Phone only deal for an elderly person?

RandomGuyRandomTime

Hi,

So our Mum/Nan is an 80 years old widow, she's is currently on "Attendance allowance" but nothing more so unfortunately she can't get "BT Basic" which would be perfect for her especially considering how much/little she uses the home phone.

So currently she's paying £21.99 per month for BT's "Home Phone Saver", we want to reduce this monthly cost to help out with her monthly costs.

I've done some searching around and found a few providers that are cheaper but are wondering if there are any other alternatives for her.

SimpleTelecoms - £17.99 transfer cost
- SuperSaver: £10.99 per month with 10p~ connection fees, 6p~ per min to UK landlines & 10p~ to UK mobiles
- Basic: £12.60 per month with no connection charges, 1.5p~ per min to UK landlines & 6p~ to UK mobiles

POP Telecom - No transfer cost
- £12.99 with 17p~ connection charges, 11p~ per min to UK landlines & 14p~ to UK mobiles

Post Office - No transfer cost
- £13.00 with 23p~ connection charges, 15p~ per min to UK landlines & 18p~ to UK mobiles

MadAsAFish - No transfer cost
- £11.99 with 11p~ connection charges, 7p~ per min to UK landlines & 12p~ to UK mobiles

It looks like either MadAsAFish will be the cheapest, she makes 5~ calls a month and is on the phone for a total of 15 mins~

Call Costs:

MadAsAFish: £1.60
Post Office: £3.40
Pop Telecom: £2.50
SimpleTelecoms SuperSaver: £1.40
SimpleTelecoms Basic: £0.23

Obviously the the savings on calls that you make with SimpleTelecoms is offset a bit by the transfer cost of £17.99 which even comparing against the likes of MadAsAFish is only like £0.60 a month so she'd only be better off after 29 months...

Are there any providers that beat MadAsAFish's prices?

JJ_Egan

Would she not be better sticking with one of the mainstream providers .

[Deleted User]

RandomGuyRandomTime wrote: »

...she makes 5~ calls a month and is on the phone for a total of 15 mins~...

Buy her a suitable mobile and either a PAYG sim (for preference) or something like Sky's £6 a month for UL minutes (UL texts plus 3GB of data) sim only.

RandomGuyRandomTime

Colin_Maybe wrote: »

Buy her a suitable mobile and either a PAYG sim (for preference) or something like Sky's £6 a month for UL minutes (UL texts plus 3GB of data) sim only.

She has a mobile phone which is on PAYG with O2 which she uses for texts only, but everyone including the likes of hospitals call her on the landline so she doesn't want to go through all of the hassle of getting everyone to update her number.

[Deleted User]

RandomGuyRandomTime wrote: »

she doesn't want to go through all of the hassle of getting everyone to update her number.

Hardly a "hassle" if it saves her so much money.
There is also the added advantage of her being contactable wherever she is, not just at home

RandomGuyRandomTime

Moneyineptitude wrote: »

Hardly a "hassle" if it saves her so much money.
There is also the added advantage of her being contactable wherever she is, not just at home

It's a huge hassle because she's lived in her house since she was 18, she's had that number since forever and every single person contacts her on that number.

As for being contactable everywhere, it makes no difference to her because she is pretty much house bound. We try to take her out as much as possible and we all know when one of us has taken her out so contacting her isn't an issue.

[Deleted User]

RandomGuyRandomTime wrote: »

Hi,

So our Mum/Nan is an 80 years old widow, she's is currently on "Attendance allowance" but nothing more so unfortunately she can't get "BT Basic" which would be perfect for her especially considering how much/little she uses the home phone...

It may be worth a post on the The Benefits & Tax Credits Board

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/forumdisplay.php?f=139

to see if she should be getting something else (Pension credit maybe?) which would make her eligible for the BT Basics package.

gt94sss2

Madasafish were a very popular budget provider some years ago - the brand has been owned by Plusnet (BT) since 2007.

However, they stopped taking on new customers back in 2016...

As suggested by Colin_Maybe, make sure that Mum isn't missing out on any benefits as BT Basic is likely to be the best choice for her.

You may also want to see if she qualifies for BT's free Priority Repair Service

Otherwise, other firms to consider for line rental only include https://www.uno.uk/packages/phone-line-rental/
https://pulse8broadband.co.uk/line-rental

Acer321

I switched my parents phone to Pulse8 and they seem happy with it. Like your mum, they only need a phone and have no interest in having an Internet connection, so it is perfect for them.


There are no call connection charges with Pulse8, line rental is £14.40 and calls are 1p per minute (one pence) even less during the evening.

littleboo

If she doesn’t have broadband then she can apply for a discount from BT of around £7 per month on the line rental No need to change providers.