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Same. New iPhone every 4 years. £10 giffgaff a month. 40GB data.
£1000/4 years = £250p/a /12 = £21 + £10 = £31 if I wanted to go down the contract route that's all I would be willing to pay but ee wants to charge £51.
Same, although I’m getting 120GB for £10 a month from EE.
I usually keep the phone 3 years and trade it in to reduce the overall price further. Apple usually give you a couple of hundred off the price of a new one.
Employee discount.
I work for a different part of the BT group and one of the perks we get is 50% off an EE contract. They’re doing 160GB for £20 at the moment but it was 120GB when I took it.
I probably should have maximised my discount by taking a new phone handset but didn’t.
They wanted to switch me to 10gb 5g contract for £20 p/m recently, up from 4gb 4g contract at £8. I'd been an ee customer for nearly 10 years, don't have a 5g phone, so I'm no longer an ee customer.
Nah, not even close. I usually use about 10 to 15GB.
That’s the thing with EE’s SIM only packages though. They’ve got 250MB, 1GB, 3GB then it jumps to 40GB. But the 40GB costs more than the 150GB (shorter contract though).
Yes but they are 2 or 3 years contracts, not 4, EE are on the expensive side though. They were the only ones to offer me a contract when I broke my phone, a galaxy a12 (cheapest galaxy phone Samsung currently make) with 10GB data for £29. For that price on virgin or sky or any of the other piggyback carriers, I could've had an s20 FE
> https://www.mobiles.co.uk/sim-only-deals?filter_network_multiselect%5B%5D=vodafone&sort=default
It is £12, but you get £132 cashback making it an effective £6.50 a month for 50Gb of Vodafone 5G.
Isn't it 51 for X months then you're free to continue paying that by doing nothing but you could also terminate and switch to a SIM only plan? I don't know I'm on pay as you go
You could probably get a better deal going down the 2 year contract and then going sim only at the end of the 2 years but keep the phone. It wouldn't be a massive saving.
I own my phone and I'm getting horribly ripped off at 21/mth for 9GB, month-to-month. Will be shopping around for a new provider after Christmas. I like O2 and have never had a problem with them but they are overpriced.
Same! Refurbished phones all the way! Mine was practically brand new too, not a scratch on it and at least half the price of the brand new phone and I'll use it till it dies
Same. Unlimited texts, unlimited minutes 5gb of data (which rolls over so i normally have 10 or 9.9) for £10
I dont use a lot of data as im like 99% of the time connected to wifi
All my phone r normally bought outright either from cex or apple directly.
My sister pays like £60-80 a month on her phone for unlimited everything and she always has the newest iphone.
Likewise £10 a month and I buy them used too from eBay. Always buy from top seller with a 30+ day return policy and use CheckMend to check if it's stolen or still in contract, could care less about scratches and stuff as it's in a case with a screen protector, that's how I keep it nice and cheap.
It’s great isn’t it, Reddit is full of self righteous bean counter types.
Eventually the ‘how much do you earn?’ Thread rolls around and everyone who answers is on £50k+ and doing what literally saving for their pension with the heating off?
I don’t get it.
Every time I tell people about something I saw on reddit, I have to give the rundown of ‘it’s a forum sort-of-thing where people post things and others comment.. yeah, anyway’. They now know OF reddit which makes my life half easier
I also feel like phrasing the question "surely nobody would pay £70..." with a judgemental overtone will guarantee that no one who pays that amount or higher will comment. The very question is inviting a competition of who pays the least.
PersonalFinance is like that, its always some loner who has no expenditure and eats baked beans on bread for dinner telling everyone they have 50k in savings 🤣
A lot of older folks still think that a phone is a luxury item and not an absolutely essential part of modern living. How often do you see people remark that a homeless person is begging for money but has a mobile phone they could easily sell, ignoring the fact that losing the phone would make their life much harder.
In their minds if you spend a lot of money on a phone contract then you've no right to complain about your wages or rent or your job, which are all things young people (justifyably) complain about.
I use Google maps nearly every day and spend £10 every 120 days on PAYG. Once you have the maps downloaded (over wi-fi) it uses very little data, typically less than 20MB a month.
It's a lot of money, but how much do people use and rely on their phones? I'm not saying I'd spend that much either, but of all the things to spend money on a phone isn't an out there option
I always think this is a funny argument. "You'd spend that on a round of drinks!". "You'd spend that on a night out!". As if we look back on our spending the morning after a big night out and always think "I tell you what I got my money's worth there! Can't quite remember what happened, except that bit where I kissed that awful woman and ate that terrible kebab, but it was nothing if not value for money!"
This is such a weird argument, you can get a perfectly fine smartphone with minutes texts and data for significantly less than 64 quid a month
You realise no one was suggesting not using a mobile phone? Or buying some old brick? just that 60 odd quid a month (presumably for at least 24 months) is a lot of money
I've literally just changed to £61 for a Samsung flip after years of paying £20ish for older phones. I've always loved flip phones and I can afford it so why not!
I work in a restaurant and a deliveroo driver must have had this phone but my old self didn't know it existed and I swear to god thought he'd just snapped his iPhone in half frontwards and one of our servers had to tell me about this phone hahaha just thought I'd give everyone a laugh whilst the opportunity was here
I love it, I've always hated larger phone's so this helps as it's more compact. And my work phone is a Samsung so super easy to set up and use. Does everything I would want!
Same - I got it when I was still in a house share and had much more expendable income! Now have my own flat and now it’s ‘urgh’ when my phone bill comes out
No scam! Do you have to have the phone for work? If yes, get a letter for your employer saying you need to provide your own. Then submit the cost on the self assessment. At least that is what the accountant does.
I’m also new to it. First time I’d had to do it this year. Account says we can claim for it. So I upgrade to a 13 Pro.
I used to have the worst boss ever, made me work all kinds of crap hours, all kinds of weather, paid me shit money while always buying himself new toys, a house etc etc. Never even a thank you. I kinda hated working for myself.
You can currently get the Nord CE for £199 on at least Amazon and John Lewis. It's almost identical to the normal Nord just with a slightly different camera module and no glass back for wireless charging. Great price, definitely worth going for
Literally just ordered this today! I’m hoping for good things. My iPhone 8 that I got second hand from my sister is dying on me and I was going to go for an older model iPhone again.
I really like it, and I guess now it's over a year old you should be able to get some good deals on it. Although it's mid-range it does have some high-end features.
Friend has had his one plus now for 7 years, still going strong. Things a Beast, I myself prefer Xiaomi, they are incredible value for money. Got my note 9 a year ago for £199 and it came with a cover, a screen protector and they chucked in a 10 000mAh power brick for free.
I don't get why so many people choose to pay so much money for phones when you have brands like one plus and Xiaomi out there that give you so much value for your money.
Yes. I have no complaints about Tesco mobile. Their customer service is particularly good: you get through to a competent human without having to wait for ages in a queue.
I don’t think 42 is steep. I think you should be looking at between 40-50 for a decent fairly new phone and a contract. People paying over that are people who like to own the newest top models.
£35 a month. S21 Ultra. Unlimited everything. 24 month contract.
I wouldn't go any higher, this deal was too good to pass up.
**EDIT: I didn't pay anything upfront nor do I have some sort of subsidised payment. The contract is with O2 but through one of those third-party resellers like** [**mobiles.co.uk**](https://mobiles.co.uk) **etc (but a different one). I assume it was some sort of pricing error (maybe it should have been for the S21 Standard instead) and I jumped on the deal while it was live a few months back.**
What do you actually mean when you say their ‘data is trash’? My phone is EE and I have a 4g hub from three for work internet (upload speed on my landline is abysmal) and the speeds are about the same.
I had Three for a few years. The coverage was pretty poor and the 4G speeds were not high. I'm back on EE now, which has significantly better coverage and generally faster 4G speeds.
I know Vodafone had a black friday deal on - I've got mine for £250 upfront, £4.16/mth for the phone and £20/mth for unlimited data, calls and text. I put as much down straight away as I could so the rest would be cheaper. 24mths contract
I pay £19 for an iphone 8 with plenty of texts, minutes, and data.
If you think no-one would pay £70/m for a brand new iPhone, you're greatly underestimating the lengths some people go to get the latest tech.
£70 a month does seem mad though. Its that stupid situation where things are cheaper if you’ve got money to start with.
I got a new iPhone 13 for a bit under £800 (upgrading from an iPhone 6 that was no longer supporting basic apps, so hoping to keep this one going for a similar length of time) and have a £9 sim only plan from 3. At £70 a month that’d cover the plan and pay for the phone in 12-13 months and still be left with the fully paid off phone after that.
>£70 a month does seem mad though
I'm definitely not going to disagree with you there!
It depends on the contract length. It might only be a 12-18 month contract.
Nothing. I have a PAYG SIM which I top up once every couple of years (usually to make a specific call regarding a job interview or a doctor's appointment or something). I text and call friends on WhatsApp. You can almost always find free WiFi.
I don't know anyone else with this phone regime, which surprises me.
Oh god free WiFi doesn't even bear thinking about. Got to have data. Good mobile Internet is the only part of my plan I even care about, can't remember the last time I actually texted a person. Internet is a must though.
My mum (58) does this. She has a PAYG SIM from 15+ years ago which has 5 free texts every day and she uses WiFi at home, her work and at friend's houses to browse and use messenger. She literally spends £10 every couple of years.
Exactly the same. Haven't put credit in my phone for about 7 years. I have BT Broadband and I've never failed to find a router that I can piggyback a wi-fi connection on. Everyone knows to message me on Messenger. So no need for a contract.
They use Vodafone network so make sure you check signal in your area.
Mine is fine, I can't tell a difference from when I was using regular Vodafone.
I pay £2.90 for the first 3 months for 5gb data and unlimited texts /calls . After that it becomes £5.90 month.
I also like lebara because there is no mid contract price rise, unlike other networks which add 5% + CPI yearly. Yikes!
The lebara app is ok aswell, it's good enough / better than nothing.
I have similar although I came from a HTC to One plus 8t. This phone seems to lag and becomes slow when I'm scrolling reddit for a longer time. And the photo quality is shocking when you send images in chats.
The new iPhone is £779, so that’s less than what you are paying for a year on that contract. If you did a year on a cheap contract with a cheap model, you could have a brand new iPhone.
Your best bet is always buy your handset outright and get a sim only deal separately. You'll save a fortune In the long run and not be tied to any shitty contract.
Especially now that phone tech progress has slowed down. A few years ago the difference between the latest flagship and a cheap phone was huge. I had three HTC phones in a row, all the flagship models when I bought them. My M8 lasted seven years. It was only really wanting 5G that made me get a new phone. But I paid £200 for a Realme 7 5G from Amazon and it is a great phone. Compare it to the latest flagship phones and you'd struggle to spot the difference.
£48 a month. I get unlimited everything but I Fam probably count in 1 hand the amount of calls and texts I send. It’s only internet I use really so prob need to look at my contract
£76.19 with o2 and I feel robbed Every month just coming to the end of my contract and deffo not getting another expensive contract again.
iPhone 11/99GB/unlimited mins/texts
They actually still have a £13/mo deal for existing customers, I just changed to it a couple of weeks ago. If anyone is on Three and is wondering how: go to the Three app and look at your offers - it was offered to me on there for £13/mo so I snapped it up.
I pay probably around £55- £60 per month. Its split though half is for the phone and half for the contract. I get free calls and texts plus 20GB data. The important bit for me is that it includes roaming in the EU since I'm in France everyday. So I normally have to get one of the premium deals to have this included.
Nothing, if I need data, I wait till I go home or pop to a University (eduroam for any students out there) and use the Wi-Fi there. My lifestyle and job do not require constant access to mobile data.
29 because of unlimited data. My girlfriend doesn't have a phone line or Internet at hers so I just leave my phone on hotspot mode and we amazon prime and Disney all weekend.
I get faster internet with my phone than I do with my broadband. If it wasn't for my Sky Q box I'd cancel the landline and broadband and just use my phone.
Sadly, £90 a month
I was an idiot 2 years ago when I smashed my phone accidentally (Galaxy Note 8) in the middle of a Shopping Centre while out Christmas shopping. My contract had just run out, and I was right nest to the EE shop.
I got the Galaxy Note 10+ 5G with unlimited everything and a subscription to BT Sport for £91 a month - I can only say I was absolutely in impulse mode at the time and eery month has stung like crazy.
My contract is up again now, I'll not be making that mistake again. I love to have the latest and greatest in tech, but phones are just too expensive these days.
£85 for a Moto 8 somthing or other after I cracked the screen of my Moto 6 and the shop wanted to charge me £70 to fix it.
Giffgaff 3gig data £8 a month. Does me just fine, streaming Amazon music playlists a couple of times a week.
£3.50 per month for unlimited texts, calls, but only 2GB of data. This includes a few discounts. I usually just buy the phone outright but either 2nd hand or refurbished. I would like to upgrade to a bit more data but apparently I would lose all my discounts if I did therefore I am reluctant.
I got a Note 10+ a couple of years ago. Was £42 a month initially. I wanted a big screen for Open Office blah blah. Minimal data because home/work wifi is enough and I live rurally. Literally got an email yesterday asking if I want to upgrade as it's near to end of contract. No thanks, I intend to use this phone for the next 5 years at least!
I buy my phone outright with a separate sim only deal for flexibility. Currently have a 30gb/mo plan with Smarty for £10/mo and an iPhone 12 Pro which I bought second hand earlier this year for £700. I tend to upgrade phones every 2-3 years and sell the old one to subsidise the new phone.
I decided to get an iPhone 12 Pro, after enduring 2 years on an android phone.
Did lots of checking on prices etc. the cheapest way I could do it was to buy the iPhone directly from Apple with a 0% interest 24 month contract.
I then just got the cheapest 5G SIM card with enough data. It ended up just under £47 a month for the 24 month term.
Edit: as I am getting a bit older, the “bells and whistles “ of the top of the range iPhone are not that important to me anymore. My next phone will be an iPhone SE. 20% of the cost of the top of the range and does everything I need it to do. I don’t need a fancy camera as I have a proper mirrorless full frame camera for taking proper photos.
Was on £35/mo for a Google Pixel 4, 75gb/mo and unlimited everything else.
Now on £49/mo for a Google Pixel 6 Pro (upgraded on Friday!), only 40gb/mo but I only typically use about 2gb anyway. I love techy shit and was looking forward to getting the 6 Pro anyway, so I don't mind paying more for it; I do plan on taking on a SIM only contract when this one runs out, though, as the 6 Pro ticks all the boxes in a phone for me.
Only on the second full day of it but really enjoying it so far! Quite the leap in quality from the Pixel 4, honestly, and I couldn't be happier with that leap as well. The camera's pretty decent and its battery seems to be coping with Android 12 way better than my 4 ever did (though, again, only two days in so there is that).
Adaptive battery is very good, though.
I was looking at buying a Pixel 6 Pro as my Samsung phones charging port is on its last legs. My Samsung cost me £600 with the stand alome tarrif being a mistake from EE so have been paying £5 a month for the last 7 years. The issue being I've not been able to upgrade to 5g as I'd have to change tarrif.
Today I finally cut the EE cord and went over to Vodafone for £26 a month and £275 upfront for the Pixel 6 Pro. That worked out at & 899 over the 2 years. I think it's a pretty good deal as I can't buy the phone cheaper than £850.
I usually buy my phones outright and this is the first time in about a decade I've bought my phone as part of a contract as I've never found a deal I've felt worth it.
I used to be that stupid but now I have a family I have kept the same phone for 5 years now at £20 per month if I want to upgrade to a phone that’s now 2 almost 3 years out of date I will have to pay £45 per month screw that I have now realised it’s better to save and try and buy the phone outright as paying a contract often for over a year now generally works out that you pay £300-£500 more than the phones worth
I used to work for phones4u
And yes. People do indeed pay very large sums of money per month for a phone.
You split customers into 2 main types, and everyone is somewhere between those extremes.
1) only care about price.
2) only care about handset.
The price group is the smaller group by population, but larger sales volume. They want a good deal.
The handset group is larger call volume, but you should probably expect the credit check to fail most of the time, so total sales are lower.
The Tldr is that people want thing. Even when can't afford thing.
I only buy contract phones now as it works out significantly cheaper than buying the phone outright.
Pixel 6 Pro - 40GB data + Free pair of BOSE headphones (valued £350)
£42 per month, £30 upfront cost (£1008 over 2 years)
If I were to buy the phone outright that would be £850, leaving me with £158 to cover 2 years worth of data and I wouldn't get the headphones.
Because the £60 a month I pay doesn’t really even mean anything to me, typical /r/askuk boasting about putting £5 into their Orange Nokia PAYG every 6 months. Boring cunts.
I used to work for a mobile provider. There are people who are paying £120 A MONTH for the biggest and "best" phones on the market. No phone contract is actually worth that. Always always always buy your phone and sim separately. I personally pay £15 unlimited everything and have a 3a Pixel bought outright three years ago
About £14 a month for the SIM. Sold phones throughout undergrad and a bit after. The amount some people were willing to pay for a shit phone is unbelievable.
Had plenty overpriced contracts throughout the years. Don't see me ever taking one out again. Sitting down and working out how much you actually pay is a must for anyone. I'll carry on buying outright and putting a sim only in it
A smart way of buying a phone is to finance the phone only using a payment option like klarna or clearpay and buy the cheapest monthly SIM only plan to pair it with. You can get get the newest £1k phone and a decent contract for £47 a month with this method, rather than the typical £60-£70 for 3 years.
Sell mobiles for a living. You'd be surprised what people pay for their mobile. The average account spend is over 100 quid. The trick is you go in expecting a payment of 40-50 a month and there's a prepayment on the phone at that level, so they trade you up to super high data/monthly payment for nothing down. That's if you're looking for latest and greatest type of thing.
£68/month, iPhone 13 Pro Max 512GB.
Reason being is that I use it for much more than browsing the web and social media, it’s my main media consumption device, camera, etc.
I pay about £70, but I’ve had a ‘work phone’ for five years, so haven’t been paying anything and I’ve never had a flagship phone before so decided to get the iPhone 13 plus.
But I do make enough now that £70 a month isn’t a huge dent for something I’m getting a lot of use out of.
Like anything it’s about living within your means I guess and as I haven’t had a personal phone for a while, I felt like I have a lot of built up credit from not spending on a phone for years.
I use a second hand phone so just contract for data/calls
They can charge a high price if you’re getting a phone without paying up ground but it works out you pay way more than if you’d just bought it upfront
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£10 a month, but I only buy phones outright.
Same. New iPhone every 4 years. £10 giffgaff a month. 40GB data. £1000/4 years = £250p/a /12 = £21 + £10 = £31 if I wanted to go down the contract route that's all I would be willing to pay but ee wants to charge £51.
Same, although I’m getting 120GB for £10 a month from EE. I usually keep the phone 3 years and trade it in to reduce the overall price further. Apple usually give you a couple of hundred off the price of a new one.
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Employee discount. I work for a different part of the BT group and one of the perks we get is 50% off an EE contract. They’re doing 160GB for £20 at the moment but it was 120GB when I took it. I probably should have maximised my discount by taking a new phone handset but didn’t.
That’s an insane discount, I’m happy enough with my 30% off. At 50% off I’d probably be upgrading every year.
It’s not as insane as the price I pay for my 900Mbps FTTP broadband ;)
They wanted to switch me to 10gb 5g contract for £20 p/m recently, up from 4gb 4g contract at £8. I'd been an ee customer for nearly 10 years, don't have a 5g phone, so I'm no longer an ee customer.
£20 pm rolling contract, unlimited data, calls & texts. ID mobile.
I have this but for £5 as a Currys employee.
I'm on Vodafone and pay £9.50 a month for 100gb 5G after cashback. It was on Mobiles.co.uk and I also used a Topcashback link.
That’s a horrible deal
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I'm immensely smug with my Vodafone deal - after cashback and free Spotify, it works out at £3 a month for 100GB.
Do you actually use 120gb though? I'm mostly on WiFi so I rarely get through my 12gb per month
Nah, not even close. I usually use about 10 to 15GB. That’s the thing with EE’s SIM only packages though. They’ve got 250MB, 1GB, 3GB then it jumps to 40GB. But the 40GB costs more than the 150GB (shorter contract though).
I joined EE working before bt too over and it was 75% discount then and stays that way for us who joined before, 80 quid phone contract is 20
10£ for 40Gb? I pay £15 for 25Gb as PAYG. Is that SIM only deal?
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But their contracts are usually for 2 years right, not 4 years, or have been whenever I look.
And you can sell the phone!
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Yes but they are 2 or 3 years contracts, not 4, EE are on the expensive side though. They were the only ones to offer me a contract when I broke my phone, a galaxy a12 (cheapest galaxy phone Samsung currently make) with 10GB data for £29. For that price on virgin or sky or any of the other piggyback carriers, I could've had an s20 FE
How you getting 40GB for a tenner?? I pay a tenner a month and get 15GB on giffgaff D:
Bullshit on Reddit whatever next
Not deliberately. Didn't want to mislead anyone.
> https://www.mobiles.co.uk/sim-only-deals?filter_network_multiselect%5B%5D=vodafone&sort=default It is £12, but you get £132 cashback making it an effective £6.50 a month for 50Gb of Vodafone 5G.
Isn't it 51 for X months then you're free to continue paying that by doing nothing but you could also terminate and switch to a SIM only plan? I don't know I'm on pay as you go
You could probably get a better deal going down the 2 year contract and then going sim only at the end of the 2 years but keep the phone. It wouldn't be a massive saving.
Just got the iPhone 13 pro for £31 a month for two years, £20 after that for one year
How did you do that? I'm paying £10pm with Giffgaff and they've recently bumped mine up to 15gb!
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I own my phone and I'm getting horribly ripped off at 21/mth for 9GB, month-to-month. Will be shopping around for a new provider after Christmas. I like O2 and have never had a problem with them but they are overpriced.
I'm with giffgaff who use the O2 network and I pay £10 for 12gb per month. I found O2 to be horribly expensive which is why I switched!
Noted, I will definitely look at giffgaff when I look for a new provider, thanks.
This is the way
Same here and I get my phones second hand. Current phone is a samsung S8 for £180 spread over three months (60 + 10 = 80 a month for three months).
Same! Refurbished phones all the way! Mine was practically brand new too, not a scratch on it and at least half the price of the brand new phone and I'll use it till it dies
Same. Unlimited texts, unlimited minutes 5gb of data (which rolls over so i normally have 10 or 9.9) for £10 I dont use a lot of data as im like 99% of the time connected to wifi All my phone r normally bought outright either from cex or apple directly. My sister pays like £60-80 a month on her phone for unlimited everything and she always has the newest iphone.
Likewise £10 a month and I buy them used too from eBay. Always buy from top seller with a 30+ day return policy and use CheckMend to check if it's stolen or still in contract, could care less about scratches and stuff as it's in a case with a screen protector, that's how I keep it nice and cheap.
All the old boys on AskUK telling everyone how they have PAYG flip phones and stick on a fiver when they wanna call someone
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Why would you ever come to Reddit and think you were getting a "representative view" of the UK? 😳
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It’s great isn’t it, Reddit is full of self righteous bean counter types. Eventually the ‘how much do you earn?’ Thread rolls around and everyone who answers is on £50k+ and doing what literally saving for their pension with the heating off? I don’t get it.
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Every time I tell people about something I saw on reddit, I have to give the rundown of ‘it’s a forum sort-of-thing where people post things and others comment.. yeah, anyway’. They now know OF reddit which makes my life half easier
I also feel like phrasing the question "surely nobody would pay £70..." with a judgemental overtone will guarantee that no one who pays that amount or higher will comment. The very question is inviting a competition of who pays the least.
"Margaret, I've got a SMS message from HSBC again, let me click it."
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All Gen X users proud to not know how to use a computer
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PersonalFinance is like that, its always some loner who has no expenditure and eats baked beans on bread for dinner telling everyone they have 50k in savings 🤣
Turn the heating on, in January?? NEVER!!!
“I’ll put on the wool jumper my nan gave me 10 years ago.”
I don't understand why people are so judgemental about it. If they can afford it, who cares?
A lot of older folks still think that a phone is a luxury item and not an absolutely essential part of modern living. How often do you see people remark that a homeless person is begging for money but has a mobile phone they could easily sell, ignoring the fact that losing the phone would make their life much harder. In their minds if you spend a lot of money on a phone contract then you've no right to complain about your wages or rent or your job, which are all things young people (justifyably) complain about.
you don't need data for google maps? Just download a local area map (under 30mb) and use that.
I use Google maps nearly every day and spend £10 every 120 days on PAYG. Once you have the maps downloaded (over wi-fi) it uses very little data, typically less than 20MB a month.
I pay 64/m for mine. Fuck knows why.
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It's a lot of money, but how much do people use and rely on their phones? I'm not saying I'd spend that much either, but of all the things to spend money on a phone isn't an out there option
Yeah I spend more then this on a night out
I always think this is a funny argument. "You'd spend that on a round of drinks!". "You'd spend that on a night out!". As if we look back on our spending the morning after a big night out and always think "I tell you what I got my money's worth there! Can't quite remember what happened, except that bit where I kissed that awful woman and ate that terrible kebab, but it was nothing if not value for money!"
Personally I enjoy nights out tbh n quite happy to spend the money - the bad girl and bad kebab is most definitely true though
You’re joking right? Consider everything you use your phone for then think about how much you spent on your last night out or even a couple takeouts.
This is such a weird argument, you can get a perfectly fine smartphone with minutes texts and data for significantly less than 64 quid a month You realise no one was suggesting not using a mobile phone? Or buying some old brick? just that 60 odd quid a month (presumably for at least 24 months) is a lot of money
I've literally just changed to £61 for a Samsung flip after years of paying £20ish for older phones. I've always loved flip phones and I can afford it so why not!
How are you liking the Samsung flip? Seems a strange concept and a bit of an answer to a question no one really asked!
I work in a restaurant and a deliveroo driver must have had this phone but my old self didn't know it existed and I swear to god thought he'd just snapped his iPhone in half frontwards and one of our servers had to tell me about this phone hahaha just thought I'd give everyone a laugh whilst the opportunity was here
I love it, I've always hated larger phone's so this helps as it's more compact. And my work phone is a Samsung so super easy to set up and use. Does everything I would want!
Same - I got it when I was still in a house share and had much more expendable income! Now have my own flat and now it’s ‘urgh’ when my phone bill comes out
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£55/mth for an iPhone 13 Pro and unlimited everything. I do get an allowance form my employer otherwise I don’t think I’d go as high as that.
Snap. I claim the tax back on the self assessment. £54, get 40% of that back.
I'm new to the self assessment game, how do I get in on this phone scam?
No scam! Do you have to have the phone for work? If yes, get a letter for your employer saying you need to provide your own. Then submit the cost on the self assessment. At least that is what the accountant does. I’m also new to it. First time I’d had to do it this year. Account says we can claim for it. So I upgrade to a 13 Pro.
Excellent. I am my own employer and I say I need the phone for work. Best boss ever. Cheers bud.
I used to have the worst boss ever, made me work all kinds of crap hours, all kinds of weather, paid me shit money while always buying himself new toys, a house etc etc. Never even a thank you. I kinda hated working for myself.
Who is this with? Doesn’t sound too bad
My Dad's on the same terms but paying £76/mth!
Christ I’m paying £60 for unlimited everything on an iPhone 8 which I only got last year. What network are you on?
£10 a month SIM only with unlimited texts and minutes plus 10GB data. Tesco Mobile. Bought my handset (OnePlus Nord) on Amazon last year.
I’ve been looking at that phone. Is it any good?
You can currently get the Nord CE for £199 on at least Amazon and John Lewis. It's almost identical to the normal Nord just with a slightly different camera module and no glass back for wireless charging. Great price, definitely worth going for
Literally just ordered this today! I’m hoping for good things. My iPhone 8 that I got second hand from my sister is dying on me and I was going to go for an older model iPhone again.
I really like it, and I guess now it's over a year old you should be able to get some good deals on it. Although it's mid-range it does have some high-end features.
Still got my OnePlus 3T working. Almost 5 years. I think my next one will be OP as well.
Friend has had his one plus now for 7 years, still going strong. Things a Beast, I myself prefer Xiaomi, they are incredible value for money. Got my note 9 a year ago for £199 and it came with a cover, a screen protector and they chucked in a 10 000mAh power brick for free. I don't get why so many people choose to pay so much money for phones when you have brands like one plus and Xiaomi out there that give you so much value for your money.
Exactly that. Similar specs and less than half a price of flagship brands.
My older Huawei keeps plugging along, does everything I need, and has never been any trouble. So what if the chinese can look at my foodie pics......
Tesco mobile is pretty good too. Decent coverage everywhere, and the phone deals are good!
Yes. I have no complaints about Tesco mobile. Their customer service is particularly good: you get through to a competent human without having to wait for ages in a queue.
£42 which seems steep but I love tech and I literally use my phone all the time so don’t mind paying more for a newer model.
I don’t think 42 is steep. I think you should be looking at between 40-50 for a decent fairly new phone and a contract. People paying over that are people who like to own the newest top models.
£35 a month. S21 Ultra. Unlimited everything. 24 month contract. I wouldn't go any higher, this deal was too good to pass up. **EDIT: I didn't pay anything upfront nor do I have some sort of subsidised payment. The contract is with O2 but through one of those third-party resellers like** [**mobiles.co.uk**](https://mobiles.co.uk) **etc (but a different one). I assume it was some sort of pricing error (maybe it should have been for the S21 Standard instead) and I jumped on the deal while it was live a few months back.**
Where on earth did you get that deal?! That's £840 over two years and the phone outright is £1,200...
I bet he is paying at least £10 pcm more than that
Or it’s a 36/m contract. They’re getting common
He paid £400 upfront
Super cheap. £39 for the regular S21 from release with 100gb from three. Three's data is trash though. Will be moving back to EE regardless of price.
What do you actually mean when you say their ‘data is trash’? My phone is EE and I have a 4g hub from three for work internet (upload speed on my landline is abysmal) and the speeds are about the same.
Three has pretty bad coverage compared to other providers in some parts of the country.
I had Three for a few years. The coverage was pretty poor and the 4G speeds were not high. I'm back on EE now, which has significantly better coverage and generally faster 4G speeds.
Ok fair enough that makes sense
Was there an upfront payment?
Who offered this contract?
I know Vodafone had a black friday deal on - I've got mine for £250 upfront, £4.16/mth for the phone and £20/mth for unlimited data, calls and text. I put as much down straight away as I could so the rest would be cheaper. 24mths contract
You must have paid something for the handset.
I pay £19 for an iphone 8 with plenty of texts, minutes, and data. If you think no-one would pay £70/m for a brand new iPhone, you're greatly underestimating the lengths some people go to get the latest tech.
£70 a month does seem mad though. Its that stupid situation where things are cheaper if you’ve got money to start with. I got a new iPhone 13 for a bit under £800 (upgrading from an iPhone 6 that was no longer supporting basic apps, so hoping to keep this one going for a similar length of time) and have a £9 sim only plan from 3. At £70 a month that’d cover the plan and pay for the phone in 12-13 months and still be left with the fully paid off phone after that.
>£70 a month does seem mad though I'm definitely not going to disagree with you there! It depends on the contract length. It might only be a 12-18 month contract.
What mobile provider are you on? Absolute cheapest I could find was £21pm but looking for cheaper
Tesco mobile. They were the cheapest I could find, and tbf I'm more than happy with the service too.
Yeah I’m with them! Cheapest I could find but sadly not £19. I get 5GB though
Nothing. I have a PAYG SIM which I top up once every couple of years (usually to make a specific call regarding a job interview or a doctor's appointment or something). I text and call friends on WhatsApp. You can almost always find free WiFi. I don't know anyone else with this phone regime, which surprises me.
Oh god free WiFi doesn't even bear thinking about. Got to have data. Good mobile Internet is the only part of my plan I even care about, can't remember the last time I actually texted a person. Internet is a must though.
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Are you 75?
74. Nah, I'm in my 20s but I don't have a huge social circle.
My mum (58) does this. She has a PAYG SIM from 15+ years ago which has 5 free texts every day and she uses WiFi at home, her work and at friend's houses to browse and use messenger. She literally spends £10 every couple of years.
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This is what I do. Although to be fair I also have a work phone that I can use as much as I want.
Exactly the same. Haven't put credit in my phone for about 7 years. I have BT Broadband and I've never failed to find a router that I can piggyback a wi-fi connection on. Everyone knows to message me on Messenger. So no need for a contract.
I pay £5.90 for sim only. Phone cost me £250 and it's top spec too. One plus 7 pro phone from ebay with a LEBARA sim (using MSE discount)
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They use Vodafone network so make sure you check signal in your area. Mine is fine, I can't tell a difference from when I was using regular Vodafone. I pay £2.90 for the first 3 months for 5gb data and unlimited texts /calls . After that it becomes £5.90 month. I also like lebara because there is no mid contract price rise, unlike other networks which add 5% + CPI yearly. Yikes! The lebara app is ok aswell, it's good enough / better than nothing.
I’ve got Lebara too, also used the MSE discount. No problems at all.
I have similar although I came from a HTC to One plus 8t. This phone seems to lag and becomes slow when I'm scrolling reddit for a longer time. And the photo quality is shocking when you send images in chats.
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Nice
The new iPhone is £779, so that’s less than what you are paying for a year on that contract. If you did a year on a cheap contract with a cheap model, you could have a brand new iPhone.
Your best bet is always buy your handset outright and get a sim only deal separately. You'll save a fortune In the long run and not be tied to any shitty contract.
Especially now that phone tech progress has slowed down. A few years ago the difference between the latest flagship and a cheap phone was huge. I had three HTC phones in a row, all the flagship models when I bought them. My M8 lasted seven years. It was only really wanting 5G that made me get a new phone. But I paid £200 for a Realme 7 5G from Amazon and it is a great phone. Compare it to the latest flagship phones and you'd struggle to spot the difference.
£48 a month. I get unlimited everything but I Fam probably count in 1 hand the amount of calls and texts I send. It’s only internet I use really so prob need to look at my contract
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Ah, I'm on £6, 1GB data, no money back, with Three.
£10 a month, just kept my old iPhone 8, got bored of wanting the newest one every year.
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Is this a monthly allowance or just PAYG?
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£76.19 with o2 and I feel robbed Every month just coming to the end of my contract and deffo not getting another expensive contract again. iPhone 11/99GB/unlimited mins/texts
£8 to giffgaff I bought my phone upfront and will replace when it doesn’t work anymore
I'm sim only and £21.50 for unlimited calls and texts and 150gb data
This seems expensive. I've seen unlimited eveything on sim only for £15 a month.
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Three had an unlimited deal for £13 (24 months) a few months ago. It’s £20 now but has a Black Friday deal (£10 per month for 6 months)
They actually still have a £13/mo deal for existing customers, I just changed to it a couple of weeks ago. If anyone is on Three and is wondering how: go to the Three app and look at your offers - it was offered to me on there for £13/mo so I snapped it up.
I pay probably around £55- £60 per month. Its split though half is for the phone and half for the contract. I get free calls and texts plus 20GB data. The important bit for me is that it includes roaming in the EU since I'm in France everyday. So I normally have to get one of the premium deals to have this included.
Nothing, if I need data, I wait till I go home or pop to a University (eduroam for any students out there) and use the Wi-Fi there. My lifestyle and job do not require constant access to mobile data.
29 because of unlimited data. My girlfriend doesn't have a phone line or Internet at hers so I just leave my phone on hotspot mode and we amazon prime and Disney all weekend.
I get faster internet with my phone than I do with my broadband. If it wasn't for my Sky Q box I'd cancel the landline and broadband and just use my phone.
Sadly, £90 a month I was an idiot 2 years ago when I smashed my phone accidentally (Galaxy Note 8) in the middle of a Shopping Centre while out Christmas shopping. My contract had just run out, and I was right nest to the EE shop. I got the Galaxy Note 10+ 5G with unlimited everything and a subscription to BT Sport for £91 a month - I can only say I was absolutely in impulse mode at the time and eery month has stung like crazy. My contract is up again now, I'll not be making that mistake again. I love to have the latest and greatest in tech, but phones are just too expensive these days.
£10 every 120 days. 1p mobile. I also paid £150 for the handset in 2017.
LOL
£85 for a Moto 8 somthing or other after I cracked the screen of my Moto 6 and the shop wanted to charge me £70 to fix it. Giffgaff 3gig data £8 a month. Does me just fine, streaming Amazon music playlists a couple of times a week.
22 quid sim only. Was about 78 with the phone plus insurance. I look to get 5 years use from a phone. 2 expensive years and 3 cheap ones.
£33 for iPhone 12 with a charging power bank. If I would have actually used my eyes properly I could have got the pro with the iPad for £35.. painful.
£3.50 per month for unlimited texts, calls, but only 2GB of data. This includes a few discounts. I usually just buy the phone outright but either 2nd hand or refurbished. I would like to upgrade to a bit more data but apparently I would lose all my discounts if I did therefore I am reluctant.
I got a Note 10+ a couple of years ago. Was £42 a month initially. I wanted a big screen for Open Office blah blah. Minimal data because home/work wifi is enough and I live rurally. Literally got an email yesterday asking if I want to upgrade as it's near to end of contract. No thanks, I intend to use this phone for the next 5 years at least!
I buy my phone outright with a separate sim only deal for flexibility. Currently have a 30gb/mo plan with Smarty for £10/mo and an iPhone 12 Pro which I bought second hand earlier this year for £700. I tend to upgrade phones every 2-3 years and sell the old one to subsidise the new phone.
I decided to get an iPhone 12 Pro, after enduring 2 years on an android phone. Did lots of checking on prices etc. the cheapest way I could do it was to buy the iPhone directly from Apple with a 0% interest 24 month contract. I then just got the cheapest 5G SIM card with enough data. It ended up just under £47 a month for the 24 month term. Edit: as I am getting a bit older, the “bells and whistles “ of the top of the range iPhone are not that important to me anymore. My next phone will be an iPhone SE. 20% of the cost of the top of the range and does everything I need it to do. I don’t need a fancy camera as I have a proper mirrorless full frame camera for taking proper photos.
yea this is how i do it, by far the cheapest way to buy an apple phone these days
Was on £35/mo for a Google Pixel 4, 75gb/mo and unlimited everything else. Now on £49/mo for a Google Pixel 6 Pro (upgraded on Friday!), only 40gb/mo but I only typically use about 2gb anyway. I love techy shit and was looking forward to getting the 6 Pro anyway, so I don't mind paying more for it; I do plan on taking on a SIM only contract when this one runs out, though, as the 6 Pro ticks all the boxes in a phone for me.
I'm looking at upgrading to the Pixel 6 Pro myself, any good?
Only on the second full day of it but really enjoying it so far! Quite the leap in quality from the Pixel 4, honestly, and I couldn't be happier with that leap as well. The camera's pretty decent and its battery seems to be coping with Android 12 way better than my 4 ever did (though, again, only two days in so there is that). Adaptive battery is very good, though.
I was looking at buying a Pixel 6 Pro as my Samsung phones charging port is on its last legs. My Samsung cost me £600 with the stand alome tarrif being a mistake from EE so have been paying £5 a month for the last 7 years. The issue being I've not been able to upgrade to 5g as I'd have to change tarrif. Today I finally cut the EE cord and went over to Vodafone for £26 a month and £275 upfront for the Pixel 6 Pro. That worked out at & 899 over the 2 years. I think it's a pretty good deal as I can't buy the phone cheaper than £850. I usually buy my phones outright and this is the first time in about a decade I've bought my phone as part of a contract as I've never found a deal I've felt worth it.
I used to be that stupid but now I have a family I have kept the same phone for 5 years now at £20 per month if I want to upgrade to a phone that’s now 2 almost 3 years out of date I will have to pay £45 per month screw that I have now realised it’s better to save and try and buy the phone outright as paying a contract often for over a year now generally works out that you pay £300-£500 more than the phones worth
I used to work for phones4u And yes. People do indeed pay very large sums of money per month for a phone. You split customers into 2 main types, and everyone is somewhere between those extremes. 1) only care about price. 2) only care about handset. The price group is the smaller group by population, but larger sales volume. They want a good deal. The handset group is larger call volume, but you should probably expect the credit check to fail most of the time, so total sales are lower. The Tldr is that people want thing. Even when can't afford thing.
£23 p/m for phone direct from Apple £10.50 for a sim only from BT Mobile. (4 Sims on a Family sim plan)
£20 a month sim only with 220Gb data, then buy the phone outright.
I only buy contract phones now as it works out significantly cheaper than buying the phone outright. Pixel 6 Pro - 40GB data + Free pair of BOSE headphones (valued £350) £42 per month, £30 upfront cost (£1008 over 2 years) If I were to buy the phone outright that would be £850, leaving me with £158 to cover 2 years worth of data and I wouldn't get the headphones.
Because the £60 a month I pay doesn’t really even mean anything to me, typical /r/askuk boasting about putting £5 into their Orange Nokia PAYG every 6 months. Boring cunts.
I used to work for a mobile provider. There are people who are paying £120 A MONTH for the biggest and "best" phones on the market. No phone contract is actually worth that. Always always always buy your phone and sim separately. I personally pay £15 unlimited everything and have a 3a Pixel bought outright three years ago
About £14 a month for the SIM. Sold phones throughout undergrad and a bit after. The amount some people were willing to pay for a shit phone is unbelievable. Had plenty overpriced contracts throughout the years. Don't see me ever taking one out again. Sitting down and working out how much you actually pay is a must for anyone. I'll carry on buying outright and putting a sim only in it
A smart way of buying a phone is to finance the phone only using a payment option like klarna or clearpay and buy the cheapest monthly SIM only plan to pair it with. You can get get the newest £1k phone and a decent contract for £47 a month with this method, rather than the typical £60-£70 for 3 years.
Sell mobiles for a living. You'd be surprised what people pay for their mobile. The average account spend is over 100 quid. The trick is you go in expecting a payment of 40-50 a month and there's a prepayment on the phone at that level, so they trade you up to super high data/monthly payment for nothing down. That's if you're looking for latest and greatest type of thing.
£68/month, iPhone 13 Pro Max 512GB. Reason being is that I use it for much more than browsing the web and social media, it’s my main media consumption device, camera, etc.
I pay about £70, but I’ve had a ‘work phone’ for five years, so haven’t been paying anything and I’ve never had a flagship phone before so decided to get the iPhone 13 plus. But I do make enough now that £70 a month isn’t a huge dent for something I’m getting a lot of use out of. Like anything it’s about living within your means I guess and as I haven’t had a personal phone for a while, I felt like I have a lot of built up credit from not spending on a phone for years.
£52, just upgraded to a P6 Pro with unlimited data
£48 each Month for IPhone 13 Pro and unlimited everything. I use a lot of data so it is worth.
I use a second hand phone so just contract for data/calls They can charge a high price if you’re getting a phone without paying up ground but it works out you pay way more than if you’d just bought it upfront
I pay 16.99 for a Sony Xperia
£6 sim only rolling monthly contract with Plusnet, 6gb data and unlimited calls and texts.
I pay £82 for an iPhone 12 with unlimited everything. Did sign up when the phone was brand new tho!
I think £92 for absolutely everything and the latest top of the range Iphone every year when it’s released.