The Lazy Guide To Mobile Phones

Read how lazy Fools and non penny-pinchers should go about getting a better mobile phone deal.

The Carphone Warehouse reckons that we (somehow!) waste £30bn each year because we're on the wrong mobile phone tariffs. Apparently, more than two-thirds of the wastage is from pay-as-you-go users.

It's not surprising that we're not all on the best tariffs. I reckon that many tariffs are just a different package for what turns out to be a virtually identical product. I am certain that the thousands of tariffs out there exist to confuse us. It's the same with mortgages, gas and electricity tariffs, pensions, and virtually any other product that we write about at The Fool.

For that reason, there's only one way to ensure you're on the optimal tariff: lots and lots of boring research.

Thing is, when it comes to my own mobile, I'm not interested in doing this. I'm too lazy and I have better things to do. Therefore, I'm going to keep it as simple as possible, although this still may involve some research on your part. For the purposes of this article I'm going to assume that, like me, you only use your mobile for calls and texts.

£10 or less per month

I estimate that, on pay-as-you-go, £10 is roughly 50 minutes and 50 texts. If you use your phone as little as this, then you won't save much - or anything - by using a contract. It's hard to find contract tariffs for less than £10, and those you can find are cashback deals, which means the savings you'd make are probably not worth the time and effort involved.

£10-£15

£10-£15 is a awkward bill range. If it was me, I wouldn't bother switching my mobile phone deal, whether I was on contract or pay-as-you-go, unless I wanted a lot more usage for the same price. As it happens, I average £16, and I'm still not going to look around for another deal.

£15-£20

If you have a contract costing between £15 (or, indeed, £16) and £20, but you reckon you average 50ish minutes of calls and 50 texts or less, you may be better off switching to a pay-as-you-go deal.

Conversely, if you're on pay-as-you-go and you're spending this much, it's worth looking for a suitable contract to save you money. The important bit is to estimate your typical monthly usage correctly, so you don't overspend. How much time and effort you put into estimating this is up to you!

£20+

If you spend more than £20 per month, you're getting into territory where it may pay not to be quite such a lazy Fool. Analysing your usage with itemised bills is the optimum method. This should help you to pick the tariff that is right for you, based on your typical split between voice calls and texts.

If that sounds too complicated, you may prefer the slightly lazier approach of signing up for a money-saving cashback deal. You may also consider spending less time yakking on the phone. Of course, true, penny-pinching Fools would do all three, but let's not go there today!

These are all rough figures, but there's no point spending more time on this until you've optimised more expensive products, such as gas and electricity, mortgages and credit cards!

> See this discussion board thread on cashback deals: Best cashback companies?
> Save money on your household bills: compare utility prices.
> Read about Flexible Mobile Phone Deals.