Property Sis Cheryl Master

Did this exact math last year and switched to SIM-only, saving roughly $40/month. Here's how to work it out properly. The "free" phone on a contract is never free, they bake the phone cost into a higher monthly fee over 24 months. To compare fairly: 1) Take the contract's total monthly fee times 24, add any upfront phone payment. 2) For SIM-only: take the SIM-only monthly fee times 24, plus the price of buying the phone outright (or $0 if you keep your current phone). 3) Compare the two totals. When I did this, SIM-only + keeping my working phone was dramatically cheaper because I wasn't paying the phone subsidy premium. The MVNOs (the smaller providers riding on the big telcos' networks) offer generous data SIM-only plans for cheap, and network quality is basically the same since they use the same towers. Since your phone still works, SIM-only is almost certainly the winner. Only take a contract-with-phone if you genuinely need a new flagship AND the bundled price beats buying the phone outright plus SIM-only, which it usually doesn't once you do the full 24-month sum. Do the arithmetic, don't trust the word "free".