The deals are enticing. You can add additional phones to your current cell phone plan for a low price of X dollars per month. Are cell phone family plans best for you?
First, keep in mind that each phone you add to the plan results in another contract including the fees to break the contract if you want out early. Think about that $180 fee multiplied by three phones or $540 to cancel three contracts.
Who is going to have the other phones? Remember, cell phone carriers vary on what services can be blocked and on ways to limit calls and messages. If one of your family members is a heavy user or downloads lots of games, you could be hit with huge fees with no way to enforce a lower usage rate, at least through the cell phone company. You may be surprised at how many minutes a teenager can blow, causing you to pay that 45 cents per minutes to place your phone calls. Sure, you can raise your minutes allotment, but now that X dollars per month for each additional line is suddenly costing a whole lot more.
Some families add adults and friends who live outside of their homes to their cell phone family plans. If you are tempted to do this, think of the awkward situation of having to collect money from them each month or worse, having to confront an adult about cell phone usage. If the service is in your name, you are ultimately responsible for any charges incurred.
If you have family members who are responsible about cell phone use and are willing to keep on top of the minutes used on a regular basis to avoid overages, cell phone family plans could be a good option for you. If not, consider other options such as prepaid phones to limit your charges.