To not buy more phone credit

[RoseMartha]

Dd age 13 wants more credit.

She uses wifi at home.

In two days used up all her data. Mainly making tictoks and using sm to message friends photos and videos when out.

Now she wants more data.
I have told her she needs to learn how to budget her data over the month. I am on fairly tight budget.

She still has unlimited texts and 500 mins of calls left.

I know if I pay for more it will be used up just as quickly. AIBU to say no?

If you up it from £8 to £10 she will get 9gb if you set it to recur every month

So, 2gb on Giffgaff = £8pm. With Voxi (Vodafone network) you would get 12gb for £10pm plus data used for social media doesn't eat into your allowance. With Smarty (Three network) you can get 30gb for £10. There's lots of better options out there where you can both get what you want.

Could she top-up the goody bag with an extra £2, £4, whatever each month to get a larger allowance? So you pay for the basic 2GB, and if she wants more, she pays for the extra?

Or, look at some of the other networks mentioned with her, and if seem better but are more expensive she pays the difference?

@emilyfrost

2gb is absolutely nothing; you need to properly look into some good deals getting her a decent amount of data.

This. 2GB is tiny. Get a better deal and avoid the angst.

I think you should look into a better deal so she can get more data without costing you the earth - but don't just give it to her. She should earn it by agreeing to do jobs each week and get that agreement before you change the plan - if she doesn't agree then don't increase it, if she stops then put the plan on hold.

I've got through 2GB just reading this post.

Thanks for the replies and ideas. I will look into upgrading it. But she will have to wait , I am not giving it to her straight away and she will have to either put pocket money towards it or help more about the home.

How is 2gb nothing? The only time I’d ever go over that would be on holiday.

I used to use 50G before my plan even refreshed

2gb isn't that bad if she's using wifi when she's at home. Surely when she's in school she should be concentrating on lessons, not being online anyway?

And you say she's 'not keen' on helping round the house to earn credit. When I was her age, my mum would have called that 'tough shit'. You're already being generous paying for a phone for her, and topping it up every single month. If she wants EXTRA on top of that, she has to do something to earn that. Giving her everything she wants now isn't going to do her any favours when she's older and has to look after herself, is it?

I used to have a chart on the wall in the kitchen (even when I was a teenager haha) and I'd earn 'ticks' which were worth 20p each. I'd get five for doing the washing up, hanging the washing out, or hoovering, one for making my mum a brew, two for taking the bin out .. just as an example, I can't remember exact values to be honest. Then I could cash them in whenever I wanted. So, phone credit, cash to go out with friends, whatever. Mum also gave me my share of the family allowance (child benefit I guess it's called today) on the promise that I bought my own clothes with it, so this money I earned was just extra.

She used to love it when I wanted £20, as she'd have a clean car, pristine house, washing basket empty .. she said it was well worth the £20, and as a teen it felt like quite easy money! Maybe try something like that?

YANBU. Could you consider a sim only contract for her. They really can save you a lot of money. I recently helped my DM switch to a sim only contract for £5 a month with unlimited calls and texts, plus 2gb data (she only really uses facebook when she is out of the house, wifi at home and most places she goes) and was spending much more topping her phone up as she likes the talk on the phone. If you do this make sure you go to the online account and add a cap so she cannot go over the allowance and roam outside the EU when travelling.

@raspberryk

How is 2gb nothing? The only time I’d ever go over that would be on holiday.

Are you a teenager?

My 13 year old is on the cheapest £6 giffgaff, that's 250mb of data. What do they need data for when out? At my house he uses WiFi. At school his phone should be off and in his bag according to school rules. At friends houses (when such things are allowed) he can go on their wifi as his friends do when they are here. He manages fine. I'm on the £8 2gb one and I never run out and I have my data on all the time and use Google maps so the time because I work in a community setting doing house calls.

@raspberryk
2GB really isn't a lot these days, especially with a teenager. Social media, heavy webpages and iMessage etc all use data. Depending on how close the OP lives to school, they could have a long journey in which they probably use social media to entertain themselves. I have unlimited data as I work about an hour away, use social media as my primary communication and use maps (surprisingly data heavy) for traffic info.

Definitely make her earn it if she is expecting you to do everything.
At 13 if she wants more she needs to make an effort even with ASD.
It'll stand well to her in the future.

The average teen would use a minimum of 10GB a month. My teen has 30GB its £15.50 a month with 3.

Dd14 has a $30/month prepaid plan and it gives her 8gig. She always runs out of data.

However, she has taught her friends to make phone calls, to send texts and even, on occasion, to use a public phone box.

2 gb is OK, as pp said it's WiFi at home and friends houses, and shouldn't be on at school.

Definitely look at changing to a better tariff.
Whether 2GB is a lot or not really depends on how much and where you use your phone. DS used to get 500mb and it was fine. Now he and his friends go to the park and play pokemon go most days. So i upped his sim only deal. He gets 20gb for £8 on ID.

@RoseMartha

Thanks for the replies and ideas. I will look into upgrading it. But she will have to wait , I am not giving it to her straight away and she will have to either put pocket money towards it or help more about the home.

Why will she have to wait? Because you don’t want her to know you didn’t do your research and there are far better details with much more data for the price you’re paying?

@emilyfrost did you not read the OP’s other posts about her child not understanding the value of things? Why so snarky?

Try giffgaff. I get 10g of data for a tenner and DS gets some huge amount for £25. So maybe she could add to it?

10gb for a tenner you say? We have giffgaff for the youngest, I'm off to investigate. Looks like if we pay a couple of quid more a month, we could end up being the best parents in the world!! (Well, for all of two minutes).

@PhilCornwall1

Try giffgaff. I get 10g of data for a tenner and DS gets some huge amount for £25. So maybe she could add to it?

10gb for a tenner you say? We have giffgaff for the youngest, I'm off to investigate. Looks like if we pay a couple of quid more a month, we could end up being the best parents in the world!! (Well, for all of two minutes).

You'd be even better parents if you got 30 gb from smarrty for £10

Do you all not know about comparison sites for SIM only deals

Do you all not know about comparison sites for SIM only deals

Moneysavingexpert gives a list of good sim only data deals for as little as possible.

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

There's several providers similar to GiffGaff, where you pay an amount by card each month for 30 days service or until you run out of data. The main difference is what network it uses, so you just pick what's a good network for you and its easy enough to switch between if one doesn't suit.

I pay a fiver a month for 2 Gb from Lebara because that's more than enough for me, but I'm not a teenager constantly watching or making videos on my phone.

You could probably get up to about 6-8 Gb for under a tenner. Also make sure she's actually using the wifi at home. Sometimes the phone settings need to be adjusted for it to go back automatically after she's been out.

Smartty is on the three network. Their coverage where I live is shit. Gif gaff is O2 which is why I went with them.