Throwaway phones

Most of us have mobile phones these days, smart phones. I have a couple of them, for work and personal use, and my partner has one also. Today we decided to head into the local phone store to look into our options with a view to reducing the level of phone plan (cost) we were on and hopefully save some money. Well, was I in for a surprise!

No sooner had we got there than the chap behind the counter was clicking buttons on his computer and advising us that we could swap our phones over at zero cost and have the latest technology instead of the old phones we have. Old phones... My phone was purchased in August last year and my partners' in January of the same year...Old? Hmm...

I suppose that's typical of this society where most things seem to be throwaway's: Phones, computers, cars, clothing, hand bags, friends, relationships, personal information and respect.

We didn't fall for the, old technology-chestnut and instead took a deeper look into our usage for network calling and data to see if there was a saving to be had...As it turns out there is not. You see, we are still paying for the handsets as part of the plan we are on and due to that cost cannot downgrade the plan at all just yet.

That's how they capture people I suppose, with the change your old stuff over for new ploy however changing phones over when there is residual money left to pay on it simply adds that debt to the next.

We decided not to change over our ancient technology for the latest and greatest phones - We don't use them that much to be honest and so will battle on with 12 month-old technology for a little longer. At the end of the plan contracts we'll revisit that situation however decided today that if the phones are still operating ok will not change over for the new ones just because we can.