Last weekend, I changed my cell phone from Sprint to Ting (which is on Sprint’s network).  I definitely put in the wrong amount of data usage in my bill estimate, but I’m still confident that my bill with Ting will be lower than my Sprint bill.

With Sprint I had unlimited data.  Not having that is going to be a big change for me.  The way Ting is set up is that there are minutes, messaging and data groups, and the group you fall in at the end of the month (small, medium, large use, etc.) determines how much you pay for that portion. The most I would expect to spend for the data portion is $29, so I would be surprised with a bill over $45.  Either way, I need to be more careful about my usage.

I turned off my MBTA commuter rail alerts–with the snow they sent me around 500 messages last month!  Most of my messaging is through iMessage, where I’m not paying per message (but it does take up a little(?) data while I’m not on wifi.

For general internet usage, I’m testing out the wifi on the commuter rail.  I’ve found it to be difficult in the past, but I’m not hanging too many issues this evening.  A few of the other changes I’ve made:

• All of my mail is either set to “fetch” or at most to pull every hour, instead of more often.
• Turned off cellular data for the majority of apps.
• Turned off background refreshing.

I can’t tell you how many times I tried to check my email or facebook while I was at work today.  Hopefully this will make me more pre more productive at work, once I get used to not checking constantly.

Any other advice on how to minimize data use?

 

UPDATE:  So far, I feel like I’m failing at not compulsively checking my phone (and turning Cellular Data back on for individual apps when I feel like using them).  So far, from March 8 (?) I’ve used 570 Megabytes, and have to stay under 1000 if I want my bill to be $31.  I don’t think this is going to happen this month, so I think I’ll be looking at $29 for data, for a total bill of $41.  I don’t think I’ll go over on text messages or minutes–but this means I shouldn’t answer my phone just to mess with “Rachel from Card Services.”  In August, if I haven’t been saving buckets of money each month, I might switch to a family plan on Verizon with my hubby, and take advantage of the 12% discount, but only if it is in line with what I’ve been paying, or I think there’s a major difference in service.

 

 

As far as the service itself goes, if you have Sprint (Ting uses their network), and don’t use a lot of data, don’t hesitate to switch over to Ting.  I haven’t noticed any difference in the service itself, and either way my monthly bill will be cheaper, even if by smaller amounts than I’d hoped.

(And, hey! If you wanted to use my referral link, I wouldn’t be crushed:  https://zgag3l3bj2a.ting.com/ )