To not give Yr9 an iphone

[Hillbilly71]

My dd is pleading for an iPhone. She says all her friends have them and I have found out that she is right. They have the coloured backs (5c?) but I have looked and the cheapest ones have a smaller memory and are still way more expensive than her nokia lumia. We pay £13/month didn't pay for phone up front. Still have a year to go but I could possibly take it over. I can't find a deal anywhere like that for an iPhone 5. Has the world gone mad? Are parents spending £30 per month per child on phones?!

A lot get given their parent's old phone and a payg sim.

Look for refurb'd iPhone4. DD's 1 yr contract is 8 quid/month.

My DD has one, as do most of her friends, a couple got 6's for Christmas but not many, dd asked for one but I laughed at her!

I have 4 older DC and none have iphones. I would never buy them, phones get lost, stolen and broken..

Mine have our old ones or (not iphones) half decent phones for their b day and Xmas. Would never get a contract either (did once and learned my lesson!). Don't feel you need to join the competition! It never did my 5DC any harm not having iphones, going to Florida or whatever else 'everyone' is doing!

Ds2 will be 13 at the end of the month and is getting a 5c. He's on Giffgaff so we pay for the phone and £10 a month for 500 minutes, unlimited texts, 1gb of internet.

The phone is £319 I could get a contract but then I'd be paying £30-40 a month so would rather buy outright and then insure it and use payg. No chance of shock bills then either.

It might be worth ringing your provider and asking about an early upgrade? Some will let you upgrade early especially if you are buying a much more expensive phone.

I'd definitely say insure it though. Teens aren't known for looking after things. I looked into it today and it's covered on my home insurance but £75 excess and car phone warehouse insurance is only £40 excess and £10 a month so think will go with them.

My 2 both have iPhones (8 & 10 yr old) but only because they are old phones after ours have been upgraded

Both have pay g tesco sims and they probably only go through around £30 each over the year

Try Virgin mobile. They had a deal on the 5c at £19 a month. I know that's still more than you are paying but not as extortionate as some places!

i would say no, no, and again no!

Did you buy the lumia for her on a contract? Did she know it was to be hers on the contract? if so, i think its a really good idea for her to learn that you have to stick with things, and you cannot just get the latest thing because 'all her friends have one'
(my 12yr gets my cast offs, and is not interested in one, my 9yr old has mentioned a couple of times he would like a mobile, but really? he's 9 - who is he going to call? - they both have computers, down in the family computer room, no one has a pc/other in their rooms )

My 2p- not ALL teens have iPhones. The non sheep realise that it doesn't matter as long as your phone is functional for what you need and actually android offers a hugely bigger bang for your buck.

At my kids schools there was a huge array of phones. Lots of iPhones but high end android favoured by the geeks and equally some non smart phones at all. Didn't matter.

At the very minimum in afraid id say she need to wait out her curent contract ( and if she looses/ breaks it she will get a cheaply phone to run the contract through).

But I am also aware that not all parents are so strongly of the " just because they have x doesn't mean you have to have it because we can't afford it / it's not appropriate etc" frame of mind.

What we have done is get a second number on my contract (which has unlimited everything). It's £10 per month. We then have bought off eBay an old iPhone 4 for £50. If she looses it / breaks it then it's back to her simple Nokia.

My 11yo has a very nice phone (not an iPhone, but definitely as good & as attractive) as when I come to upgrade, the resale value was peanuts so I'd sooner he had it than me pocket a token amount of money.

The thing with iPhones is they do tend to retain value better so while picking up a refurbished one might seem pricey, if it's well looked after it should still have a decent resale value.

Oh and meant to say, maybe her perception is a bit skewed by her current phone? Nokia Lumia is windows isn't it? My husband has a lovely windows phone which is really slick but the apps are so much more limited than android or apple - maybe just moving to an android option might be more cost effective?

My dd has an iphone 5 she is in year 8.

My year 9 has an iphone 4S. It's £22 a month which I think is reasonable considering to keep his cheapie going I was paying £10-15 in credit for. And this phone has re-sale value and an upgrade so I figure it's worth it.

My niece 13 and nephew 14 both have iphone.

A lot of parents do buy iphone for the iPhone lost app.

We can only get O2 3G here. For those of you will O2, what kind of money are you paying each month?!
At a quick estimate some people must be paying over £700 per year on their children's phone tariffs ?? if they have 2 or more children with phones. I work part time and don't earn that a month.

DS1 has a samsung thing think it's £7.50 on contract
Dd has an iphone 4 £20 a month no upfront cost and it was for her birthday
Ds2 has a Nokia think that's £7.50 as well

DH is a free work phone and I think mine is £10 a month but I did have to buy the phone at £100.. That's because I wanted a qwerty keyboard and didn't really likeblackberrys

God knows what I'm going to do when it dies...I don't think they sell them any more

Gifgaf PAYE SIMS are good value, and they run off the 02 network.

I pay £13 a month for DC's, which is unlimited internet, and some free calls & texts (don't know how many, he only wants internet!)

He has a refurbished I-phone 5, from Argos.

*PAYG

There is a year to go on her current contract. She might want an iphone but doesn't need one.

I don't see why you should be working hard on a limited income to finance something which might seem important to her but is basically unnecessary.

If she wants one, what is she doing to pay for one? In the old days, we bought a phone for our dcs for birthday or Christmas, and they funded it. No contracts, and a basic phone. If they wanted more, they got a job to pay for it. It teaches them to value things much more that way. My sister, on the other hand is still paying all phone costs for her 22 year old, working child. It's expecte, apparently.

Yup. I'm afraid it is the norm.

Our 12 year old has an iPhone 5c as do most of his friends. Those that don't have the iPhone 6.

I have no problem saying no to many Xbox games, films, hanging aroun town, even fizzy drinks - but having a decent phone is really important to them at this age.

The only reason DS (11) got an iPhone 4 was because it used to belong to my mum and was out of contract. It's now only £6pcm as it's out of the initial 24 months. He never would have had an iPhone otherwise.

DD had an iPhone 4 in y7 and has just upgraded to a 5s in Y9. We have now put it on contract as assuming a 2 year life we found that it worked out cheaper than what we'd done previously. I'd say 95% of her friends have an iPhone of some description so it works out well for using iMessage etc.

DD has looked after her phones immaculately unlike me who managed to shatter the screen 3 times in 8 weeks and leave it down the side of a friend's sofa.....

What did she have for Christmas?