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.

Ds has the s9 he's had it a year. His dad pays for it. £50 per. Month.

Not my child but I have an Honor 9lite.

It's a lot cheaper than Samsung and iPhone.

£50/month for a child? Have I stepped into a parallel universe?

Dd has a hand-me-down iPhone. We just added her to our package so it incrementally wasn’t a big expense, about the same price as a pay as you go phone.

My ds is 13. He has the cheapest payg smartphone I could find at the time, not sure what brand. He doesn't use it much. We put £10 on it when we bought it nearly 2 years ago and that hasn't run out yet.

Hand me down iPhones or part exchanges from cex. £7 a month contract

Ds has a Samsung Galaxy A70, £29 a month unlimited including insurance, I was paying £20 on Giffgaff but his old phone was wrecked so it was easier to put him on contract than fork out for a new phone.

THe £50 a month on a child is not the shocking thing to me - the lack of financially savvy is. £50 contract and a 24 month contract (standard) means that the total outlay for the phone is £1,200 - this is an underestimate as there will also be an upfront cost and also many contracts now are 36 months. If one purchased the iPhone XR outright and then a VOXI type may monthly sim with essentially unlimited social media data, phone, texting and 6 GB of data, the total outlay over 2 years is £869 . This means that the total outlay will be more than 30 percent less!

My 12 yo has a £22 a month iPhone 6s contract. When I tallied up the cost of a refurbished a/b grade phone plus 2 years sim only contract there was only about £50 difference from getting the phone new on contract.

Mine have older samsungs and they are both less than £12 a month. I wouldn't pay more in case they broke the phone.

Both dds 14 and 11 have an iPhone 6s on a £22 a month contract. They have 4g of data and unlimited calls and texts. That’s about my limit. Dd1s phone is immaculate. DD2s not so much. But she’ll have it until the end of her contract.

Another vote for buying a used handset from Music Magpie - we’ve bought several iPhones from there and condition has always been excellent. The whole family uses Giffgaff - the teens are on the £12 a month deal.

My dcs phones are on my own contract. All sim only, 4 phones 27g that can be shared between all for £46pcm.

I can't get over anyone, adult or child, spending £50 per month on a phone! We always go for sth more basic.

As a family of 4 we'd be spending an extra £2000 per year on phones if we switched to these more expensive contracts! The phones might be better but not that much better! (And I've had iPhones in the past.)

I feel the same about cars too. I guess our priorities are different. I want things that are functional and enjoyable to use but don't need top of the range or brand new.

My daughter has an old iphone passed down from family. She has a sim only contract with Sky which is 2gb for 4.50. I am also on sky and we have a shared piggyback of data so I can give her more if she runs out. She needs a new phone. We are very reluctant to get an iPhone due to the cost so will probably get her an Android phone which we will buy outright.

I buy second hand iPhones off eBay for all of us and then we use either £10 or £15 gift gaff pay as you go sims, or I use EE £10 pay as you go. As we have wi-if, we rarely use all the data a month anyway out and about.

Just wondering what people are doing to use the massive amounts of data (or run up massive excess data charges)...

For anybody currently on a sim only deal, this is a great week to look at current offers - as lots of uni students are going back to uni so the mobile companies are trying to bag new students as customers...

Check out sim only deals on uswitch, money supermarket etc there are a lot of deals that sound a lot better than the deals that people have mentioned on this thread.

I missed switching this time last year and the deals didn’t get as good again (and some didn’t ever get as good!) until Christmas.

Also worth noting that plusnet give you and extra couple of mb of data if you have broadband with them.

Regarding getting contracts for minors and whether its a good/bad idea- most contracts are unlimited calls/text and data, some networks allow a cap if not.
The biggest issue we see with this is teens billing things to the mobile bill, such as xbox/playstation games, or in game/in app purchases, subscriptions to things etc.
The networks can't stop this, it needs to be done on the devices.
Parents then call wanting to cease the contract, or want the charges wiped, or for us to put a stop to it and we cant do it from our end.

The people using loads of data will be watching a lot of videos, music streaming or using their phone as a satnav, on mobile data not wifi.

Instead of downloading things to watch/listen to later, it seems that these days, the done thing is to just use mobile data. But I suppose that some will be saving on the cost of home wifi, as many people don't have landlines any more, so it might be swings and roundabouts.

Dd(18) has the Samsung s10 on 3. Its £45pm but unlimited everything so ideal for her esp as she's now at uni. She got a smart watch free with it, 2 Yr contract.

Ds(11) has the Sony Xperia 1, he got it for his birthday, think its 37 pm. Had to pay something upfront.

Mine is a Huawei on Tesco for £15 pm. According to the dc it's a typical mum phone!

Those who have huge data allowances - do you not normally use WiFi?

We (as a family) don't really use a huge amount of data as we tend to only access the internet when using WiFi. Hence getting away with £5 on a PAYG SIM for a month. The one time that the teens went over this was when the Pokemon Go craze was on!

@RedskyLastNight DD and I have 20GB between us but she's out and about with her mates most of the time so often using data. They're also allowed Mobile's at school. I've had to ask her to ease up on Netflix over lunch time

Constant snap chatting me and her pals does eat into the data quite a bit and there are still some people out there that won't allow visitors to have access to their WiFi (though fully expect their kids to log on to mine at our house!)

Ds has a SIM only (VOXI) £10 per month

He had an old refurbished Iphone 5 but it kept crashing and eventually stopped working altogether. I didn't want to upgrade from my Iphone 6 which I love so we clubbed together with grandparents to get him an Iphone 8

I can't get over anyone, adult or child, spending £50 per month on a phone!

I hope you never have anything serious to try and 'get over' then

I spend a lot on my phone. I have a top handset with an unlimited tariff. I have that because I want it. Because I choose it. Because I can afford to have it. Who are you to pass judgement on my choice of phone you are certainly not any better than me because you think over £50 is too much. You are just different. How about less of the 'can't get over it' shit?

I have a cheap car, some people have expensive cars. I have an iPad, some people have a kindle. I have a 40" TV, some people have huge 50"+ screens. I take my lunch to work, some people buy lunch every day. Do you see? It's ok to make different choices.

I am so sick of people acting all high and mighty because some of us fucking spend more on a phone.

Get some help to 'get over it'

Those who have huge data allowances - do you not normally use WiFi?

I do where possible, but I'm often out of the house for 12 hours a day with no WiFi. If I'm in hotels on business I rather use my data than pay them for WiFi. On the train the WiFi is often jumpy and slow. I prefer to use the data.

I have a friend who puts her phone on airplane mode every time she leave the house so it doesn't use data - she then switched it on when she gets in a WiFi area! Total nightmare when meeting up.