Choosing the right phone provider is one thing that can really help your monthly budget. Every once and a while it is a good idea to check on the rates and what the different carries offer in order to get the best monthly rate/options. If you haven't done it in a while, here is what the market looks like now. It could save you quite a bit every month.
Sprint has a few plans that are very good as far as competitive prices and network coverage. The most reasonable plan they have right now is the "Framily" plan which lets you share your service with up to 10 friends and family. The service is about $168/7 and you can have up to 10 people on the plan. It's not as great a deal with fewer than 7, but it is still a good deal. One drawback here is that you have to bring your phone with you, it is not subsidized, which is the way they have all gone anyway. The cool thing about the framily plan is that you can have friends on the plan and they get their own bill for their lines, so you can just have two people that you are responsible for and still pay only $48+tax. Just make sure they have your framily number when they sign up because once signed up, they can't join your framily.
T-mobile is probably the best value plan of any of the postpaid plans. For a family you can get 2.5GB per line with free texts/minutes for $80/2 lines and $120/6. As you see, the more lines you add, the cheaper it is per line. There is no subsidy built in so you will pay extra if you buy a phone with them on a payment plan. Single lines are $50 for 1GB of data. This is by far the cheapest plan as I said before, but the service is not as mature as the other carries. It is getting better all the time however and when you get a signal it is usually pretty good quality.
AT&T has the "next" plan that is $65/1 line and $240/6 lines. (basically $150+ $15 a line). The network is better and you pay a premium for that. The "next" service requires you to bring your own device. They also have a 2 year agreement that costs $40 but comes with a subsidy on a phone. Just buy the phone and don't sign an agreement, there is too much changing to lock in.
Verizon wireless has $90/2 smartphones with 1GB each for their "edge" plan. Add 4 more lines and it is $160. There is an added charge if you buy a device from them at their subsidy, so again it is cheaper if you bring your own. There is some discounting going on here, and I am not exactly sure how that works, but if you like Verizon it is worth looking into as they have one of the strongest networks.
Prepaid. I know a lot of people that are fine going with a prepaid phone like republic, ting, pageplus, tracfone, or virgin. They are fine, but you are not going to get a premium smartphone. They usually run on the big networks, so you will get pretty good service, but you will need to charge the cards and keep track of usage more. I'll leave these for you to explore more, but they are a good option for a landline alternative for an emergency phone at home.
Speaking of home phones, do you still have a land line? I would recommend getting an ooma. It is a box that connects to your high speed internet and is basically free after you buy the device. They run for around $100, though sometimes you can get them on sale. They charge you a tax/regulatory fee of around $3.50-$4, but it beats the phone company if you want to keep the land line. They can be convenient if your cell phone goes dead.
The FUTURE...
Google is supposedly getting into the phone service arena buying bandwidth from t-mobile and possibly sprint, so things might be changing even more soon...
The wrap.
If you are paying more than $40 a line on a family plan, you are paying too much! Get a better plan, call the retention department and tell them that you are going to leave if they don't lower your rate. Also, if you work for a large company, you might have a discount that you are missing out on. Check with your HR or the phone provider and see if there is a discount available, it can be significant. Hope this helps, if you have any thing you would like to add, please comment below.
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