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Introduction\n
My Communication Needs?

Introduction

\n\n

Imagine you have the very best smartphone available… the highest quality display, with an up-to-the-second current version of Android! Now, imagine that your carrier has just offered to cut your annual bill by $1,000 while giving you unlimited data, and then throwing in unlimited text and talk just for good measure? Sound too good to be true?

\n\n

Not if you have an unlocked GSM phone and have moved your service to an MVNO, like Straight Talk.

\n\n

What’s the catch?
\nNot much of one… a couple of hours of your time will save you around $1,000 this year simply just pick-up a copy of this book.

\n\n

When you’re finished with this book, you’ll be ready to start saving $1,000 immediately without the worry of losing your phone number, without having to dealing poor reception, and without making a costly mistake. Most important of all though, you don’t have to be a cell phone geek, to make it happen (in fact, it’s probably better if you’re not!).

\n\n

You’ve probably seen the ads for pre-paid wireless… be it Straight Talk, or Cricket, or one of dozens of different companies that purport to be $45-$50 per month for unlimited everything… that can’t possibly be true, right? There’s got to be some ugly catch… because who in their right might would pay double that for their AT&T/Verizon/Sprint/T-Mobile contract. Well, the simple truth is that most people would be. Despite trailing Verizon by 20 million wireless subscribers… AT&T is still expected to add another 475,000 new customers this quarter!

\n\n

What’s that worth? I don’t know… on the order of another $38 million in new revenue per month, simply because most people wouldn’t give a second thought to pre-paid month-to-month service from a company like Straight Talk.

\n\n

Bottom line? With just a few simple changes you can save about $1,000 a year off the cost of your cell phone… right now.

\n\n

My Communication Needs?

\n $\"Could$

Could these two things really cost the same per month?

\n\n

I hate spending hard earned money on communication “needs”. It’s like this ever rising tide of things that I don’t really want, that encumber me in ways frustrating new ways, and compete for my time, energy, and attention… and they’re always on. But even if that all weren’t true, and I hadn’t become mildly jaded by the sea of people, all with a tremendous false sense of urgency, the reality remains that I just plain hate monthly recurring expenses. Oh, but not big Telecom. These guys lovingly refer to that as the monthly recurring cost (MRC), and it’s why they’re in business…

\n\n

… the opportunity to pick-your-pocket every month - for the rest of your natural life.

\n\n

Going back and looking at my cell phone bill from 2001 (yes… I do keep cell phone bills from a decade ago - doesn’t everyone?), I was surprised… my bill was only about $45 a month from Sprint. Given inflation, I factored in 3% annual increases over the intervening years, and to derive what I think is a reasonable cost. You know what that number turned out to be? $61 a month. Given the pace of technology, you’d think I would probably be a heck of a lot more for the same price (or less)… like I do when I buy CPUs, or RAM, or anything remotely related to a PC, right? Alas, no… my bill was about $90 per month. That’s more than a 100% increase over 10 years. Wow. Someone is doing something right, if they can up the bill by 100% every decade. And let’s not forget, most of us just had 1 line a decade ago. To that… I’ve added a second line, more “features”, and of course a data plan… and I was spending $167 a month. In other words, I was spending about $2,000 a year for my mobile communication “needs”. Now, I don’t know if this is real money where you live, but $2k a year for cell phones is at least something to think about, isn’t it? I mean, between cell phones and my latte expenses we’re starting to turn about real money. On top of that… 20 years ago cell phones barley existed. In the intervening decades I’ve stacked up recurring cost, upon recurring cost… cable, my Internet Service provider, my cell phones, Text Messaging, Data plans, Netflix, and maybe even a plain-old telephone line… when you add it all up, you’re looking at the cost of a BMW 3-Series lease ($310 per month) spent solely on communication needs! And that’s if you don’t have kids! (Incidentally, I’m in no way suggesting the lease option on a luxury German sports sedan… it just draws a nice comparison). So could it possibly be that you’re actually consuming a luxury sports sedan worth of communication needs every month? Well, you’re certainly paying for it.

\n\n

So that’s why I’m here… I’m here to help you cut $1,000 from your cell phone bill this year, which you can put toward that Roth IRA that you’ve been underfunding for the past few years. Or heck, blow on lattes for all I care… at least get some value out of that $1,000 you’re spending unnecessarily.

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Table of Contents

Introduction

Bottom line? With just a few simple changes you can save about $1,000 a year off the cost of your cell phone… right now.

My Communication Needs?

… the opportunity to pick-your-pocket every month - for the rest of your natural life.