If you need urgent support, call 999 or go to your nearest A&E. To contact our Crisis Messenger (open 24/7) text THEMIX to 85258.
Options
Mobile Phone - Contract or Pay as You Go at Uni?
Former Member
Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
I'm thinking of getting a new phone. I'm going to uni in September and currently my phone eats nearly £20 a month on pay as you go with 3 - and last month (because the vouchers expire) they took £8's worth of credit off me because it expired. I'm considering going for pay monthly £19 - 60 mins (not a talker me!) and 1000 texts per month. But then there's the perspective that irrespective of how much I use - £19 automatically goes out my account per month, whereas if uni money wise doesn't go well for me...they I probably wouldn't fund my phone's credit if money got tight.
What have others chosen to do? This gives me a top notch handset for free and £19 a month for the above deal. To buy the same phone, pay as you go is well over £175. I bought a cheaper phone last time and it's practically conked out on me. But then there's is the choice as to whether to top up or not.
Thank you for replies
What have others chosen to do? This gives me a top notch handset for free and £19 a month for the above deal. To buy the same phone, pay as you go is well over £175. I bought a cheaper phone last time and it's practically conked out on me. But then there's is the choice as to whether to top up or not.
Thank you for replies
Post edited by JustV on
0
Comments
Without meaning to be too nosey - what do you currently pay for your contract and do you solely pay it. One of my friends has kept on about me getting a contract but mummy and daddy pay his phone bill for him :yeees:
Ooo it's actually the orange one I'm looking at - you've obviously got the contract just above mine with the more mins - do you find you eat into your inclusive minutes a lot or no?
Sorry for the questions and noseyness - just found a handset I'm interested in and the such and seems like a bargain
im on orange off peak 1000, 150 texts included and i pay for an extra package of 100 messages for £2. Its £21.99 per month
But, my Dad pays for it.
So, either find a contract that suits you and pay exactly that much a month, or get PAYG and learn a little restraint...
I personally don't. I use abut 30 of them a month.
I don't think I would use all 1000 but it's just something that comes with the student package and I do text a lot more than I talk on the phone and obviously with an abundance of new uni friends I'll be texting a lot more.... ok so that's a joke but a lotta text is more use to me than a load of mins.
Anyone here by any chance knows which company is best for oversea calls and texts?
(Sorry for hijacking the thread. Just thought it'd be stupid to start a new one).
Which (the company not the word) might give you online comparisons for price and that.
i know that might seem like a lot still but i think that's quite good to say the use i get out of my phone. i'd only say give contract a go if you think you can keep within your limits. the thing about pay as you go is when you haven't got any money, you can't top your phone up. end of. whereas with contract you can go over your limits and spend more than you can afford. i know with some contracts you can put a limit on your bill so you can't use it after you've reached the limit you set.
eta: might you want more than 60 minutes? you might want to be ringing family/friends etc.
I usually use 400-500 texts a month so Im more of a texter. There are great deals on o2, £19 500 texts and 50 mins.
They have loads of online deals (free phone ofcourse).
I might get that, but I shall see how I go on pay as you go for a bit.
They are doing a great deal for ucas
www.o2.co.uk/ucaspromo where you can have a free sim (pay as you go) top up £15 a month get 150 mins any network off peak and 300 texts!
or a free sim on contract, but its not 12month! £25 a month, you get 1000 texts, 200 any time any network mins. (these ucas ones are for your existing handset)
On 02's Online OffPeak 300, which offers 300 minutes and 500 texts a month. I'd temporarily gone to pay as you go and found myself spending way over the monthly £20 charge anyway so I thought at least with the contract you're not forking out hundreds extra for the phone.
It seems incredably easy to me.....
I was (and technically still am) on contract with orange and it was the biggest mistake i've ever made.
Although it is nice to have a brand new top of the range phone that you can use as often as you like, there is the temptation to do just that and end up with a hugh bill at the end of the month (my biggest was £230).
Contract phones are ok as long as you can afford to pay the bill but just think first about how you would manage to pay if say you lost a job or couldnt guarentee having money.
I havent used my phone in 3 months but i still owe orange about a hundred quid because im not working anymore and have no money to pay the bill.
I may just get one, but I don't wanna change my number.
same works well for me aswell, and also saves my boyfriend a lot of money as before he changed to this he was spending £10+ a week on phone credit.
The clearance section is where you get some really good deals. I can't stand pay as you go the charges for calls and texts are rediculous esp. considering a lot of people are on different networks. It's not like a few years ago when nearly everyone was on O2.
you're really going to use 1000 minutes?
why not go for online500 and get 500 messages and 500 evening and weekend to any network?
for £20 a month i get 750 minutes (of which i use about 2/3 of that)
and 150 texts, from the fact that my last bill was £24.10, i had another 40 messages i had to pay for, so i use around 200 texts a month, seriously tempted if i go over the limit well before the first half of this billing month, to get an add on