The Best Cell Phone Plans (and How I’m Saving Big)

50m 41s

Chris Hutchins explains why he intentionally overpaid on his cell phone bill for years and why he is now switching carriers. He breaks down the US carrier landscape, including the three major networks, their sub-brands, and independent MVNOs that operate on the same infrastructure for far less money. Carrier phone promotions, he argues, are not real deals because the required premium plans cost $30 to $60 more per month, which more than cancels out any device credits spread over three years. He notes that MVNOs have improved significantly, now offering priority data, international roaming, smartwatch and tablet support, and even multi-network access. After analyzing dozens of plans, he recommends US Mobile, Visible, Total Wireless, and Mint Mobile as the best unlimited options, with US Mobile as his personal choice due to its multi-network feature that lets users switch between or combine AT&T, Verizon, and T-Mobile coverage. He also shares tips for buying a new iPhone, including purchasing through Apple to get an unlocked phone and upfront trade-in credit, and covers backup internet and secondary line options for two-factor authentication.

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Speaker 1I hate wasting money, and yet for the last few years, I've been overpaying on my cell phone bill every single month on purpose because I locked myself into a carrier that gave me a new iPhone and made it feel free. Except it definitely wasn't free, and those device credits you get almost never make up for the overpriced plan. When I dug in and ran the numbers, there were so many other carriers with plans that are less expensive, actually sometimes have better features, and run on the exact same networks. So now that my device credits are over, I am a free agent, and I am excited to get a new phone on a new carrier. And of course, I want the best deal I can get. So I went deep on this cell phone plan and carrier analysis, and today I'm gonna break down the system carriers use to make you feel good about paying more, the exact carriers and plans I'd actually consider today, including the one I'm switching to, and the amazing features some carriers now offer, like having unlimited data from multiple networks. Finally, if you're in the market for a new phone right now, I'll share how to make sure you get the best deal, even if you're buying it from your existing carrier. I'm Chris Hutchins. If you enjoyed this episode, leave a comment or share it with a friend. And if you wanna keep upgrading your money points in life, click follow or subscribe. Okay, so I have been on T-Mobile for the past few years, and I loved it, really. But with my contract ending, and new iPhones coming out, and a bunch of changes, I realized I'm a free agent, and I wanted to evaluate the situation, and I realized now I am definitely leaving. Sorry, T-Mobile, you've been great to me. But when I evaluate this space, it is clear to me that I think most of us are overpaying, and there's a lot of opportunity to save, and even get a better product. So I'm gonna share my process to hopefully help you save a ton of time, not having to do this research, but more importantly, save a ton of money. So why is this even happening right now? Well, it is iPhone season. New iPhones just got announced, which means that my two years of device credit lock-ins from T-Mobile when I got my iPhone 16 Pro are about to expire, which really means that I'm gonna have to do a lot more and it really frees me up to move. I'm also very excited to try out the iPhone Duo. I feel like I've been wanting a device that could also grow to be kind of like an iPad and maybe be more usable. And so, I don't know, I'm just excited. I 3D printed a version of the Duo so I could kind of hold it and see what the shape is like. I don't know, I think it's gonna be awesome. We'll see, I'll share more after I get a chance to use it. And part of this was me trying to see how do I get a deal on that? Should I get one of these carrier deals? Well, it turns out the deals that you see advertised from carriers are not the same deals that you see advertised from carriers. They're not actually deals at all. Now, there might be some edge cases where that's not true, but when I ran through the options, it seemed like I was actually gonna be paying so much more for the plan that even these huge discounts didn't matter. That said, I'm going to give a full rundown on how to take advantage of all these iPhone deals, even if you wanna buy with a carrier, because there's a lot of mistakes that I've made in the past that I think could save you a lot of time and hassle, again, even if you're going to go that path. So, let's first zoom back, talk about the lay of the land when it comes to cell phones. I did an episode on this exact topic three years ago, but a lot has changed, so I think it's good to come back and re-look at things. First off, in the US, there are three main carriers. There's AT&T, there's Verizon, and there's T-Mobile. Now, there are some other smaller edge case carriers, but those are the primary ones, and they have their own plans, but they also have their own sub-brands, brands that they own themselves that operate on their networks. So, AT&T has Cricket, T-Mobile has Mint and Metro, Verizon has Total Wireless, Visible, Simple, and a few others. And so, it seems crazy, but you can actually get a Verizon plan from a company that's owned by Verizon for less than Verizon itself charges by going through one of these companies they own. But there are also things called Mobile Virtual Network Operators, MVNOs, companies like US Mobile, Boost Mobile, Mobile X, which are not owned by the carriers, but who use the carrier's network to provide their services. So, what has changed in the last few years that I think makes it worth doing this analysis again? The biggest one is that MVNOs have gotten so much better. They've started adding a lot of support for products like smartwatches, tablet lines, they've gotten access to higher priority data, way better international roaming options, and one carrier's even added the ability to have multiple networks on one plan. We've also seen eSIMs be adopted everywhere to the point that I think new iPhones don't even have a SIM tray, you just have to use an eSIM, which makes the process of switching so easy. You can set up a new carrier, install it on your phone in a few minutes without having to go anywhere, wait for anything to ship. Also, some of the functionality from legacy carriers seems to be getting worse. T-Mobile used to have this amazing feature where you could get free Wi-Fi on, I think, Alaska, American, United, and maybe Delta, but now all of those airlines have switched to either free Wi-Fi, sometimes free, sponsored by T-Mobile, but not just for T-Mobile customers, or free Wi-Fi for everyone. So, that perk of having T-Mobile, which is, if you travel a lot, add it up, it's kind of gone. The device promos, I noticed that now, when you wanna get a discounted price on a new phone, you get that device credit paid off over three years instead of two years, and two years ago, I was able to actually upgrade my phone and get one of those credits. I'm technically on a T-Mobile business plan. This year, they told me that business accounts are not eligible for any new device promos, and then last, slowly rolling out over the last three or four years has been the fact that you can, can't pay off any of your bills on any of these carriers, usually using a credit card from the legacy carriers, without losing a, usually about $10 a month, line discount. So, all of that's been what's happening. So, let me talk about why the legacy carriers are actually so expensive, 'cause it actually, there's two components, and one of them is not as bad as it seems, and so that is the way that they give discounts on phones. If you are not currently getting a subsidized phone from T-Mobile, Verizon, or AT&T, then you are very likely significantly overpaying, and so how it works, typically, is that you buy a new phone, and they give you a huge discount, or you upgrade your phone, and you trade in your old phone, and they give you a huge amount in trade-in value for your phone, beyond what the phone's worth, but in order to do that, you have to do two things. You have to finance the new device through them, usually over three years, and all that credit you get, they'll pay you out over three years. So, I think right now, when I looked T-Mobile, Verizon, maybe AT&T, I can't remember, at least two of the three, are offering you $1,200 off a new iPhone if you trade in an old iPhone. But that $1,200 ends up being, and I can't remember the exact amount for taxes and fees, but somewhere around $30 a month, where they'll charge you $30 a month for the phone, but then subtract $30 a month for the device credit. Now, there's a little bit of a twist here, which is, if you ever get rid of that phone, sometimes that gets rid of the financing, and it messes with everything. So, I've heard some stories of people who've lost their phone and had issues, but it's not always the case. But if you buy that phone through that carrier, you're also usually locked into that carrier to get that discount. So, they don't have contracts, per se, anymore. You can leave anytime you want, but that subsidized phone you bought, you're not gonna get the subsidy unless you stick around for three years. So, effectively, you're locked in. You're just not locked in with a contract as much as you are with a discount that you don't get if you leave early. So, how much does that add up? For me, I looked right now at getting a new iPhone 18 Pro, looked at trading in my 16 Pro, and the incremental value that I'm gonna get by financing that and getting device credits through T-Mobile was $689. Right, if I just go to the Apple store, trade it in, don't even play with carriers, I'm gonna get 510, I think, $511. And if you divide that over three years, the value they're effectively getting is saying, "Hey, commit to us for three years, "and we'll give you, effectively, $19 a month." So, in the service, that seems good. Right, if the cost of those T-Mobile, AT&T, and Verizon plans were $15 more, but you get $19 of value from the phone, then that would be great. However, when I compared almost every single AT&T, Verizon, and T-Mobile plan that offered the ability to get discounts on new phones to a comparable, and sometimes even better plan, running on the exact same network, it was usually $30 to $60 a month more expensive. So, it completely wiped out that $19 a month savings. Now, that number might have been a little bit more than that, but it's not. So, I think that's a good thing. I think that's a good thing. 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All that said, there are a few features that you can only get using plans directly with the major carriers. So let's talk about all of them to combine. The biggest things are if you want AT&T or T-Mobile as your primary carrier, and you want that service, you'll need to go directly to AT&T or T-Mobile if you want to get watch lines or tablet lines, because I haven't found a carrier that operates on those networks that offers those features. Also, if you want to be on AT&T or T-Mobile or even Verizon, and you want a massive amount of full speed hotspot data, all three of those carriers offer 250 gig or 200 gigs of hotspot data in their most premium plans, whereas most of the carriers that operate on their networks only go up to 50 gigabytes, or they throttle the speed of that data. Now, if all you need is 50 gigabytes, or in the case of AT&T network, you can get up to 200 gigabytes, you can save a lot more money elsewhere. And then last on Verizon, I haven't found a carrier that operates on the Verizon network, but offers 4K streaming video. However, if you're using a VTV, you're going to get a lot more data. If you're using a VPN on your phone, which is way cheaper than the cost of using Verizon, most of the people I've found have said that that completely circumvents the rate limiting on 4K video. For some reason, they can rate limit video without rate limiting data speeds. So even though you can download a 4K video as a file, you might not be able to stream that 4K video at 4K quality. Now, keep in mind, most of the devices you're on with your device are probably not devices where 4K matters that much. If you're watching a video on your phone, the need to have it be 4K versus 1080 is probably not that important. If you're at home on your home Wi-Fi on your TV, you definitely watch 4K, but that's not this scenario. Those are a couple of the reasons you might want to stay on the main carriers. But I think none of those reasons really stand out enough to justify the extra cost you're paying for them. And so let's talk about what the best options are. So how do I think about this? So first off, which carrier do you want? If you have a really strong opinion, that'll help filter this list down. If you've had the same carrier forever, things might have changed. You might want to talk to friends, neighbors, colleagues, people that live nearby to see if one of those carriers is just significantly better where you are mostly. Or maybe you live in a place like I do in the Bay Area where all of them are good, right? I've had Verizon, I've had AT&T, and I've had T-Mobile over the years. And there are certainly probably parts of town where one is better than the other. But I'm on Wi-Fi at home, so home isn't what matters as much. And everywhere else I go, there's not such a consistency that one of them is really that much better. If you want to go to Coverage Map, which is a website and an app, you can get a lot of user-reported data for a certain region. It's a really cool app to kind of get a sense of speeds. But for me, I found that all three are comparable. So that step doesn't matter. But for you, where you live, that might really influence what you want. Then the next thing is you have to ask yourself, like, which features are important? And I'm going to filter down to just a handful of features that I think separate all of the major plans you can look at. So first is premium data. So let's talk about what that means. There are different levels of quality. They're called QCI levels. They're where data is prioritized. And so if you have premium data, you have a higher QCI level for your plan. And that really only matters if you're in congested areas. So places where they need to throttle someone, they give priority to premium data. And so that might be a sporting event, a concert, a really crowded airport. And so some plans will include premium data and some plans won't. And so that's something to keep in mind. For the most part, the way this works is there's usually a tier for first responders that most people can't even have access to. There's a tier for the main plans from a carrier. And depending on the carrier, oftentimes premium MVNOs, so all of those other networks, the premium plans there are on the same level of priority. The exception here is on AT&T, the expensive consumer elite plan is on a tier above all the other AT&T plans and all the other premium MVNOs. And on T-Mobile, all the MVNO partners, with the exception of Google Fi, and very soon, but not yet, US Mobile, mainline T-Mobile plans have higher priority. Now, what does that really mean? I've looked at a couple people doing an analysis and in those congested areas, when that happens, which is very rare, you might get throttled 60% of the speeds if you're in that second tier down from the main plans. So it might not be the end of the world. And that usually only applies to data and not to phone calls. But that is just one thing that might matter is whether or not you have premium data. And the next is video streaming quality. There are plans that will. throttle your speed for just video streaming. And I mentioned earlier, if you're on a VPN, you might be able to circumvent those restrictions. But there are some plans that limit you to only stream video at 720p quality. But if you can go around that, this one seems like one where maybe it doesn't matter as much for your use case or if you're willing or have a VPN to use. Next is how much high speed data you want. Some plans have an unlimited amount, sometimes cap off your amount of high speed data, and once you hit that limit, you usually either go down in quality or down in speed and it gets throttled. The next is how much hotspot data you have. So you might have a plan with a lot of data on your phone, but if you switch to using your phone as a hotspot, you only get, let's call it 50 gigabytes a month. Then the next is international calling or roaming. And then the next is tablet or watch lines. So those are the things in my back of my mind that I'm thinking about as what do I feel about those so I can decide. From there, there are just so many carriers to pick from that it's really overwhelming. And so I've done the work here. I've gone through dozens. It's not hundreds of plans, and I'm going to narrow this list down into a smaller short list that I think is gonna be really helpful. And I really think it's, in my opinion, the best options. None of these options are sponsors of the show. None of them are partners. So I don't have any reason to say one is better than the other, but I'm going to focus only on unlimited plans for this episode. At the end, I'm going to talk about very inexpensive plans. Also, if you want to back up phone number, but I'm going to focus on unlimited plans because as of recording, you can get unlimited plans for as little as $15 a month. And I think the savings you might get going to plans that maybe only have 10 gigs of data a month are just not worth it for probably most of the people listening. And so once I got to that level, I'm really just going to focus on four carriers: US Mobile, Visible, Total Wireless, and Mint Mobile. And I could probably make a case for Xfinity Mobile, having tried to dig into the plans, but you have to be an Xfinity Internet customer to even consider it. So I'm going to leave it off. And then Google Fi is notably not on here. And I know a handful of you are going to say, "Well, I don't know. A handful of people listening probably use Google Fi and they even have a promo right now where their Essential and Standard plans are 50% off." But when I compared every single one of those plans, even at their 50% off level, there were other plans that offered what I thought were a very comparable, if not better, offering for less. The one small exception would be at their premium level, they have 50 gigabytes of international data and a tablet line included for $65 a month. So there are probably some people for whom. That might be the right plan, but you can save $20 to $30 a month if you're willing to get 10 or 20 gigs of international data a month instead of 50. And I know you could probably close that gap with an eSIM when you're traveling abroad as well. So that's why I left that off. So within those four, I'm going to start with two customer profiles. One is unlimited data, but on the lower end of the price band, we're talking $15 to $20 a month. And you'd be surprised at how much you can get these days for $15 to $20 a month. Now I'm going to focus on the. New customer pricing, because I think most people are probably switching and a lot of these pricings are comparable. So if you go one year on one, who knows what the next year holds, but you could probably find something from someone else similar, but I'm going to mention both the first and subsequent year pricing. So the cheapest, absolute unlimited data is on mint mobile. It's $15 a month. You do have to pay for the whole year upfront. However, you get zero international coverage included. They did launch the ability to add one gig internationally. in I think almost 200 countries for $5 a day. They also don't have any watch or tablet plans. plans. And then after that, the plan is $30 a month for the second year. So $15 a month unlimited data is awesome. And that is wild. However, for just $2 to $5 a month more, we're talking $17 to $20, I think you get a lot more. So if you're really budget conscious and don't care about any of those features, and you're willing to just say, I want the cheapest unlimited data plan, Mint Mobile, $15 a month, I think is a great option right now. However, if I were trying to get a low cost unlimited plan, there are three plans I would actually consider. So one is the US Mobile Starter Plan on AT&T, which they call Darkstar. So the thing you have to understand about US Mobile, which is hands down my favorite carrier right now, and I'll talk a lot about why I'm switching all of my lines over to US Mobile, but they have the ability to operate on all three carriers, Verizon, AT&T, and T-Mobile. Now, you don't operate them at once. I'll explain how that works in a little bit. But they don't say the names of those carriers. So they say Darkstar, and that means AT&T. They say Warp, and that means Verizon. They say Lightspeed, and that means T-Mobile. So specifically on the Starter Plan, I think you get a lot more with the AT&T Darkstar version. For year one, today's pricing is $17 a month. After that, it goes up to $22.50 a month. You do, I think, have to prepay for the year for that pricing. But at these pricings, I think it's like an entire year of service might be less than two or three months on AT&T. And one of the more mainstream carriers. The things you're giving up on this plan relative to more expensive plans is that you don't get any priority data. You don't get any watch or tablet lines. But you do get 4K video. You do get 20 gigs of full speed hotspot. And you do get one gig a month of international data. Now, again, you could also do this exact same plan on T-Mobile or Verizon with US Mobile. It's their Starter Unlimited plan. The only difference being on T-Mobile and Verizon, you get capped high speed data at 70 gigs a month, which is probably more than enough for anyone. And then you only get 10 gigs of hotspot data instead of 20 gigs. So this is an awesome plan for $17 a month. You basically get unlimited everything without priority data with hotspot, with a little bit of international coverage. I think it's really great. The next plan that I think is also great is from Total Wireless. It is their Max 5G plan. If you bring your own device, it is only $20 a month. This is unlimited priority data. However, your hotspot data is capped at five megabits a second. So if you hotspot a lot, you're going to get slower hotspot data. Again, no watch coverage here, but you can get a lot of data. So if you're going to get a lot of data, you're going to get a lot of data. You can get a tablet line for an extra $10 a month, which is great if you have a tablet and you want cellular data. You also get 10 gigs a month of international data, which is at a $20 a month plan is just wild. I remember having to pay 10 or $20 a day on Verizon to get international data at one point in time in history. So the idea that you can get a $20 a month unlimited priority data plan with 10 gigs a month of international data is amazing. This is on the Verizon network. The only thing they do throttle your video to 720p. VPN might get around that, but Total Wireless is pretty interesting. So those two plans are, I think, your best bet in the $17 to $20 a month range. I almost included the visible base plan on Verizon, except it's missing a lot of things, no priority data, 480p video, hotspot cap, no international. The one thing it had was it was the only plan in this price range that could add an Apple Watch, but it was $10 a month. And by the time you add that $10 a month plan, you'd be way better off switching to a more premium plan. In fact, while I like these plans at $17 to $20 a month, $15 if you include MetMobile, for another $8 to $15, getting to a total plan cost of $25 to $32 a month, I think you get so much more. And so this is the place where I really focused my research because this is what I was looking for, was a plan that covered pretty much everything I wanted at a price that is half or maybe even less than half of what you're paying at a mainstream carrier. All of these plans include priority data. The only exception is that on US Mobile, their priority data on T-Mobile, which is a 6 category, they've announced that it's coming, but it has not come yet. So just keep that in mind. They've announced it. It hasn't happened yet, but I'm going to assume that by the time this comes out, by the time most people sign up, they'll probably be in that scenario. They all also include international data. Now, some of these plans give you 10 to 20 gigs a month. Some of these plans give you 12 to 24 days a year, but limit each day at 2 gigabytes a day, but they all have international data. And surprisingly, one of the best plans in this tier is that same total wireless max. 5G plan. It's $20 a month. It's no extra. So that plan, even in the previous camp, competes well here because it includes the international coverage, but there's no watch coverage. There's capped hotspot data. And so I thought it's at least worth mentioning the other options because I think they add on to it for just a little bit more. So if that plan is $20 a month, add $5 a month, and you get the US Mobile unlimited premium plan. So first year right now pricing $25 a month. After that, it goes up to $32.50 a month. You do have to prepay for an annual plan at that price. This is the plan I'm switching to, by the way, right? You get 50 gigabytes of hotspot data. Or if you choose Darkstar or AT&T as your base network, you get 200 gigs. You get 4K video. Unless you're on Verizon or their warp, you get 720p video. But if you're on Verizon, you have the ability to use Apple Watch, and that's free and included. And you get 20 gigs a month of international data. So this plan has everything I need. So this is my primary plan here. However, there's one other plan that I think is worth talking about. And the pricing right now on it is what makes it so worth it. And that pricing is supposed to expire the day this episode will come out. So I can't promise what this plan will be priced at then. But it's the Visible Plus Pro plan that's on the Verizon network. And it's normally $45 a month. There are often discounts for it to be $35 a month. But right now, if you prepay for the year, it's $225 for the year, which is $18.75 a month. So it's actually so cheap that at that price, it really should be in the previous bucket. And honestly, I probably would put it there if that pricing wasn't so promotional and potentially temporary. Because for $18.75 a month, you get 15 megabits per second hotspot. So it's unlimited hotspot, but capped at speed. You get 4K video, you get a free Apple Watch, and you get 24 days of international data at two gigs a day per year. So I bring it up here because I think that pricing might not last. And if that pricing doesn't last, this plan will be $35 a month. And then relative to the U.S. mobile plan, I'm not sure it's worth it because. I don't think you get more on the U.S. mobile plan. But I just thought I would flag that because if that pricing lasts, that Visible Plus Pro plan at $18.75 is a steal. This episode is brought to you by Gelt. Most business owners have a CPA who files once a year and then goes quiet. And that's the problem. The moves that actually change what you owe for 2026 close on December 31st. Once the year ends, most things are locked, and April is just when you have to write the check. Gelt is different. 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Go to allthehacks.com slash Delete.me and get 20% off a plan for you or your whole family. Again, that's allthehacks.com slash Delete.me. So if I try to shorten this to an even tighter takeaway, the absolute cheapest plan, Mint Mobile, $15 a month, unlimited data, but you get no international, the data's deprioritized, the video's capped at 480p. The total wireless Max 5G plan, $20 a month. If you're okay with a hotspot cap of 5 megs a second, and no watch support, and 720p video, you get priority data, you get 10 gigabytes of international, and you get the ability to add a tablet line for $10 a month. That plan at 20 bucks a month is awesome. Then on US Mobile, I think there are two. The starter plan, if you go on Darkstar and AT&T, at $17 a month is fantastic. The only downside is limited international at one gig a month and deprioritized data, or you bump up to premium, which right now, is $25 a month for your first year. You get the full 20 gigs of international data, 50 gigs of full speed hotspot, or 200 gigs on AT&T, 4K video, not on Verizon, Apple Watch support on Verizon, and that plan's amazing. Obviously, the Visible Plus Pro plan is also great if it's at that price, but I just don't want to talk too much about it because it seems like that price won't last. Okay, I really hope that was helpful to try to narrow things down. For me, there's one factor that I didn't really mention here, which is related to US Mobile, and that is one feature they have, that I think I didn't mention before because it's not really comparable to other services, but it really is. sets them out apart from all the other competition, even apart from the main carriers. And that is their ability to have multiple networks. And you can do that in one of two ways. Even their starter plans can take advantage of this. You can transfer networks anytime. You can go into their app or on their website, which is probably the most delightful cell phone carrier website to use. And you can say, hey, I want to transfer this network. I don't want to be on Darkstar. I want to be on Warp, which means I don't want to be on AT&T. I want to be on Verizon. And you can just switch. And if you're on the starter plan, you pay just $2 and you can switch networks. You can do this multiple times throughout the month. And if you're on a premium plan, you can do it for $0. Because they're all eSIMs, they all get auto-provisioned and it's very, very straightforward. But what you can also do, which is what I'm going to be doing, is you can add on multi-network, which for an additional $10 a month, which if you pay annually actually comes down to $7.50 a month, and in your first year is 50% off. So just $3.75 a month, because it's only $45 for the first year, you actually get a second line that works off your same pool of data, but on another carrier. So you're able to say, I want the unlimited premium plan on U.S. Mobile. I want Verizon to be my main carrier. But for $45 for the first year, I want to have a second line on my phone. The iPhone and many other phones support multiple SIM cards and multiple data plans at the same time. You do have to switch between which data plan is primary, but there's a shortcut, at least on iOS, that makes that super easy. I'll put a link to it in the show notes. And then it uses your same bucket of unlimited voice, unlimited text, unlimited data, and you can switch between it anytime you want. I think that is what makes U.S. Mobile an incredible carrier, because I've been doing this for the past year. I've had my primary T-Mobile line, and then I've had a small two gigabyte U.S. Mobile number. I've actually had one on Verizon and one on AT&T, and there have probably been five to 15 times throughout the year. Maybe I'm at an airport. Maybe I'm at an event. Maybe I'm just in a place with bad service on one carrier. I just swapped to the next carrier, and I can even see two of them at a time. So I just look up. I'm like, wow, I have five bars on my backup carrier. Let's just switch to AT&T. And then all of a sudden, I have fast data. So I have a $45 a year, $90 a year after that insurance policy that anywhere I'm going, if the carrier I currently have doesn't have the best data, I can swap in a couple seconds and have much faster data. So that is one of the amazing features that I've been using U.S. Mobile for the past year, but I just haven't had them as my primary line. So it's cost more, because I've had to pay for this extra line. They also have been doing a ton of cool stuff. If I'm nerding out, I'm a bit of a fanboy. I tried to get them to sponsor the podcast, wasn't an option, but I just love all this stuff they're doing. The multi-network stuff was amazing, the ability to have all three networks. They've got a couple other things coming out soon that I thought I would share. This is all public. They're going to be uncapping data for all the carriers on the starter plans, and they're even going to let you on a starter plan pay $5 a month if you want to add on priority data. They've announced that international data is going to get a lot cheaper. They're going to get a lot cheaper on priority data, and they're going to so they plan to include Canada and Mexico in your domestic bucket instead of your international bucket. So you'll be able to use your unlimited calling, voice, text, data, everything when you're in Canada or Mexico. And they're going to be adding on an option to go up to 50 gigs a month for international data. I mentioned this earlier, but they're going to be adding priority data on the Lightspeed network, which is T-Mobile. So that priority data on the premium plan for all three networks. And then they have this multi-network thing now where you can have two networks, but they've announced that they're going to add a triple network, which is a triple network version. I'm not entirely sure how that will work because I know at least on the iPhone, you can only have two active eSIMs at once, but they've announced this thing where they're going to have triple network. And instead of $10 a month, it'll be $15 a month. It'll include Apple Watch coverage. I don't know how that will work. So I'm interested in that. And then this isn't really for me right now, but one cool thing that they're starting to add is a global multi-network feature where instead of just saying, hey, I want to add a second line from Verizon or T-Mobile to my AT&T plan, but you could add a second line from Verizon or T-Mobile to my AT&T plan. Add lines with local numbers in 20 to 25 different countries. So if you're frequently in another country, let's say you're traveling to France five, six times a year, instead of adding a backup line to use all of your data in the US, you could add a backup line with a French number and a French data plan. I don't know the ins and outs of how that'll work, but that's coming. And they've also announced in Q4 and Q1, they're going to start rolling out various forms of satellite coverage, which by the way, I didn't mention this earlier, but one of the features the mainline carriers have that you don't get on a lot of these mobile MVNO operators is satellite coverage, kind of backup to when you don't have service. Now, I used the T-Mobile Starlink version when they beta tested it and gave it to everyone for free. And over the course of however many months I had it, it never worked or I was able to use it or needed it one time. So I'm not that excited about this, but US Mobile has announced that somewhere Q4, Q1, they're going to be adding the AST SpaceMobile functionality to warp lines and Starlink direct to cell. And so I think that's will only make their service better. And they just keep shipping stuff. They're really active on Reddit. They write big posts of all these features and they respond to things. And so, I don't know, I've just been delighted to be a US Mobile customer on my small plan each month and very excited to switch for my primary plan. I'm not getting any kind of special deal. I'm just going to pay full price, though there is a referral deal. So if you go to allthehacks.com slash US Mobile, that's my referral link. I think you get $30 off. So there is that. As for which networks to pick, since I'm switching to US Mobile myself, I've thought about this a lot. And I think I'm going to pick T-Mobile and Verizon for now. And that's primarily because when traveling internationally, they have the most coverage and number of countries on those two plans, and you can switch between them. And so that brings the coverage up to like 206 countries. In fact, of all the countries that I think you could have coverage on, there's only like four countries that I wouldn't have coverage on with T-Mobile and Verizon as my two underlying plans on US Mobile. The main reason that you would want to go with AT&T is if you wanted that 200 gigabyte hotspot plan over the 50 on everything else. So that's one reason. And obviously you can switch. So that makes it easy. If I had an Apple Watch, I'd obviously make the Verizon plan primary. That is one thing they've announced that they're not going to be able to add for T-Mobile and AT&T. But that's not hard. You just make your Verizon the primary line, you get an Apple Watch, and then you can make whichever carrier you want your secondary line. So if you're interested in going deeper on a lot of these plans, one of the places I will send you is a website built by a guy named T-Mobile. And he's probably the most knowledgeable person I know on cell phone plans. It's called bestphoneplans.net. And he has basically a comparison tool to browse through all these plans and filter by the features you want, the amount of data you want, the underlying carrier you want. I love his site. He has affiliate links to most of those carriers. So definitely support him if you're going to sign up for a plan. Only exception being I have my referral link at US Mobile. So support sets in for all those carriers. But if you want to sign up for US Mobile and you don't have a friend with a referral link or a family member, I'd love you to use mine. I put it in allthehacks.com slash US Mobile. Hopefully it'll get you $30 off. And that's helpful. So that's plans. Before we go, there's actually a few other things I didn't cover that I think are important. So one is this idea that I started a few years ago of having a backup plan for two-factor authentication. So I didn't have to always put my primary phone number in in case my primary phone number was a target. And so if that's something that's interesting, when you use US Mobile, you could just add a second line to your multi-network and you get a problem. But if you don't want to do that, or if you're on another carrier, I did a quick rundown of what the best options here are for a secondary line that has text coverage. And the best option is one that is surprisingly difficult to find. But there's a carrier called Red Pocket that you can find on eBay. They officially sell an annual plan with unlimited texting and calling for $2.50 a month. You just pay a one-time $30 fee. And my understanding is that it can renew, but I have not tested it. So that's hands down the cheapest. In the $5 to $8 range, if I wanted this, you could get a Telo plan, a MobileX plan, or a US Mobile plan. They would actually, the US Mobile plan would also include two gigabytes of data, which is, I'd say, pretty helpful in the circumstance of, oh, I just want a second carrier just in case. That's what I've been doing for the last few years, but now I won't need to in the future. So that's one thing I've been doing, and it's helpful. I obviously would prefer that we could set up passkeys and authenticator one-time passwords instead of two, factor SMS, but there's just too many providers or services that require it that I can't escape it. Another thing I looked into recently was having some kind of cellular data backup at home in case our Wi-Fi goes out. And yes, I might have a hotspot, but interestingly, in my office, in my home, there's very bad cell phone coverage. And I have a desktop. I have a studio Mac that's my primary computer. So it'd be a pain to be able to use that for data. It's not that redundant for devices in the house. You'd have to have your hotspot connected. So I ended up getting a cell modem from UniFi, which is the company I use for all of my home routing gear. But there's a bunch of companies that offer these kind of cell phone routers. And I got the UniFi 5G Max, and I was looking for the best way to be able to have backup internet. And at first I was like, oh, these $10 data-only tablet lines might be great, but then I'm paying $10 a month and probably using this once a year, maybe. In fact, in three or four years, the internet provider we use hasn't gone down. I think one time there was scheduled maintenance, but other than that, it hasn't had an outage. So I didn't really want to pay $120 a year for something that I maybe don't need. And then I found two carriers, Roamless and KeepGo, which have no expiration data sims. And so I ended up going with KeepGo. I paid $20. I have a 10 gigabyte data sim that I put into the UniFi 5G Max. And so I have a backup internet provider that cost me a one-time, $20 cost with 10 gigs of data that I could set up to renew for up to $60 of extra data and has no expiration. So I can just leave that running, you know, as long as they're in business or whenever the internet goes out, I will have backup coverage at home. If I'm not home, anyone in the house will have coverage at a rate that I think is pretty reasonable. This episode is brought to you by ZocDoc. Every so often something forces you to find a new doctor. You move, you switch jobs, your insurance changes, or maybe like me, you just need to see a specialist. So then you have to start from scratch. No idea who's good, who takes your insurance, or who can actually see you anytime soon. Fortunately, ZocDoc lets you search and compare local in-network doctors. So you can filter to who's actually covered, read reviews from real patients, and look at detailed profiles before you pick anyone. Then you see the actual appointment openings and book instantly. Most appointments happen within 24 to 72 hours, and you can even score same-day appointments. So if you're looking for a new doctor, you can filter to who's actually covered, read reviews from real patients, and look at detailed profiles before you pick anyone. Your health matters, and taking care of yourself shouldn't be complicated. Find and book the right doctor with ZocDoc. Head to ZocDoc.com slash allthehacks to get started and check that appointment off your to-do list. That's Z-O-C-D-O-C dot com slash allthehacks. They're all brands I love and use, so please consider supporting those who support us. Okay, two last things. Cell phone insurance, and then what I got wrong buying new iPhones, because there is a couple tricks that you need to know. So on cell phone insurance, first off, when it comes to having cell phone insurance, there are a couple options. You can get it directly from your cell phone provider, like Apple has AppleCare. You can get it from your carrier, or you can get it from your credit card. And it got a little complicated with the to be able to pay with a credit card. And so that kind of negates the cell phone coverage as being free if you have to pay $10 a line. So I was thinking about how I wanted to do this on this next plan. And the good news is that a lot of the MVNO carriers actually take credit cards and don't have that same restriction. However, as I dug into it, I realized that almost every single cell phone coverage that comes from your credit card is really more about lost and stolen phones. But it doesn't sit on par with AppleCare when it comes to cracking your screen. And so if you want coverage for a cracked screen, with the exception, I think, of your Amex Platinum card, you're going to need a separate insurance policy. So it's still better than nothing, right? If you lose your phone, if someone steals your phone, it's great to have that coverage. And so if you want to know which credit cards have the best coverage for cell phone protection, go listen to episode 284, all about the hidden benefits of credit cards, one of which is cell phone protection. But if you want to protect your phone for something like a cracked screen and all the other stuff, for example, if you have an iPhone, you can get it from the carriers. Usually they all have some sort of plan. So when I looked at T-Mobile right now, just for fun, I think it was like 15 or $17 a month. When I looked at US Mobile, it was $7.50 a month. And then from Apple, if you prepay for the year, it's $9 a month. And so I'm going back and forth in my head. Do I want to pay $9 a month from Apple and not have to worry about it? Or do I pay $7.50 a month from US Mobile, which is technically cheaper? And their policy even has the same deductible and lets you get repairs done at the Apple store? Or do I want to just kind of forego it, rely on credit card coverage for loss or anything like that? And then if a cracked screen happens, I just pay for it. I think ultimately, I want to see what the cost to repair a cracked screen is for this iPhone Duo when it comes out, because there's now multiple screens, and I could see that getting kind of expensive. And so I'm going to hold off on that. But if that cracked screen replacement is pretty expensive, which I think right now for a new phone, it's in the $200 to $300 range, I think, it might be coverage that I want to carry just for peace of mind. If you do have multiple Apple devices, you could pay $20 a month and cover three devices. Or if you're in a big family, or you have a lot of people on your Apple family sharing, I think it's pretty reasonable to get the $50 a month. I think it's Apple Care One family, maybe Care Plus One, I can't remember. It's 50 bucks a month, which sounds crazy, right? $600 a year. But it covers six people's unlimited devices, phones, tablets, watches, computers, even, I think. Like, best I can tell, it's all the devices. So if you're someone who is thinking about Apple Care, and you can add some people to your family sharing, that can bring the cost down a lot, if there are six people with multiple devices. I think if not, the $9 a month for one device is pretty straightforward. Or no matter what device it is, Apple or not, someone like US Mobile offering $750 a month is actually pretty great. It's provided by a company called Akko, A-K-K-O. And from what I can tell, people have had decent experiences. But that's kind of all I know. And then last, when it comes to buying new iPhones, it's that time of year. I know a lot of people are interested. And ultimately, if you're going to go for a non-main carrier, if you're going to go for a non-main carrier, if you're going to go for a T-Mobile, AT&T, Verizon, there aren't a lot of deals. The deal is, buy an iPhone and then trade it in, or buy an iPhone and sell it. There's not really a way to get a better deal on a new iPhone if you're not going through one of the carriers. And so the best option I have for you here is shop around on your trade-in. There are a lot of websites like, I think Swappa is one, just search like trade-in or sell iPhone, where you can go in, key in the details of your phone, and instantly get an estimate for what you'll get and send your phone off. So if Apple wants to offer you 500 bucks and somebody else wants to offer you 600 bucks, then that's definitely something that I would consider, especially if you have a high storage phone. Because I think on Apple's trade-ins, I don't think they give you any bonus for having a larger phone. So if you paid up for a one terabyte hard drive on your phone, and you're trading into Apple, you're not going to get rewarded for that. But if you've got the baseline version, you probably won't notice the difference that much. So that's one thing. But if you are going to stay on a legacy carrier, if you're like, everything you said, I'm sticking to Verizon, I'm sticking to AT&T, I'm sticking to T-Mobile, please, please don't buy your new phone directly from the carrier, at least if it's an iPhone. You can get all of those same elevated purchase deal, trade-in deals with device credits and everything from the carrier buying through Apple's website. So I just put this in the newsletter because a video that Stetson made, but the quick summary of it, I'll put in the show notes as well, is that you get all the same promotional pricing as you would going to the carrier. Except when you buy the phone through Apple with that carrier pricing. And the way to do that, you go to Apple site, you go to buy a phone, you add your trade-in and then choose to finance the device. And then they show you all the carrier deals. And the difference is when you buy your phone from the carrier, you get a locked phone. When you buy the phone from Apple, even if you carry or finance it with the carrier device credits that increase your trade-in value up to $1,200, you get an unlocked phone. You also get no restocking fee. So if you buy the phone and you don't like it, you can take it back to the carrier. So if you buy the phone and you don't like it, you can take it back to Apple. If you buy the phone from the carrier, you're probably going to have to pay a fee to return it. But the other huge one is that if you look at how these promos work, Apple will usually say, hey, we'll give you 500 bucks. Or in my case, I think it was $511 or $510. And then T-Mobile said, and we'll add $689 on top of that. So when you buy through T-Mobile, they're going to take that whole price, which I think is $1,199 or $1,200. And they're going to take the trading credit that Apple gives you, the $510, they're going to give you that up front. And then they're going to give you the carrier bonus, which is in my case, $689. And they'll spread that over 36 months. So you're getting the trading credit up front when you go through Apple. So if you're buying a new iPhone, and this might apply for other carriers, Samsung or Google, I'm not sure. But if you're buying an iPhone, and you're going to stay on a legacy carrier, which hopefully I've given you plenty of reasons not to, but no judgment if that's what you into some grandfathered awesome plan, definitely buy the phone through Apple, unless there's a reason you can't. For example, they don't allow you to buy business phones through those plans. So that's a reason. But buy through Apple and get an unlocked phone, don't have a restocking fee, and get your trading credit, at least the part for the device, paid up front and get the rest financed over three years. So I really hope this is helpful. There's been a lot that's changed. And I'm very, very excited to finally kind of be a free agent and a long term free agent, because I'm not going to get any more of these device credits. That does mean I'm going to pay full price for the phone, which I guess I've always been paying not only full price, but more than full price, because I've been paying for a more expensive plan to get what felt like a free phone. But it only felt like a free phone because I financed it over three years, and got carrier subsidies over those three years. And so it felt free, but it definitely wasn't actually free. And so there'll be some sticker shock because you've got to pay that full price up front. In fact, you can finance the device if you buy it from Apple, I'm sure it's just some third party financing. I'm looking right now, actually, it's 0% APR, so if you really don't want to pay that amount up front, you can finance it. They do also have this upgrade program. Unfortunately, best I could understand doing some digging, Apple had to strike some carrier deal where the upgrade program they offer is only eligible if you have AT&T, Verizon or T-Mobile. So they have this program where you can kind of lease your phone for, it sounds like somewhere between $7 and $14 a month. And then you trade in your phone and you get a new phone every year. But it only works if you're on one of the three main carriers. So I didn't dig into whether that actually is a good deal or not, because I don't really want to stick with one of the main three carriers to find out. And when it comes to financing, I guess, if you want to finance this great, if not also great, but it will hit, I think, as an inquiry on your credit report, because they're gonna have to do that. So that's just something to keep in mind. So that is it for today. I hope this is super helpful. And I hope to see a lot more of you saving a lot more money. If you have any feedback, thoughts, questions on this episode or anything else, you can let me know in the comments below. You can always reach out [email protected]. I read every email. Thank you so much for that sends it for leaving comments and everything. I really appreciate all you guys. That is it for this week. I won't see you next week. I'm taking next week off, but I will be back the week after and I will see you then. For a limited time,

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Podcast Summary

Key Points:

The host, Chris Hutchins, has been deliberately overpaying on his T-Mobile plan for years to receive device credits that never actually made the phone free.
US carriers are divided into three main networks (AT&T, Verizon, T-Mobile), their sub-brands, and independent MVNOs, many of which offer better value on the same networks.
Carrier phone "deals" are misleading because the required premium plans cost $30 to $60 more per month, wiping out any device credit savings.
MVNOs have improved dramatically, now offering smartwatch and tablet lines, priority data, international roaming, and even multi-network access.
The host recommends US Mobile, Visible, Total Wireless, and Mint Mobile as the best unlimited plan options, with US Mobile being his top choice.
US Mobile's standout feature is multi-network support, letting users switch between or combine AT&T, Verizon, and T-Mobile coverage on one plan.
When buying a new iPhone while staying with a legacy carrier, purchase through Apple to get an unlocked phone, no restocking fee, and upfront trade-in credit.
Backup options include no-expiration data SIMs like KeepGo for home internet and cheap secondary lines like Red Pocket for two-factor authentication.

Summary:

He notes that MVNOs have improved significantly, now offering priority data, international roaming, smartwatch and tablet support, and even multi-network access. After analyzing dozens of plans, he recommends US Mobile, Visible, Total Wireless, and Mint Mobile as the best unlimited options, with US Mobile as his personal choice due to its multi-network feature that lets users switch between or combine AT&T, Verizon, and T-Mobile coverage. He also shares tips for buying a new iPhone, including purchasing through Apple to get an unlocked phone and upfront trade-in credit, and covers backup internet and secondary line options for two-factor authentication.

FAQs

Why do carrier phone deals often end up costing more?›

Carrier phone deals usually require a more expensive plan, and the monthly plan overage often wipes out the value of the device credits.

What are MVNOs and why are they worth considering now?›

MVNOs are carriers that use major networks like AT&T, Verizon, or T-Mobile. They have improved with better features, priority data, international roaming, and easy eSIM switching.

What is the cheapest unlimited data option mentioned?›

Mint Mobile offers unlimited data for $15 per month, but you must prepay for the year and get no international coverage or watch/tablet lines.

Which plan is the speaker switching to?›

The speaker is switching to US Mobile's Unlimited Premium plan, which offers 50 GB hotspot, 4K video, 20 GB international data, and multi-network support.

What is US Mobile's multi-network feature?›

US Mobile lets you add a second line on a different network for $10 per month, or $3.75 per month in the first year, so you can switch carriers when coverage is poor.

What should you do if you stay with a major carrier but want a new iPhone?›

Buy the iPhone through Apple instead of the carrier. You get the same carrier trade-in credits but receive an unlocked phone and avoid restocking fees.

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