How much do you pay for Teenagers phone?

[refraction]

I am a teacher with a dd who is about to turn 14. She attends the school I teach at. For her birthday or Christmas she would like a phone contract for her birthday.

Most pupils do have an iPhone or the new Samsung. I am actually quite shocked at the phones they have.

What do your teens have? At the moment mine has my old iphone on a ten pounds sim only deal. I think this is enough. However the battery is poor but I could replace that for £90. Not increasing the contract.

My 14yo has had a contract for a few years. As has literally all her friend and every single teenager I know.

She started with an iPhone 6s and upgrade to the iPhone X last year.

Costs around $80 a month. No chance of running up huge bills as that includes 100gb of data and unlimited calls and texts.

DD (14) has a reconditioned iPhone 8 that cost about £130. It was cheap as the casing is quite scratched - this doesn't matter to her as screen is clear and she always has a case on it. She expects to keep it 2 years. As it's unlocked etc she has a gifgaf sim and gets a £12 month bundle of 10gb data and unlimited texts and minutes.

We used qwikmobilefixI think. Cheap but quite slow sending out phones so allow a couple of weeks.

Reconditioned iphone 5, with a ~£5 per month idmobille sim-only deal, with a cap of £0

We went to CEX for refurbished phone as DS wanted to actually see it. No visible damage whatsoever and comes with 2 year guarantee I think.

We went with unlocked as I wanted to switch to Giffgaff to get the rolling contract so we are not tied in for 12 months. If you want to stick to O2 or Vodaphone etc the phones are slightly cheaper than unlocked but you have to stick to that network.

raspberryk when I was a teen mobile phones didn't exist, well they did but they were in massive suitcases! But even I've managed to get my head round the idea that times have changed...

I would not do a contract for a child. That is what they get when they are an adult and can afford to commit to. Mine get a sim only deal and use our old phones or birthday money to buy iPhone or whatever (usually refurbished). I pay 13 a month for the sim deal and they cant go over by more than 2.50 as it has a cap (thank you Tesco).

I upgraded my phone earlier this year and DS had an old Motorola. I got a good deal on my upgrade as I was out of contract so asked what deal they'd give me for another phone, so he got the latest Samsung. I pay £28/month for him. Guy at work got the same phone about a week after and pays nearly £60 so I think I got a really good deal. He never goes over data as has 20gb a month

CeX is great.

Ours have Xiaomi, brilliant phones for£130
www.eglobalcentraluk.com/xiaomi-mi-a2-4gb-64gb-dual-sim-sim-free-unlocked-gold.html?gclid=Cj0KCQjwt5zsBRD8ARIsAJfI4Bg3elosItnodHtIr1s3oLujDQ1TD69JY4O0D4ulVo_ga_4l5WrS-eYaAmBREALw_wcB#/product/25126
and sim only from Giffgaff £12 a month

Mine get refurbished phones as birthday/Christmas gifts and then one has a TalkTalk contract for £7.50/month for 4gb data and the other pays £1/week for a fair bit of data through EE (it has built up with loyalty rewards). I am shocked how many of their friends have the latest phone on contract.

We have had problematic experiences with contracts with our elder DS - granted this was prior to Vodaphone having to put data caps on phones and also made difficult as his phone was under DH's business account. One year DS racked up £300 in extra data charges abroad in one month and 2 years ago is was £450 in one month. Since then, Vodaphone has finally admitted that it could cap his data.

He is on a Vodaphone plan, but is complaining as if we dropped his contract, VOXI has a more attractive sim only plan - 10 GB data, unlimited calls and texts, and social media is not counted in the data so essentially unlimited social media for £10. We chose not to do this as the really issue with teens is social media addiction and the whole point of getting a plan for DS was to limit access to social media to a reasonable amount.

DS has an iPhone XR and his contract is £45z

Seems to be a mix that £40 pcm is not unreasonable but then others who think only adults have this.

I will have to give it a little more thought. She has a SIM only contract and hasn't ever gone over.

4 teenagers with iPhones-2 with iPhone 8's and 2 with iPhone X. Each one costing around £60 per month

Mine always had mine of dh’s Phone when our contract renewed and so would be a model behind the latest with a giffgaff sim.
But since dh and I stopped upgrading with each iPhone as no need. He still has a 6s and I have an 8plus. I brought ds2 (17) an iPhone 8 on contract with o2. We had endless issues with o2 but not his usage so when he was due an upgrade two months ago we serviced to EE and he has an iPhone XR with unlimited everything as he uses a lot of data. I pay £48 a month and no upfront cost.
Dd (13) phone is still on o2 and will finish soon. She has an iPhone 7 and I pay £23 a month for 20gb if data unlimited calls and texts.

I am thinking of getting a new phone as the new purple one is lovely and if I do I will get a sim only deal on EE for dd and she can have my 8plus.

DD is 17 & she's getting the iPhone XR for Christmas she'll get unlimited calls & texts, 5gb of data & an extra 1gb as a family perk due to having more than one contract for £30 a month this is an upgrade from her current iPhone 6 Plus with unlimited calls/texts & 2gb of data which costs £21.50 a month.

She's had a contract since she started high school as it worked out cheaper than topping up all the time but back then there weren't as good pay as you go deals as you can get now.

We always buy phones up front as much cheaper, then he gets a £8/month giffgaff goody bag that gives him 3GB of data (2GB when he started but they give him extra now which had always been plenty). £10 would give him 6GB but he doesn't use that much.

I use his old phone when he's finished with them as I don't use a mobile phone much and he keeps them in excellent condition. I currently still use his old iphone 5s which does everything I need, he has had an iPhone 7 for last 2-3 years and will keep for another year hopefully.

This being middle classy mums net, posters earning a good whack will happily let their teens have crappy old phones at £15 a month they themselves wouldn't be caught dead with.
In the real world, my 2 have iphones at around £38 each a month. I have a Huawei at a tenner a month. But I earn peanuts and Im not middle class.

£36

Mine have contract phones through Tesco (cap on spend), I pay £10 a month (used to be £7.50 but hey, inflation) and if they want a better phone they have to pay the difference.

So ds2 has a fancy Huwawei with a better camera, but Ds1 is fine with the £10 one.

The contract is usually all the texts you could want, plenty of minutes and 500mb of data, topped up to 750 with the family perk. You get quite creative with wifi use (on the bus, in the shopping centre) if you don't have much data.

My 13yo has an new iPhone 8, £30/month contract.

@ssd not everyone "in the real world" is middle class or is bothered about the latest fashionable phone. Does it really matter as long as they are happy with it and it does what they want it to?!

My teen is quite happy with his Huawei Y6 2018 which cost £75 outright on pay as you go only needing topped up £10 every 2 months as DS doesn't really bother with it much. I would quite happily use it myself, my own phone cost £125 and will be used until it is beyond repair as my last phone was!

A top end phone on a two year contract is a great way of giving a "wow" Christmas present without having to fork out a fortune in one go. That's what we did with 15yo DD last year - she got the phone she thought we would never buy her and we didn't really notice the higher monthly cost tbh.

My two have contract that are between £25-30 pcm - can;t quite remember. They are late teens. They never exceed their data or calls and texts are unlimited. I would have preferred a cheaper contract but I have friends with DC on £10 contracts who have been faced with bills of £100s when they exceed their limits. I prefer to know the cost. And as we live in a village and they travel a fair distance by train on a rubbish line with constant disruptions and breakdowns, we need to know they are reachable. They only get £50 pocket pcm so it evens out.

Mine has a refurbished IPhone which cost about £130, and we get a cheap mobile deal as we have BT broadband. It's £7 a month for 6gb data and unlimited calls and texts.