That’s awesome Ruth! I’ll have to look into Cricket!

We use Cricket. We don’t have a monthly contract of any type, it’s strictly month to month. Cricket doesn’t charge overages, they just slow down our data speed if we use too much. We own both of our phones outright so no phone costs rolled into it anywhere. We find great deals on phones or get hand me down phones. (Currently inherited my mother-in-law’s iphone 6s because she upgraded to a 7+. I was willing to buy it from her but she gave it to me for free)

Cricket offers amazing discounts for having multiple lines. The max they allow is 5 lines. So we got 3 friends who all wanted to save money also and added them to our plan.

Our final personal cost is $30 per month. Last month it was $27, because Target was offering Cricket gift cards for $27 that were good for $30 worth of service so we bought one and refilled our account with that.

Thanks Ruth! I know there are some inexpensive options out there for smartphones. We were living in a really rural area where even the best cell phone providers didn’t have great service, so we never checked into many of the options. Now that we’re living in a bigger city I want to look into it.

I did want to add that smartphones don’t necessarily have to break a budget. Many people pay a huge monthly bill for them, but it’s not inevitable.

We both have smartphones and pay only $30 per month for the two lines, including texting and data.

I just went through and checked them and they seem to be working for me. Here’s the exact link if you need it: https://ibotta.com/r/lweftvk