Going Prepaid: My Journey to Saving $68 a Month on Cell Phone Service

After over eight years in the Verizon network, I have finally left. It wasn't any action or policy enacted by Verizon that sent me away. My research and usage patterns showed the amount of monthly savings I could realize by switching from postpaid service (the traditional, pay-after-the-month plans) to prepaid service. Here is my firsthand experience of switching from Verizon to T-Mobile...

I had been a Verizon Wireless customer since 2007 when I first got a cell phone (my family became Verizon customers in 2004-05). With my first smartphone, the LG Voyager, I got the unlimited data package and remained grandfathered in when they eliminated unlimited data, then forced you to pay full price for a phone to keep it. I got the Galaxy Nexus in June 2012 and got my first taste of 4G LTE and its lightning-fast speeds. I kept notice of Verizon's rapid LTE network development and watched the map expand to cover most of the country. I was a happy customer with a good phone and great network coverage.

But then I read this article from JR Raphael on his Android Power blog discussing why he went to prepaid service and his observations three months later. When he mentioned the $30 per month plan from T-Mobile, I was intrigued. But, alas, I was under contract until June 2014 as a result of upgrading my phone. So I tucked the information in the back of my mind.

One afternoon in late August, I checked my Verizon account and looked at our usage over the past six months. Astoundingly, I had used 80 minutes or less in all six months and Veronica had used under 300 each month. So we were paying for 700 minutes and using half of them or less. Our data usage was similarly lower than I expected. I topped out at 5.5GB one month while traveling, otherwise, I was at 3-4GB each month. Veronica only used 2-3GB on her phone. I chatted with a representative to see if there was a lower minute plan to save some money. When they told me there was no lower plan, I asked about when my contract ended. To my surprise, our contracts were up. (Somehow in our account transfer/merging process, our contract end date changed to June 2013. I verified with a representative on the phone that this was correct).

With the news that we were out of contract and free to change companies, I began researching our best options. I had long been in love with the Nexus 4 by Google. The slow update process on Verizon often frustrated me with my Galaxy Nexus (having to wait 1-3 months after release to get the updates I was supposed to receive almost instantly). So the idea of being tied directly to Google was appealing. Plus the phone quality with the all glass design is pretty stellar. My mind was made up and I quickly convinced Veronica of the same.

We compared prepaid plan companies (there are dozens of them) but ultimately found that T-Mobile offered the best plans for us as their $30 per month plan for 100 minutes, unlimited text, and 5GB of high-speed data (then unlimited data at dial-up speeds) was unmatched. We got Veronica hooked up on the $60 a month plan for unlimited minutes and text with 2.5GB of high-speed data.

The activation process for Veronica was simple. We ordered our Nexus 4 phones, received them, took them to the store and got her setup within 10-15 minutes. My experience was not so easy. Turns out the $30/month plan is a Walmart/online exclusive. Through many phone calls and store visits, I finally got the answers I needed. I had to go to Walmart, buy a $30 prepaid card (which I could use for my plan cost), and call a special number to get signed up on the exclusive plan. Once I did that, we were good to go! Lesson learned: just buy the SIM card from T-Mobile's website and sign up for the plan online. I was impatient and it cost me many hours of frustration.

So what's the point of all this? Why did I leave Verizon's 4G LTE network and unlimited data behind? Simply: monthly cost savings. Here's a graph of what we're looking at:

I wasn't really using the power of Verizon's network, one of the main advantages of their service. We pretty much always stay in the OKC metro area and when we did travel, it was to cities or along interstates that are well covered by every network. Also, it turns out that HSPA+ (which is called 4G by many companies, causing confusion) isn't that much slower than LTE (my local comparisons show LTE around 10-15 mbps and HSPA+ around 7-9 mbps, a small difference and still faster than our DSL speeds at home). And my data usage was typically under the 5GB threshold due to the prevalence of Wi-Fi at home and work so unlimited data wasn't really a necessity anymore.

All in all, three weeks after changing our wireless provider, we're satisfied. Next month we'll see our cost savings on our monthly budget and enjoy that extra $68 a month of wiggle room. On top of that, we improved our phones and enjoy the benefits of a quad-core processor every day. We can choose when we want to upgrade and unlocked phones seem to carry a higher resale value for selling our old phones. Prepaid was the right move for us, is it for you?

Questions or comments? Let me know below!

How I Transitioned To (and From) Overnight Shifts

Weather is cruel: it never stops. Similarly, clients are always working and in all time zones of the world. As a result, clients often need information or assistance in the wee hours of the morning in the U.S. At my job at Weathernews, new employees are trained up during day shifts for the first 6-9 months then move into overnight shifts (one to two weeks at a time) once basic knowledge of the world's oceans has been imparted.

We also use a 10 hour a day, 4 days a week schedule (Sun-Wed or Wed-Sat) which provides three day weekends (a very nice perk!).

So when the schedule for March came out and I saw I would be working two sets of "flex" shifts (7pm-5:30am local time), I began to think through how I could get my body out of its lifelong routine of going to bed early and waking up early (presently, Veronica and I go to sleep between 9:30 and 11 and wake up between 5:30 and 6 on weekdays). I'm in the middle of the two weeks of overnight shifts but the first week was a success. Here's how I did it:

1. Get what you need to sleep! For me, I need a cool, dark room. If I'm sleeping in the daylight hours, I need eyeshades. And with my wife waking up on a regular 8-to-5 schedule, I need ear plugs to sleep through her morning routine.
2. Begin transitioning to the new sleep schedule three days before the first overnight shift. I got off work Saturday at 5:30pm and made sure to stay awake until 12:30am that first night while sleeping in until 8:30am (something my body doesn't allow, even on off days). The next night, Sunday night, I stayed up until 2:30am. The last night, Monday night, I stayed up until 4:30am. By Tuesday night, my body was ready to go for the shift.
3. Eat when you're hungry. I found this advice on another website and it worked for me. My appetite has been fairly consistent in desiring breakfast, lunch, and dinner. So I eat breakfast at 1pm when I wake up. Lunch with my wife before work at 6pm. And dinner around 11:30pm at work.
4. Keep mentally active in the transition nights. Watching a movie or TV wasn't going to work for me, I'd fall asleep easily. I saved chores for the night time, I read articles online, I played SimCity, etc. I didn't allow my brain to turn off.

5. Do what it takes to stay awake on shift. I found that eating little snacks keeps me fresh. Knowing this, I tried to give myself healthy options such as: homemade granola bars (thanks Veronica!), bananas, fruit snacks, yogurt, oranges, and Cheetos/crackers (ok, so I wasn't completely healthy). I also stretched on my way to/from bathroom breaks and drank plenty of water (with one caffeinated can of Dr Pepper each night).
6. Know your wall. I "hit the wall" between 1:30 and 2:30 every night. My eyes get heavy, my mind drifts, and my work capacity slows down. Once I figured this out, I had my Dr Pepper and granola bar waiting each night for the inevitable weariness. Thirty minutes later, I was back to being fresh. Be ready for your body to start shutting down and have a plan in place to combat it!
7. Use your lunch break to be active. I tried to do something physical for each night's break. I went outside for a while one night, did part of the Insanity workout the next. You have to keep the body moving!
8. Cut your body off from the sleep schedule after the last night. This advice came from a supervisor for overcoming the feeling of jet lag (thanks Polk!). I woke up at 11am on the Saturday morning after and was naturally tired by midnight that night (before starting the transition back for the second week).

So that's it: my tips for working a rotating overnight shift in meteorology (or elsewhere). Someday, I hope to put the overnight schedule behind me! 

I must thank my encouraging wife for keeping me going when things got difficult and frustrating. Thank you for supporting me, Veronica!

What are some tips you have for working overnight shifts?