Yup, it’s the families and trusted friend groups that make it work. My in-laws just hand me a lump sum annually, and when they want to upgrade their phones, normally buy them lump sum. My parents, well, they barely use them because they’re low tech by preference, but considering my father’s health issues, I’m paying (one of the lines is free anyway) for MY peace of mind. My friend and his mom I don’t ask to pay anyway (one of them is my second free line) because I get more than the $25 per month in costs in free tech support and other, very generous gifts and consideration.
But if you don’t trust the people, it’s cheaper and/or less risky to go with a pay-as-you go or carrier pre-paid option.
Grifty George & Sketchy Susan have siblings & SOs.
Maybe they were good until they lost their job, but now that they have a new job (with higher income) they keep ‘forgetting’ to start paying you again.
Some married couples have one bank account & some have three; yours, mine, & ours. Whatever works for those two people.
Well, how many times do they have to “forget” before you just say sorry, get your own plan?
It’s one thing if Grifty George and Sketchy Susan actually suffered some terrible tragedy, or their poor cousin Lil’ Logan Lightfingers desperately needs a phone while job-hunting… fine, whatever, if I can afford to help them for a month or three, I’ll gladly do that. They’re fam. Annoying, but still fam.
Keep in mind that having them on the plan lowers my monthly costs too, per the table above, so removing a person may or may not end up saving the rest of the plan members much money. On Verizon and US Cellular, adding a 4th line is actually free ($40 * 3 = $30 * 4). On the other carriers, the incremental cost to the group is only $6 - $10. It’s not like you’re subsidizing the full ~$60 cost of a single cell phone plan. Cell phone math is weird like that…
That said… if there were otherwise only the two of us in a group and Ferrari Frank was just too busying partying and posting vacation pics from Costa Rica on our plan and not contributing anything… sorry, bud, you’re a grown-ass adult, get your own damned plan.
Lotta people have a very hard time saying “no” to family. Or worse, your Mom guilts you into continuing to include your Shifty Sis on the plan. So cutting off Sis who so richly deserves it amounts to dissing Mom too. And she is a maestro at playing the guilt game.
IMO most of us here are old-ish. I know you (@Reply) are a mere middle-aged stripling by comparison.
Seems to me most of the horror stories are concentrated in the ranks of college roommates or similar. Random people who are more or less thrown together and are friendly enough. Until money and laziness get involved.
Which also means older folks like us won’t be in those kinds of situations much. Just in family ones, and generally in which we’re the older (but not yet elderly) responsible players.
