Warning: I am going to geek out over numbers and spreadsheets in this post.  Bare with me because it saves us nearly $600 annually.

I like to chase deals and save money. That whole “a penny saved is a penny earned” idiom nails it. With 5 kids, we can really compound the savings. Every bit we save is more that will go into savings, investing, or paying for travel.

AT&T Prepaid

For background, we were on AT&T Prepaid for several years where I ran a “business” account with 10 lines. I managed payments from different people to maximize the savings. It hit about $24 per line for 15 GB. Between collecting monthly payments, replacing group members when they left, and having our kids come over cellular age, moving elsewhere seemed worthwhile.

I made the brief mistake of moving us to a Verizon service. Apparently Cherokee does not have service in parts of her school on it. I would call that a win, personally. She did not.

Teacher Discount on AT&T

Sometimes there are perks to being a teacher. Summer breaks, societal disdain, and cell plan discounts. Turns out that AT&T offers 25% off for educators. Of course, they prioritize multiple lines for discounts so 4 lines cost a few dollars more than 3 lines. That meant C bumped up to the connected life earlier than expected. With four lines on “unlimited” plans, a $10 a monthly “bring your own phone” discount (about to expire though), and that healthy teacher discount, we landed at about $125 on AT&T. Not bad at all…

US Mobile Improvements

So what changed? US Mobile added AT&T to their service.  US Mobile is a prepaid cell phone carrier we tried before. They have offered service on T-Mobile and Verizon for several years going back to 2014. They rebrand the Verizon as “Warp” and T-Mobile as “Light Speed.”  When they added AT&T as “Darkstar”, they had my attention.

Instead of messing with multi line discounts, they offer unlimited service for  $25 a month, taxes and fees included. That seems to be a sweet spot as other companies like Visible offer it for the same price.  To be clear, US Mobile offers bundled data family plans instead that can save money if you know you don’t need the data. 

We could do a straight switch from AT&T to US Mobile and save $25 a month immediately. That adds up to $300 a year. Why stop there though?

Visible

While looking at options, Visible was advertising $6 off per month for 12 months. The base plan is normally $25 (remember, sweet spot) so that brought it down to $19 a month. The kids just need basic service so any discount there is worthwhile.

	AT&T	Prepaid
Parent lines	$68.55	$50 (2 x $25) US Mobile
Kid lines	$56.47	$38 (2 x $19) Visible
Total	$125.02	$88

What does that bring us to? Splitting our lines to two companies brings down the monthly cost to $88.

Did I mention that the BYOP $10 discount would run out soon on AT&T? With that discount gone, AT&T would go to $135 a month. 

By switching two lines to US Mobile (keeping service on their AT&T “Dark Star” network though) and switching two lines to Visible (getting an even better price), we are saving $47 a month. That is $564 a year!

How Its Going

After a couple weeks, we have no complaints! Our coverage at home is equal to AT&T.  Coverage at both schools is equally strong.

In fact, we found another advantage. Having service spread across AT&T and Verizon means better overall coverage.  While we have great coverage at home and work, there are weak spots elsewhere.  The kids play soccer at Sportland Park in Clinton.  I can send a text or make a phone call on AT&T.  After switching the kids to Visible, I found out that Verizon coverage there is fantastic.  Visible’s unlimited hotspot let me work on Teachers of Tomorrow while C practices (when I wasn’t walking laps). 

For Your Info

There are three major cell phone carriers in the US: AT&T, T-Mobile, and Verizon. They collectively operate the backbone of all cell phone service in the country. They are typically referred to as post paid service. Companies like Boost, Cricket, Metro, Mint, Tracfone, US Mobile, and Visible are all prepaid service providers. Some of them are even owned by the Big Three above. AT&T owns AT&T Prepaid and Cricket. T-Mobile owns Metro and Mint. Verizon owns a bunch besides Visible because they bought Tracfone: Total, Simple Mobile, Net10, Page Plus, Straight Talk, Walmart Family Mobile.

Prepaid service is often cheaper as the Big Three try to capture more customers that can’t or won’t pay the premium prices for post paid service. There can be advantages to post paid service: “free” phones every three years (the cost is built into plans), more roaming coverage (helpful for travel), and high priority service which may be helpful in very crowded venues (think: sports arenas).

Switching to prepaid service depends on your priorities and needs.

Other Considerations

This move makes sense if you own your phones or you owe less than the potential savings. Cherokee’s Google Pixel was purchased through AT&T and was about half paid off. While we had to pay off the balance, we are saving more money in the long term. Most, if not all, phones can be unlocked after a two or three months so the phone can be used on other services.

Outro

Are you interested in more money saving tricks? Tell us in the comments below!