Family friendly mobile packages - Is there even such a thing?

angelavdavis

I am doing yet another review of our outgoings. One thing that has jumped out at me is the overall cost of mobiles in our household.

Our household consists of:

-Myself (unemployed and soon to be adoptive mother of two under 5's)
-Husband (employed)
-Parents (retired)
-Brother (not live in, on benefits)

I am still in a mobile contract with t-mobile from my working days and so will be able to reduce the usage package when it comes up for review in May 2012 as I am using nowhere near my package. I also have a mobile dongle I used with my laptop as a backup when needed although will need this less and less. Spend £50 per month on contract for phone and mobile broadband dongle.

Husband has a mobile contract with t-mobile and is also tied in till the new year. He has a lower cost package than me and doesn't use his allowance either as he has a separate work phone. Spends £30 per month on contract.

Parents - have a payg used mainly to phone home to be collected from somewhere. Spend £10-20 per month topping up.

Brother - has a payg on Vodafone. Usually texts me to get parents to phone on the landline to his mobile. Spends £20-30 per month topping up.

I have picked up that our monthly outgoings are due to package cost for the contract phones and BT cost for phoning my brother's Vodafone mobile. So, ideally I would like to reduce both of these. Between all the phones, we are spending about £100-120 per month.

It would be better if overall we could have one main contract and multiple phones attached to this. Other preferred options would be:

- Inclusive broadband access on my, husbands and brothers phones
- Free calls between these phones
- I would like to be able to transfer my mobile number

Vodafone and 3 coverage isn't great in our area.

I remember that Virgin did used to offer this type of package but I can't find anything on the mobile phone provider websites.

Any experts out there who can offer some advice please? Thanks

movilogo

Try getting business contract. Minutes are then shared among all users.

Mollycat13

Are all the handsets unlocked to any network? Might be worth getting them unlocked.

Check what the O2 signal is like where you are.

Get them all on Giffgaff. It runs on the O2 network.

You can buy a £10 goodybag per phone which lasts for a month and includes 250 any network minutes, unlimited texts and unlimited internet on phone.
Also, all giffgaff to giffgaff calls are free.

The accounts are run online. You could set them all up with the same email and password if you like.

Also, the standard PAYG rates are 10p per minute and 6p per text.

If you go to their website, click on one of the forum users banners, you can order a free sim which will include £5 free credit when you top up by £10 or more.
You then order the next sim through your own referal link and both yours and the ordered sim gets another £5 credit on activation etc.
That way, each of you except the last order gets £10 free credit in all.

Sorry, that probably sound really confusing.

Long story short, if you get good O2 signal, you won't find a better deal.

anonymousie

Get giffgaffed.

We used to have 02 phones with me on contact DH on rolling sim only and the kids on p&g with the 7.50 " family bolt on" that covered all calls/ texts within the 5 of us.

But it got so the kids were using £5 plus / month each (18yr old neded 10/ month at uni, DH was just over £10 and my contract was £42.50 incl bolt on - a huge 67.50/ month or more. .

As of this month we will be Giffgaffed. 18yr old and I have £10 goody bags ( for unlimited data) 15yr old has the £5 txt goody bag ( he used 900 texts and 3 mins last month- the mins come out of p&g money). 12 yr old has the £5 or 300 txt plus 60 mins bag andvill get DH the 10 one but I bet hell be ok with the sane as the youngest as again calls/texts between us dont count. So £35 total!

We have moved he kids slowly to make sure no hiccups and all good.

Umm ok when the next iPhone is out I'll have one ( not getting 4s ) but at this rate I'll have "saved" enough to largely by the phone in the 6-12 months till launch!

Stuart_W

Another option is to look at the reduced cost deals from T-mobile via ChitterChatter.
£6/month will get your parents 100 mins, 100 texts and unlimited landline calls.
£6/month will get your brother 100 mins, 100 texts and 500MB downloading/unlimited surfing.
£10/month will get you 600 mins, 500 texts and 500MB downloading/unlimited surfing.
This works out overall cheaper than topping up £10 per month on each phone - if the allowances are sufficient.

http://www.chitterchatter.co.uk/simonly.php

(these prices are based on recurring monthly automatic cashback - nothing to claim)