We were going to switch over to Ting next week. I believe our early termination sweet spot was Sunday. BUT, dh talked to Sprint a while back and they told us our early termination fee was already lowest it will get: $350. (Not sure I believe this because does not make sense - but whatever - we could argue that is what they told us).

& now Ting is having a big Black Friday Sale, so we will probably transition our phones over today. Sunday is fine, but we were supposed to be at the beach. Today was a "Definitely not leaving the house" kind of day with Black Friday...

Here are the details on their Black Friday Sale:

https://ting.com/blog/just-about-every-ting-device-on-sale/

In addition to their devices on sale, they are offering a $25 per device credit for bringing devices over to Ting. Of course, we have a family plan with my parents, so this is a substantial bonus for us - $100!! $125, since we decided to just switch over all our phones. We haven't decided which one to drop yet (with dh getting a new phone). So we can try them all out for a bit. We will eventually drop the 5th one - I don't see the older kid getting any use out of a cell phone yet (though we will keep the extra for him - maybe could use in the next couple of years). We had already decided a while ago that when the kids get cell phones we'd put them on Ting. It may only be $6/month/each for their level of usage.

& I have a referral code:

https://z181d126bt4.ting.com/

By using my Ting referral code you get $25 off your phone purchase or $25 account credit if you bring your own phone, and I get a $25 account credit.

This referral code works in addition to the Black Friday deal!!

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These are not the exact numbers, but the figures work out to something like this...

Early termination (4 lines) is $350. It will be $350 for each of the last 5 months of our contract. Last month would have cost more.

Ting will pay 25% of our early termination fee and we will get $125 credit (at least) for switching today.

$350 Fee
- 88 Ting Credit (25%)
-125 Black Friday and Referral Code
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$137 Net Fees for switching

Cell phone bill (pre-tax) goes down from $180 to $60 per month. That is a monthly savings of $120 per month. Which means, we about break even on the first month - maybe so with taxes. I expect the taxes to decrease - just not sure by how much.

Going forward, our own household will save $60 per month ($120 x 50%). The catch is that the phones are not subsidized. But, there are a slew of lower cost non-contract phones coming out on the market right now. Which is actually what motivated our switch right now. By the time I need to upgrade my own phone I expect this to be a non-issue. Dh just bought a new phone and so I expect he will keep it many years. (We usually keep our phones for a long time). The rest of us will keep our phones, though we might drop the most out-of-date phone (since we now have 5 phones for the 4 of us). The kids will have hand-me-downs to use, eventually.

When we were on Verizon (for over a decade) we never got new phones every 2 years. SO wasteful, and that way we didn't have to be on contract all the time. I am sure we were off contract more than we were ever on contract. I am beyond happy that those contract days are OVER!! I knew we'd eventually jump ship, but just didn't expect it to be so soon. Woohoo!

{I suppose it was for the greater good and cost savings that dh's phone broke??}.

ETA: We aren't sure if the $25 credit - Black Friday AND referral code - is really $25 per device or $25 per account. I guess we find out for sure on Tuesday. (Confusing wording on both accounts. Their customer service is REALLY good, but we've already called them like *FIFTY* times so we figured we will just figure it out when we get the credit. Just because we had a lot of questions about various unique situations - not because we had any problems).