PAY LESS for your Sprint Cell Phone Service

For months I have been doing a complete audit of my bills to see where I can save money. I started by making a list of EVERY SINGLE recurring bill that I have and then started slowly going down the list. With each item I asked myself “Is there any way I can save money with this bill?”.

Many people assume that in order to save money you have to go without something that you enjoy or want/need in your daily life. That is not my approach to saving money on bills. My goal is to not reduce anything or go without, but to simply pay less for it. I called up my auto insurance company and said “Can I save any money on my auto policy?” and within 15 minutes the agent managed to literally save me 100’s of dollars without making a single change to the policy. It turned out that I could get discounts since my car has anti-lock brakes, airbags and an alarm system. I was not getting any credit for those before and now I am. That is a fine example of paying less for the exact same service.

Some monthly expenses might not be able to be reduced much if at all, but so far I haven’t found that to be the case. With some phone calls recently I was able to not only reduce the monthly rate for my auto insurance but also my renter’s insurance and home phones lines.

One monthly bill however took more than a phone call to save money on and that is my cell phone service. A bill that has always been simply too large for the amount of talk time and data that I use is my Sprint bill.

I have been with Sprint for over 10 years and have always been happy with the phone’s coverage. I typically get clear calls, fast data and my phone has always worked well when I travel within the U.S. Some complain about their customer service, but I don’t ever really need to contact them for anything so that has always been a non-issue with me.

• I decided I didn’t want a new phone because I don’t think getting a new phone is fun. I find it to be a real hassle and I like my current smartphone.
• I decided I wanted to keep my phone number and not change it.
• AND I decided I wanted to somehow keep my Sprint service but pay less for it.

So the real challenge began. How can I keep Sprint service, my phone and my number but just not pay as much for it? That challenge took me about 6 weeks to conquer, but I have now successfully done so with a provider called Ting.

Ting is a company that provides cell phone service on the Sprint network, but they only charge you for what you actually use and is not based on a “monthly plan”. Your phone will still work ANYWHERE there is Sprint coverage, but you are billed according to what you use in three categories: Talk time, number of text messages and data usage in megabytes. Each of these categories are monitored individually and you pay for what you use. If you talk only 100 minutes, but use 1000 mb of data. You are billed accordingly. And each month varies depending on your use. Ting breaks your usage down into “buckets” and each category falls into the appropriate bucket at the end of the month and then you are billed.

Here’s an example:
I have 23 days left in my billing month. This is easily checked on their website in real-time. I have two phone lines active with Ting and so far I have only used 15 minutes of talk, 14 text messages and 35mb of data. So as of right now my three buckets are “Small” as indicated. Once I surpass 100 of anything in these buckets it will move to “Medium”. So at the end of the month I might have Small in minutes, Medium in texts and Extra Large in data. I am then billed accordingly at the end of the month using a credit card I put on file with them.

The above rate chart shows you the monthly fee for each bucket in the different sizes for two lines. Even if you are a heavy user, you can still save a lot of money over what Sprint charges and you don’t have to change anything. BRILLIANT!

You will also see they throw in a bunch of freebies and they tell you EXACTLY what surcharges there are. If you don’t call Directory Assistance much or make international calls the surcharges are typically only a few additional dollars each month.

Scour the web yourself for Ting reviews and you will be hard pressed to find any negative ones. If you are a happy Sprint customer there is no reason not to check out Ting. They have an awesome website that gives you a “usage dashboard” that allows you to set up all kinds of functions online. They also have a no-hold policy with their customer service reps and that is no joke. I’ve only had to call them twice and both times a human answered within 3 rings and was able to help. I didn’t even have to press 1!  AND since you are literally not changing your network provider, getting your Sprint phone switched over is super easy. Even after you switch your phone will still show you are on the Sprint network.

The only thing you might have to contend with is paying an early termination fee to Sprint if you switch before your contract expires. I had to pay $110, but I made that back in savings my first month and I’m looking forward to enjoying much lower monthly expenses for my Sprint phones.

Ting has a Savings Calculator that can show you exactly what you’d be paying monthly for your personal usage. Get a copy of your last month’s Sprint bill so you can put in accurate usage figures and see if Ting is the right choice for you. I couldn’t be a happier (non)Sprint customer! New customers get a $25 sign-up credit here.

Have you switched to Ting or found any other ways to save on the your cell phone?