[Mathrin]

Wanted to get some input from the greater good here. I want to make sure I'm not missing anything here.

I have the old 550 Family Plan with the legacy Unlimited Data plan on my phone but not the other two lines.

Considering moving to the 10 gig Family Share plan (currently averaging 6.5 gigs of data of which 6 gigs is my own) and wanted to make sure I'm taking everything into account. Some assumptions I'm making in my comparisons. All include my 15% military discount. Assuming premium phones are always on upgrade. Premium upgrade will be $200 up front cost to upgrade. Next plan will be 27.09 per month (iPhone 5S/Galaxy S5 price). BYOD price is averaged to be $500 to buy a phone outright.

3 Phone Next Family Share
211.27/month
5070.48 for 24 month
45.50/phone upfront taxes = 136.50
Total = 5206.98

3 Phone Contract Family Share
205.00/month
4920 for 24 months
40/phone upgrade charge = 120
200/phone upfront cost = 600
Total = 5640

3 BYOD Family Share
130//month
3120 for 24 months
500/phone purchase outright = 1500
Total = 4620

3 Device Current Plan
168/month
4032 for 24 months
40/phone upgrade charge =120
200/phone upfront cost = 600
Total = 4752

3 Device BYOD Current Plan
168/month
4032 for 24 months
500/phone purchase outright = 1500
Total = 5532

From this standpoint, it would be cheaper to buy my phones outright and have the Family Share plan but it appears to really only save me $132 dollars or about $5.50 a month.

Again, I wanted to make sure that I took everything into account.

[BergerKing]

If you're always buying brand new phones from the selections they have, it will always cost you more. But wise buying of devices from various sources or members could save you anywhere from $10-250 per unit, in some cases for almost new phones. But if you want new, that's understandable. The cost comparisons look about right.

[Old_Mil]

If I had a grandfathered unlimited data plan, you would have to pry that from my cold dead hands.

Posted via CB10

[jlinc]

I believe if you are on a share plan and you upgrade using the next program you get a discount on your bill.

Posted via CB10

[Mister Xiado]

Unlimited data is trash anymore. You get throttled to about dialup speed if you exceed 3GB on a 3G phone, or 5GB on an LTE phone. Can't tether, either.

Consider how much data you use, across an entire year. Yes, the website will let you go WAY back to track your data usage. If your usage easily fits inside of a Mobile Share plan, and you DO NOT plan to upgrade with a contract ever again, then it's not a bad idea to switch. Say I had two LTE smartphones with unlimited data, unlimited messaging, and say 1400 minutes. That would run about $180 before taxes. Data speed would get throttled if I consistently used more than 5GB, making it almost useless.
10GB Mobile Share Value Plan: $100 for the data to share, $15 for each of my two lines that have old contracts (pre-02/02/2014) on them. Bill is now $130 before taxes. That's $50 less. It gets better, though. Discounts normally apply to the main charge on the bill. With the 1400 minute plan, the discount would apply to the $80 primary line charge. On the 10GB MSVP? It applies to the $100 data charge. More saved. Just a little. $15 instead of $12+tax. So basically, the bill is now $115 before taxes.

If you go over 10GB, it's $15 per each new allotment of 1GB. If you want to bump up to the 15GB plan, it costs less than $15 for each extra gigabyte you'd be adding with the plan change. Over 15GB, still $15 per GB. But that's complicating it. Voluntarily increasing your plan allotment saves money if that same amount of usage is going to happen either way.

Keep in mind, if you have a contract that started after 02/02/2014 (Superbowl Sunday), you'd be billed $40 per month for that line instead of $15.

The NEXT upgrade program lets you upgrade without a contract, and while you pay the full retail price for the phone, think of it this way.

Say your phone is $600+tax with no contract. Say the tax rate is 7%. $42 in tax. Maybe the contract upgrade price is $200. In Louisiana and California, the tax charged is on the no contract price. You'd pay $242 for the phone, $40+tax for an upgrade fee on the next bill, and your line in the Mobile Share Value Plan would be $40+tax every month.
If you use the NEXT upgrade option, you pay $42 for the tax at the point of sale, no upgrade fee, and depending how many months you wanted to go with installments, either $25 or $30 per month. Yes, your line charge would be $40 or $45 in essence, but you still didn't pay $240 more for the effort of getting a new phone, and you can upgrade sooner than two years, if you want to exchange your new NEXT-upgrade phone to upgrade in the future.

Cripes, I hate working on my day off.