To despair at understanding phone contracts

[tigerdriverII]

I am an intelligent person. I construe contracts every bloody day.

I need to sort a phone for DS(15). I just am baffled: he wants an iPhone and I'm happy to get him one. Am I best getting a PAYG ? I don't mind contracts for me but I can see him faffing around with upgrades and I've been burned before with having him on a package with me and then him using loads of data.

This ought to be simple!

I had the same worries with my 15 year old. We went to Three and they linked his new iPhone to my Three account. They put limits on his data etc so he couldn't go over what we'd set. They were really helpful and we've had no problems.

If he's going to use loads of data, PAYG isn't any good.

It is usually cheaper to get a sim only contract and pay separately for the phone, but with an iphone, you then have to pay out hundreds of pounds in one go for the phone.

Some contracts are limited where if you get to your data cap, it cuts off (EE say they do this, don't knw about any others, Giff Gaff are always given as an example of a good cheap provider of sim only rolling contracts) and you can get quite a bit of data for £10-15 pm.

Also needs to make sure he uses wifi where possible and the phone is set so it only downloads updates when on wifi.

But if he wants to stream music or video on mobile data, that uses loads. Assuming he already has a smart already, can you/he look in his phone to see how much he uses, or ask the network. I've just bought a new phone (£150 Android Huawei, not of interest to your DS) and I asked my network about upgrades and they were able to tell me how much data I used so could suggest the most appropriate contract.

I'd say a sim only deal and then get the phone separately. If you are ok with a second hand phone the places like entertainment exchange do them with a years warranty. Apple also do refurbished stuff but don't know how many models back they would go. I think it's money saving expert has a section on best phone contracts.

I bought my daughter a 2nd hand iPhone for xmas . Put her on giff gaff . They have different tariffs to suit. Once I can buy myself out of this o2 contract , will be going back to giff gaff myself.

Thank you! I don't really understand GiffGaff with their "goodybags" but I think it might be best to go for a sim only

Agh! So much time wasted on this.

The killer for me was that, when I was first looking, a few years ago, you couldn't carry your PAYG balance over from month to month so you were still committed to spending a minimum of £10 per month and the cost of calls and texts were far higher. The market may have moved on since then but most of the parents I know went with Contract.

O2 do a family plan, the more contracts you have linked together the bigger the discount.

I looked into it recently for my DH but in our case it wasn't cost effective as he doesn't use his phone enough.

The giff gaff goody bag are simply . Will give example deffo won't be correct
£7.50 per month unlimited text, 500 minutes and 500 mb

My daughter pays £20 a month for unlimited text, unlimited minutes and a shit load of data.

Thanks, all. I genuinely have a headache now from reading all this stuff! I think it's fork out for a phone and then giffgaff for the sim.

I swapped from being on a contract to paying £10 a month for a giffgaff sim, and just buy the phone seperately, a few years ago. I doubt I'll ever go back to a contract again, yeah you have a large outlay when you buy a new phone, but at least it's done and if I need to change my usage it's alot easier.

We all have rolling virgin media monthly sims, 4gb of 4g data, 2,500 mins unlimited texts, free WhatsApp and Facebook data and unlimited virgin to virgin calls for £8 a month

I buy phones seperately unlocked for the two teens, one has an iPhone the other a Samsung

Very happy with our choice

We've got Tesco monthly contracts for our kids, with a cap so they can't go over their allowances and run up a big bill. We've set their safety buffer at £5 and if they use all their data and are desperate for more, we can buy one off bundles (could get them to pay for those!) If you have more than one contract linked to one account then each gets an extra perk (for example extra data).

www.tescomobile.com/capped-contracts

I have a sim only contract through 3 and buy a phone outright. Done it this way for years!

3 are doing good sim only deals. 500mb data won't last long with a kid!

We buy phone then sim only deal. DD13 currently has rolling 1 month sim with ID.

Tenner a month gets 5gb (4g) 500 min and 1000 txt. Unused data rolls over each month. Would recommend them. They do higher or lower tariffs with more/less data. As she uses it mainly at home the data she has is more than enough but I have the option to increase if I need to.

I was looking yesterday and the iPhone was free with a £17 a month 2 year contract which works out as data and calls etc being £4 the rest pays the phone cost

Seems cheaper to be on contract

DS has just purchased an iPhone from John Lewis and set up a SIM only deal (contract 12mths) with Tesco; he gets 2GB data, 500 mins and 5000 texts for £9/mth.

It is capped so he doesn't go over his allowance.

I don't know how they compare for high data usage, since that's not me, but I recently switched to 1pmobile. In addition to the standard 1p per minute/text/megabyte using credit that doesn't expire, you can buy large chunks of data that last a month on an adhoc basis.

Buying the phone you want outright and a sim only contract is usually the best deal.

My 3 sim only contract is unlimited texts; 2000 Three to Three voice minutes; 600 voice minutes to any other network; and 8GB of data for £13 per month.

I was looking yesterday and the iPhone was free with a £17 a month 2 year contract which works out as data and calls etc being £4 the rest pays the phone cost

So that implies you can get an iphone for £312 if you pay for it over 24 months? I though iphones were more expensive than that. (I presume the £4 a month was for your usage, not for unlimited usage?)

Also, not quite what you're asking but please consider insurance for an iPhone!

I think that you need a spreadsheet and add the following formula:

((Monthly cost X length of Contract) - Actual Cost of phone if bought off contract) / length of Contract

This will will give you the actual cost of the data/minutes/etc. Then you can find out if it is better to do a sim free contract or not.

Look on eBay for refurbed iPhones, you can get Ines with warrantys at a good price.

If you know what sort of phone you want it's pretty straightforward.

If you don't mind which network you have go on carphone warehouse and see what the best monthly deal for the useage you think your son will need. This is going to be determined by the data as calls/texts are cheap.

This will give you a base cost for comparisons over a 12 or 24 month period.

You can then compare this to buying a phone (new/second hand) plus SIM only for the same amount of data.

For example an refurbished iphone 6s with a contract for 1gb of data is £30 per month for 24mths, £720 in total.

Google suggests you can buy a refurbished phone for £320 and a 1gb monthly SIM only for £5 a month, £120 for 24 months so a total of £440 over 24 months - way cheaper.

Kpo58

Spreadsheet?

I think I'm going to buy an iPhone (probably new) and get a gift gaff goodybag. I just don't have the time to invest in comparisons and spreadsheets - presumably this explains the confusion pricing.