Comparison Shopping

 

Because I’m impulsive and impatient I rarely do comparison shopping. I just get what I’m gonna get and be done with it. My current phone contract is about to expire and I wanted to upgrade my phone and my daughter’s phone but I was tired of paying what I was paying and decided to do some comparison shopping.


A few months back I had heard somewhere of a deal where I could purchase the phone I wanted, the Samsung Galaxy SIII and get the SII for free.

Of course, I didn’t hop on it right away, because I rarely do things like that right away. By the time I decided to do something, I couldn’t remember who made the offer but I knew I wanted a similar deal: Both phones for cheap. My current provider offers the S3 (w/o contract) for $550 and the S2 for $500 and I’m not trying to pay anywhere near that for some phones.

So I began to check out the other providers (AT&T, Verizon, Sprint and T-Mobile) and see what kind of deals I could get.

For being the top 2 providers, the plans through AT&T and Verizon were not that appealing. Neither one offered unlimited data and I couldn’t get both phones at a reasonable price. My upfront costs were comparable, a little under $400 and my monthly bill would be less than $200 but not much less.

I was impressed with what Sprint was offering: unlimited data, talk and text. The S3 would have cost me $200 and the S2 would have cost $100 with a 2 year contract. Upfront costs would be about $370 and my monthly bill would be about $168. I could do that but I was unsure about the coverage. My son has Sprint and he says the coverage is kind of hit or miss.

That leaves my current provider, T-Mobile. When I calculated everything based on the information on the website, Sprint’s deal was better. But I’ve been a customer for eight years and I thought if I called them they may be willing to work with me. As soon as I asked for the contract expiration date, the representative knew I was thinking about leaving and she kept me on the phone trying to work this deal. After about 20 minutes we got it to where it needed to be and I was happy.

Saturday night I dropped my Blackberry on the sidewalk and it is in pretty bad shape. The rep shipped the new phones on Tuesday and said I would have them by the end of the week. Just in time.

So it doesn’t hurt to comparison shop. Hopefully, I’ll do more of it.