Mobile phones are pretty much essential nowadays but they can be super expensive.
The average spend on mobile contracts in the UK is £45.60 per month, a whopping £547.20 per year. That’s a lot of money! So I’m here to teach you how to get cheap mobile phone deals…
I’ve collaborated with Fonehouse to help you easily decrease your monthly spend on your phone contract so you can save that money for a rainy day or important things.
How to get cheap mobile phone deals
1. Know when to buy
Every year around August and September, Apple, Samsung and other leading mobile phone manufacturers bring out their latest models. For people who don’t want or need the latest handset this is a major time to save money. The price of the previous generation handsets will drop drastically.
For example: the Samsung Galaxy Note 9 has just been released. When the Note 8 was released in September 2017 it cost £869 to buy the handset sim free. You can now buy the same device for as little as £552 on Amazon.
The Note 8 is still a fantastic device and the only major difference is an extra .1 of an inch in screen size and a Bluetooth S-pen which really isn’t a necessity.
2. Don’t let your contract roll
Most mobile phone contracts last 24 months. This helps make flagship handsets more affordable as phone retailers include the cost of the handset within the monthly fee.
The average monthly contract for a top tier device is around £40 per month. Once this period is over you still pay the same amount but the cost of the device has been paid off.
Putting your contract date in your diary can save you a fortune in the long run. You can either upgrade to a new handset or if you’re happy with your phone, keep it and transfer onto a sim only plan. This will usually more than half the cost your monthly cost.
3. Pay upfront to save long term
As phone retailers take the cost of the handset into account on the monthly plan, this can escalate the total cost of the contract over the 24-month period.
Most consumers don’t want to pay for a device up front as the latest flagship phones cost more than £700. Paying a little towards the phone at the beginning of the contract will always decrease the overall amount you spend in the duration of the contract.
Let’s use an example from Uswitch.com.
The iPhone 8 64GB contract below comes with no upfront cost and 4GB of data. The total phone cost is £912 over the duration of the 24-month contract.
Below, we spend £86 upfront for the same data bundle but we save £34 over the duration of the contract.
TOP TIP: Choosing to pay for the phone fully upfront and buying a sim only plan is usually going to be the cheapest option overall.
I have Samsung Galaxy S8+ which I bought second hand when it was still fairly new. I have a Three sim only plan which costs just £9 per month for unlimited texts, unlimited calls and 4GB of data which is more than enough for me (this plan is now currently £11 but that’s still a great deal!).
To put that into perspective…I only spend £108 per year on my phone contract compared to the average of £547.20.
4. Cash in your old device
Many of us have a drawer full of old devices. A second hand iPhone 8 64GB will still sell for over £500 on eBay. Older generation phones like the iPhone 7 and Samsung Galaxy S7 still sell for above £200. Don’t let that money waste away and get your old handset on sale as soon as you have a new one.
If you’re looking to sell more of your unwanted things then check out this blog post for more tips.
5. How much data do you really need?
The average data usage in the UK is a lot lower than the average data plan. www.statista.com report data usage will only hit an average of 8.9 GB globally by 2021.
The most popular data plan in the UK is 16GB. With the rise of available free Wi-Fi in most locations the need for large data plans has dropped drastically. Understanding your usage before signing into a 24-month plan is essential for the savvy mobile phone shopper. Below gives an indication from Fonehouse of what you can do with 10GB of data per month.
As most contracts now come with unlimited minutes and texts, it’s the data that drives the monthly cost. Do your research and check your last three months data usage to understand how much data you really need.
There can also be a negative to not having enough data. Add on data is very expensive and can cost up to £5 for an extra 250MB.
6. Use the FREE Wi-Fi
This has been briefly touched on above but Wi-Fi is readily available in most venues, bars, restaurants and public areas. Even cars are starting to come with their own connections! If you are near free Wi-Fi, connect to it and save that data usage for another day.
Has this blog post got you thinking about how to get cheap mobile phone deals? Let me know by leaving a comment on how you’re going to reduce spending on your mobile phone.
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