Three years in the making

This blog is not about getting bargains, or where to save 25 cents on Ritz crackers. It's about the decision making behind purchases I make and careful spending. This one took three years.

I finally got an iPhone.

Usually, I am an early adopter. But the data plan expenses have kept me at bay.

However, it was getting increasingly more frustrating not to have a smart phone.

I rely on my GPS, which has broken twice. Now, I can use my iPhone.

I rely on the internet, which I can now access anytime, anywhere.

And I can now rely on Siri, too.

The expenses double, since my daughter was due for a phone upgrade, too.

So it took a lot of thinking through over many years. A.) I don't like paying for a home phone and a cell phone, too. B.) I don't like paying for texting. C.) I don't like paying for home internet and a data plan, too.

Yet that is now what I am doing.

Why?

With wifi available in most places, I could chose the lowest data plan, increasing my monthly expenses by $20. (Plus all those taxes and fees, which increases it ever more. That stuff makes me mad.)

I had already upgraded to an unlimited texting plan, thanks to AT&T alerting me that my daughter was sending so many texts at 20 cents each, I might as well get the text plan for $30 more a month.

And I found a factory refurbished iPhone 5 32 gig on the AT&T website for $249. Since I had to get two, I saved $100.

And AT&T was actually helpful in helping me make this decision. I talked over the various pitfalls of having a teenager on the plan, and how to avoid overage charges. I placed a block on the plan, costing an extra $5 per month.

I should probably have done more research and checked out Verizon. But I had had enough of the VERY loud text alert on that PanTech phone, which is not adjustable. And I realized I do way more on my phone than use it for conversations. I was dying to upgrade!

If you watch the show 24, which my daughter has been watching so I having been catching glimpses of, in the second or third season, Jack Bauer actually says, "Send that information to my Palm Pilot." That show started in 2001 and it's now just 2013. (!) My old phone felt even less functional than a Palm Pilot.

I have no cognitive dissonance on this purchase. Couldn't be happier.

The evolution of my phone in just three years.