Mobile phone costs - am I being mugged ?

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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 ?

Your monthly handset cos is about right for top of the range new phones, but you're paying too much for your minutes and data by far - should be more like £15 each for unlimited calls texts and 15gb data (each). Might need a 12 month contract to get that with O2 or whoever, but that's the cost for that package for rolling monthly at GifGaff. The most expensive iPhone 11 with most memory (256gb) is £68.20 so that plus contract for the two of you works out at £166.40 to your £140pcm. A 2 year handset and service package is usually cheaper than buying individually IF you absolutely want to replace your handsets every 2 years. I say this as somebody who is only just switching now (as in literally ordered my gifgaff sim tonight!) but if you can make your handset last 3 or 4 years it's going to be SO much cheaper and more sustainable from an environmental perspective (mobile phone production is absolutely full of exploited workers, pollution, wasting precious metals etc).

I have unlimited everything and an iPhone 11 Pro and I'm paying £53 a month, so it sounds to me like you're not getting the best deal possible - DH is currently on a SIM only contract until his current phone dies but even if he matched mine (presumably with a better phone as I've had mine for almost a year now) we'd be paying just over £100 for both.

For comparison I have a Samsung galaxy S10 (top of the range when I took out the contract) and for handset and unlimited data, minutes and texts I pay £37pcm on a 24 month contract. Before that I think £38 for Huawei something not exactly the very top 1 or 2 steps down I think (I.e. Still very high spec) and 30gb data.

If you stay with a contract, ALWAYS HAGGLE when it's up for renewal.

I like the iPhones, but go for the best deal. Who cares if you've got the latest model? YOU! But honestly, what do you get?! Vanity perhaps? It comes with a high cost I'm afraid! , they do pretty much nothing, pay ab extra £80 ish a month for the privilege?! 🤔😆 ice an iPhone with loads of data, messages and calls for £22 a month including paying off the phone too

I have an old iphone 5s. I paid for my phone (was monthly fee at the time), a long time ago.

I use giff gaff. £10 a month option and it is my main phone as I only have incoming calls and internet with landline package.

£25 would get you unlimited on gift gaff.I don't think you are being mugged off tbh as you are getting new phones every 2 years but there are cheaper ways to have phones & plans if you want.

I pay a lot for my phone/plan but I have the iPhone 11 Pro Max and 100GB of data with EE and am happy to do so.

Mumsnet is always a race to the bottom when people ask about phones. They will pop along with their 3310's in a minute to tell you how cheap they are and how awful anyone is who pays more than about £10 a month. The truth is you pay for and choose whatever you are happy with.

www.moneysupermarket.com/mobile-phones/

That is high.
I'm on Tesco mobile. Unlimited calls, unlimited texts, shit data but I don't go out much so any data is free on my home wifi.
I pay £7.50 a month.

I had a contract with 3 which was ridiculous considering I am not really an Internet user on the 'phone.

So I made and received calls, I took photos, and I play pokemon. I was paying around £45 per month.

When the contract ended I went with GiffGaff. I pay around a tenner a month for the same, and I can use the Internet if I want to.

Normally get the current iPhone each every two years, I have the max.

That's an expensive luxury. If you can afford it and think it's worth the money then that's fine. But even staying within iPhone, if you keep the same one for three or four years that's a big saving.

As for the service, 15 GB of data for 30 quid seems pretty shite. You can get unlimited data for less than that!

Though one piece of advice. Try and test signal on the planned new network before you commit to a contract. I had excellent signal on o2. Switched to iD mobile, who use the three network, and my phone is unusable as a phone in much of my house. Calls drop, or never ring at all, and callers are barely intelligible. At times it shows no network connection whatsoever. I thought it might be my phone at first but now I think it's the network. Fortunately I'm on a 30 day rolling so I can switch away. This is in inner city Birmingham, not the countryside!

If you want a new phone every 2 years (and an iPhone at that) then the amount you pay for your phones isn't terrible, but your call/data packages seem ridiculously high. There are plenty of packages available across most of the different networks for less than half what you're paying now. I think my package with EE gives me 10GB data plus unlimited calls and texts for £12/month and DH has a similar deal with Sky, but gets to roll over any data he doesn't use each month and trade it in periodically if he wants, to reduce his bill even further. Definitely time to shop around

Sky have really good deals on at the minute. Took a new iPhone contract out last month and found them the cheapest.

I pay £19 a month with O2 for my unlimited calls texts and 10g of data. Then £35 a month for my iPhone XS. Your actual plan sounds very very expensive.

Assuming the phones are over 2 years, that's £720 and £1080 for the phones. Always worth looking to see how much it costs to buy the same phone outright, and if you can't afford it, that's time to think about whether you really need such an expensive phone.

Or can you just keep your phones for another year or two at least and then switch to a cheaper service provider?

You're paying £60 a month for calls, texts and data that can be had for about a third of that.

If you like the O2 network, they do a £10 a month 12 month contract that gives you 10 Gb per person, plus unlimited texts and calls. Have you checked how much data you use? If you don't use that much, you could trim the cost down a little.

www.moneysavingexpert.com/mobiles/cheap-sim-only-contracts/

If you want total flexibility plus likely to be cheaper prices, you can use GiffGaff/Lebara etc and swap between them if the network coverage isn't good where you are.

I've been with 02 since they were BT Cellnet and have always got good deals, I currently pay £25/month for unlimited calls and texts and have 5GB of data. I'm due an upgrade and for the latest Samsung they want to charge me £55 so I'm keeping the phone and I'll just pay the airtime proportion as the device plan is paid off, so £12

Its because you just upgraded. If you had called to the retention team and said you want to disconnect, they have deals they can use to save you. If you see a really good deal with someone else, tell them and that may allow the advisor further discounts. They can't start to use the save tools until they are in a 'save situation'. I used to work there.

Keep the phone, get a sim only - I'm on giffgaff, £12 for what you have

Well if you want a new iPhone every two years then it’s going to be expensive.

Sky also use the O2 network and offer cheap sim only contracts.

If you sign up to a new service provider, you can usually get cashback via Quidco or Topcashback.

Go sim only. My 7+ is 3.5 years old and costs me £10 a month for unlimited everything.

No-one needs a new mobile phone every 2 years.’