Josh called on a Sunday night to tell me he'd done it himself. He had gone online, opened his own phone account and was ready to move his number over. "You don't have to pay for me anymore, Mom," he said. He's 22 and graduating in a few weeks, and I knew it was coming. It still caught me off guard for a second.
Emily had moved her line to a plan with Nate back in January. So after years of paying for a family of four, we were down to two phones on a four-line plan, and still paying $140 a month for it.
The plan we left
Our old plan was a typical family plan. Four lines with unlimited data, priced so the per-line cost drops the more lines you have. At four lines it was $35 each. At two lines, the same plan would have been $55 each, or $110, plus taxes and fees. That's the trap of a family plan. It's a good deal right up until the family leaves.
So simply removing two lines would only have saved us about $30. I needed a different plan.
The questions I asked
I went into the store on a weekday afternoon, which is a nice thing about not working full time anymore. I brought the green notebook and our last three bills. Here's what I asked, more or less in this order:
- What's your cheapest plan for two lines that keeps our numbers?
- How much data do we actually use? (They can look it up. Greg used about 3 GB a month. I used about 5.)
- Does the autopay discount still apply on the new plan, and does it need a debit account or a card?
- Are there any device balances left on any of the four lines?
- Will we lose anything we actually use, like voicemail or the international texting I used once in 2019? (Answer: nothing we'd miss.)
The data question was the big one. We had been paying for unlimited data and using a fraction of it. Greg's phone is mostly for calls, the weather and checking Bengals scores. Mine is for texting the kids and the bank app. Most of the time we're both on Wi-Fi at home.
We landed on a two-line plan with 15 GB of shared data a month, which is still about twice what we use together. It's $70 a month with autopay, taxes included. We kept our numbers and our phones. Nothing changed for us except the price.
The surprise fee
There's always one. When Josh moved his number to his own account, it turned out his phone still had six payments left on it, $18 a month, from when he upgraded in the fall of 2024. The device balance was tied to our account, not to his number. To release the line, the remaining $108 had to be paid off.
I hadn't known that. Somewhere in 2024 I said yes to "would you like to put the new phone on monthly payments," and then forgot about it, which is exactly why I go through bills line by line now. We paid it off that day. Josh offered to pay us back. I told him to buy his sister lunch.
The salesperson also mentioned there could be a one-time charge for changing plans. When I asked her to check, it was waived because we were staying with the same carrier. I'd still ask, if you're doing this.
The math
We went from $140 a month to $70. That's $70 a month, $840 a year. Subtract the $108 payoff, and we're still $732 ahead in the first year.
Greg asked if this meant he'd get a new phone. It does not. His phone is four years old and works fine. He knows this. He asks anyway.
It's been a big month for small endings. This is also the month we make our last mortgage payment on this house, after nearly 27 years. I'll write about that separately once it's done, because I want the confirmation in my hand first.
For now, I'll just say it's strange to look at the phone bill and see only two names on it. It's also $70 cheaper, and I can live with that.
If your kids are leaving your plan, my only advice is to ask about device balances before anything moves, and to look up your real data use. You're probably paying for more than you need.
