It seems like we all have a nightmare story about our cell phone bill.  If your bill is anything like mine, it is way too high!  In my household, we have my husband and me, plus two kids with phones and I feel like I could buy a car with a lower payment than our phone bill sometimes. I have been checking to see what all we can do to bring down the prices though and have succeeding to some degree.

If you want to see how you can change your bill, here are 5 ways you can save on your phone bill:

1. Call and ask for discounts.  First and foremost, call your cell phone provider and see if you qualify for any discounts.  I did this and was able to save $10 per month on my bill.  Yeah, it’s only $10, but that adds up to over $100 saved per year!
2. Look into employer discounts.  If you work at a large company there is a good chance that you will qualify for a discount through your phone company.  Again, just be sure to call and ask.  We did this and we got an 18% discount on our bill because of my husband’s employer.
3. Switch to prepay.  There are some really great pre-paid plans out there these days.  You can find Unlimited data pre-paid plans for $50 or less per month.  These are often not ideal if you use a lot of data because after a certain usage (usually 5gb-10gb) it switches to 3g or 2g which slows your significantly.
4. Buy used phones or pay outright.  Stop buying phones through your provider.  This typically adds $20+ per month to your bill to pay for it.  Instead look at buying the phones outright.  I often look for used in excellent condition phones and buy that way.  There are enough people out there that have to have the newest and the best phones that you can easily find a late model, excellent condition phone at a discount.
5. Ditch the smartphone.  Have you considered going back to the good ol’ days of non-smartphones?  A phone that you use simply for phone calls or texts will save you hundreds of dollars over the course of a single year.