My fingertip hovered over the “SUBMIT” button for much longer than what would be considered normal. I fretted. I worried. I walked away and came back. I knew that once I hit the button, there was no going back. No changing our minds.
We’ve decided to give up our unlimited data plans on AT&T.
I know you just shuddered too, right? (Not.) It may sound crazy and overly dramatic, but my husband and I have been back and forth over and over, trying to decide what to do. I guess the finality of it just bothers me. You can’t even get unlimited data plans on AT&T anymore. Only those that had them originally were ‘grandfathered in’ and allowed to keep them. We are heavy data users, but the undeniable truth is that we were paying WAY TOO MUCH STINKIN’ MONEY each month on our cell phone bill. For four iPhones, we were paying $226 per month. Aye, aye, aye. (I know. That’s outrageous. We may be budget-minded, but we’re Apple people, okay? So shoot us.)
I kept getting these annoying little messages from AT&T to join their new “Mobile Share Value Plan”. There must be something in it for them. So every time I read one, my stubborn alter-ego emerged……
“I WON’T BUY INTO YOUR EVIL PLAN AT&T!!! I WILL DIE BEFORE I LET GO OF MY UNLIMITED DATA PLAN! I AM NOT YOUR PUPPET, AND I WILL NOT BE MANIPULATED!!!”
I beamed with pride (at myself). I will NOT be a drone. I will NOT give in to slick advertising. I will stand valiantly atop the unlimited data plan hillside, with my “I WILL NOT SURRENDER!” flag staked firmly in the soil.
Before I go any further, let me declare that I’ve officially revealed a part of my personality I’m not proud of. That is, if I detect that I’m being manipulated somehow, I will do everything I can to NOT do whatever “they” want me to do. And by this point, AT&T was causing my manipulation-radar to go bananas. But after a few weeks of these annoying messages, I decided to step back and analyze it rationally; the way you should always approach financial decisions. I needed to think about this expense with my head, and not my manipulation-radar.
AT&T estimated that with the new “slick” plan, our bill would be about $130 + taxes/fees, including my 23% corporate discount. And if you remember from a few paragraphs back, we’re currently paying $226 a month. The key to the new mobile share plan, is that instead of unlimited data, our 4 devices would share 10GB per month. The next obvious question is…is 10GB enough? Would we go over? Would we be in a constant state of possible-data-overage-induced stress? I had no sense of current usage, so I went on the AT&T website and reviewed our data usage for the last 12 months. On average, we used a little less than 5GB monthly. So even if we doubled our data usage, we still wouldn’t reach our maximum. (And I do realize that there is something in it for AT&T; data usage will only increase over the years, so the fewer number of customers on unlimited data plans, the better it is for them.)
At this point, I knew what we needed to do. It only makes sense for us to give up our unlimited data plans. So we did. We put up our imaginary white flag of surrender, and clicked “SUBMIT”.
Am I still a little uncomfortable with the idea that I can no longer be a wasteful glutton at the AT&T data buffet? Yes. Am I a little worried that my bill will not be as AT&T “estimated”? Yes. Am I afraid I’ll have a case of “SUBMIT button” remorse? Absolutely.
Only time will tell…I’ll be sure to give you an update when I get my first ‘normal’ bill…