T?

I didn’t go there yet. Maybe I should take a look. I’ll do that and then I’ll come back and update this article. I’ve got to put together the mobile phone family plan comparison tool and checklist anyway.