My husband and I share a Pixel 7, which we mainly use for phone calls, 2-step verification, navigation and occasional text messages. We have a quiet social life, and we use our computers for most things (easy to type, larger screens). Our excellent WIFI service only costs $65 (could be as low as $40 if we chose slower speed) per month.
Having only one cellphone means lack of backup, e..g., I may not be able to troubleshoot a problem with my cellular service or device. Also we can't contact each other when we are not together. But I have found a partial solution for the latter: sending an email to [1234567890@tmomail.net](mailto:1234567890@tmomail.net) (where the string of numbers is my phone number) creates a text message. My husband can use my old Moto to text me if he can find free WIFI.
My Mint Mobile costs $15 a month ($200 a year after taxes). I have 5 GB free data, but I usually use about $0.2 GB because I don't watch video and don't keep scrolling images. (I have discovered that enen when traveling oversea, 1 GB for 2 weeks is plenty to surf internet, run all sorts of appls, and do email.)
Are we too cheap? But if we pay $200 a year to have cellular service on our old Moto, it would sit there idle 95% of the time. And I have no need for more data.
One SmartPhone and a $15 per month Mint Mobile is enough for a retired couple
byu/Legitimate-Host7805 inFrugal
Posted by Legitimate-Host7805
12 Comments
If your life isn’t hindered by not having 2 phones I’d say you’re fine.
I can’t imagine not having the ability to contact my partner. For that reason alone, I could not do that.
My husband and I have one smartphone (that was donated by a friend who had upgraded). Have run into the same type of problems with two-step authentication, but also our building recently had “fibre” installed and now my landline stops working when the wifi goes out. So the cell is for emergencies both when out and during power outages. We pay CAD$100 for a year that includes 400 minutes and 400 texts, no data. We have never needed support 🤞
Damn, 65$ is low for home fiber connection in the US? I pay 22€ in Italy for 2.5Gbps, and my mobile plan is 10€/month for 300Gb of 5G data
If it works for you, then it is fine.
Personally, I would not tolerate being unable to contact my partner because of a shared phone, and I enjoy having my own phone to browse or have games when on the move. I also listen to music on my phone.
I also use my phone to pay so this would be unhelpful.
Email for verizon is similar with phonenumber @Verizon.net
Does mint mobile phone have online support only? I’m so interested in it but I’m concerned if there is no ability to talk with a person.
Do you have a landline? If not, what do you do when the other isn’t home?
I consider a charged cell phone the most important item to have for personal safety, especially when driving. I would never want my husband or one of my kids to be driving without one. I live where the weather can be deadly if your car breaks down in the winter!
We are retired homebodies. Besides my wife, I make maybe 10 calls a month and zero text messages and rarely use the data. My Boost Mobile is $25/month unlimited. My iPhone 14+ is usually turned off and stored with my wallet and keys in a fanny pack. I consider my old iPhone as an emergency tool . Most common use is calling my wife at a store for our monthly shopping to find her!
I cancelled the line for my tablet as I never take it out of the house so WiFi is enough for our tablets.
Beyond the convenience factor, just as a matter of safety alone, I’ll always insist my wife and I have separate phones with separate plans. I mean, what if something happened to one of us? A phone is easily tracked if necessary. Also, we rely on GPS navigation for most drives, and we are both sometimes separately out of the house – It’d be very inconvenient to have to flip a coin to see who gets the phone that day.
Our internet provider gives us one free mobile plan, we have the other on the $15 a month Mint Mobile plan. Since they are on separate networks, that also gives us a big emergency benefit in case one provider goes down in the area we at least have connectivity through the other.
This is an area where I think safety and common sense needs to overrule frugality. I would find other ways to save $15 each month.
Just buy a prepaid phone as an extra.