The American Way: Spend More to Save More.
Last week, I got my Verizon bill in e-mail (as usual). A quick cursory glance showed something wrong -- a few dollars more than the usual bill. I clicked through to the web site and looked at my call detail -- ah yes, I remember calling 411 a few times. No big deal. But this finally gave me the impetus to research Tracy's and my calling behavior and see if we need to downgrade our plans and spend a little less on cell phone bills every month.
And _Holy Schnikies_ -- yes, we needed to downgrade. Despite my lovely wife's insistance, she barely uses her phone. I have the numbers to prove it, regardless of what she says. ;-)
After a confusing tour of Verizon's web site, we finally decided to go with a family share plan thingy (where two phones share a combined set of minutes) for a substantially smaller price per month (i.e., have a shared plan instead of two separate plans). So we went to the Verizon store and asked a few questions and found out that the deal really was as good as we though -- we'd end up spending significantly less every month. So this is a good thing.
Yes -- you in the back, with your hand raised... Yes, I suppose we could have done this a while ago and saved money, but... hey, screw off! I'm telling a story here.
So we signed up for the new plan (total cost: negative dollars -- it didn't cost anything to switch and now we're suddenly paying less). Woo hoo!
Then the sales guy said, "I notice that your phones are pretty old -- we have the 'New Every Two' program..."
"What's that?" I asked.
Turns out that Verizon gives you $100 towards a new phone every two years. So both Tracy and I got $100 free to upgrade our phones. _Holy Schnikies_! Woo hoo! We both chose phones that were less than $100, so the _entire_ transaction (changing plans and getting brand new phones) came to a whopping zero dollars.
Yes -- you in the back (again)... Of course we had to sign a contract. Duh. But we have been cell phone customers for years, and it's not like we're going to stop using our cell phones.
Let's recap:
* We walked in there to change to less expensive plans
* We're now paying substantially less per month
* Verizon effectively paid us to upgrade our phones
* We walked out of there with more money and better phones
How's that for a good deal?