Mobile phone costs - am I being mugged ?

[glassbrightly]

OK. I admit DH and I have been with 02 for a number of years. Normally get the current iPhone each every two years, I have the max. We have unlimited minutes and texts plus we share 15GB of data. Happy with O2 but we pay £30 each for calls/ texts and data and £30 and £45 for the phones. So nearly £140 a month. DH's phone ends next month and mine in another six months.

Any thoughts on whether this is a good or bad deal ? Any provider you'd recommend ?

I've got the same sort of package - latest iPhone plus unlimited calls/texts/data and I pay about £80 with Vodafone. I have to pay to send photo messages though 🤷‍♀️

Bad bad bad deal.

I pay £13 a months, unlimited calls and texts 8GB data. Phone on top, which I buy outright (£300 2 years ago, so £12.50 per month) tesco mobile.

Think I get a discount, I should add, for having multiple contracts with them.

Sounds like a rip off... 2yrs ago I had the latest Huawei top spec phone with 5gb data, unlimited calls and texts, £23 a month with Vodafone. That's the phone and the plan, total cost. Surely an iPhone isn't worth that much more. I hate my work iPhone!!! I've kept my same phone now and swapped to £8.80 a month for the plan, so sim only, same data, calls, texts.

Could you go sim only for a while? Or buy phones upfront instead? I'm with BT, moving to Plusnet (both use EE network) and I pay £10 a month for 10gb and unlimited mins and text

Look at MoneySavingExpert too he has a section on his page

I've just bought a phone outright as it's so much easier. We just put it in an interest free credit card and are going to buy a sim only deal

We buy cheap phones and get sim only deals. Unlimited calls and texts, plus between 4 and 8 GB data each (varies depending on contract) costs us a total of £40 per month for me, DH and 2 DC with Tesco mobile

Buy phone outright and keep it for longer with a SIM only deal from somewhere like giffgaff would be the cheapest option.

We have o2 4 phone contracts across 2 contracts all unlimited data less than £80 a month All sim free

Nearly 1,700 a year for two phones!

Yikes.

Getting the latest iPhone every 2 years is never going to be cheap and it's almost certainly cheaper to buy outright than roll the cost into a contract although there are sometimes deals to be had.

What do you do with your old phones? These are likely to be still worth a few hundred pounds, so the sale price should be factored into your cost calculation.

Still expensive though for both the phone and service. Perfectly decent phones can be had for a fraction of what you're paying now. Eg Motorola G series and Giffgaff, Smarty or Lebara for the service.

Do you really need a new phone every 2 years? My current iPhone is over 4 years old, the previous one lasted 4 years as well.

Following with interest as my monthly bill is nearly £180

I'm a huge fan of my iPhone and considering how much we use them I don't consider them that outrageously priced. I am however keen to cut the bill down where possible.

Also worth mentioning is when I got my latest phone we enquired about buying it up front. The costs actually worked out similar (within a few £s) on a far more basic contract.

I bought a refurbished XR last year for £300 - had literally been out of the box once but had never been turned on, and pay £13 with EE sim only for unlimited minutes, texts and 20GB of data.

I drove a hard bargain with them on the phone for that deal though.

Upgraded to a Huawei p30 pro in Feb this year and it's £40/month for phone and 30gb data and unlimited everything else. I've never had an iPhone though so can't compare costs, but this is the current flagship for Huawei I think.

It seems high to me.

I am aim only on giff gaff. £10 per month for unlimited calls and texts and 6GB data (not sure on the data but I never run out). I tend to buy a new phone every 2 or 3 years but I don't spend on the I phone bracket - usually about £150.

I used to have phones on contract but love the freedom now.

When your contract expires downgrade to sim only deal. Even if you stay with O2, it would likely be £10-£15 per month for decent amount of data etc.

I’m with GiffGaff and pay £8 per month for unlimited calls and texts and either 5 or 8 gb (can’t remember exactly)

I bought my iPhone 6 outright approx 6 years ago and it’s still absolutely fine!

Have a look at the deals on MobilePhonesDirect. I’m due and upgrade and got terrible offers from O2. Weirdly on MPD there were loads of much cheaper ones for new O2 customers than what they’d offered me.
Even cheaper than that was with Vodafone so that’s what I’ve gone with for the iPhone 11

Buy your phone outright.
I have Sim only contract with Tesco/O2, unlimited calls and texts, 8GB of data for £10/month.

Just as an aside, I have a refurbished iPhone 8 from MusicMagpie which cost me £200, so not much more than ONE of your monthly payments . Just sayin'.

I concede that having the latest phone is of absolutely no interest to me though.

I am with O2 SIM only and pay £20.54 a month for 100gb data, unlimited calls and texts.

I pay £26 with a new iPhone SE with unlimited texts, calls and I think around 20GB data, so it's a new iPhone but not the best spec. I think there was a small amount upfront but it was mostly offset by the cashback through topcashback. There were better deals but it would have involved claiming cashback at different points through the contract and I knew I'd forget.

That is extortionate for a phone. I’ve got an iPhone 8 (which I kept from last contract), can’t remember how much data etc but I never go over it, same with texts and calls. £11 a month.

Sorry 30GB of data