Shrink your cell phone bill?
It can be very very difficult to compare cell phone plans. The process grows more complicated when you're trying to decide between handsets that are only supported by one provider (iPhone, anyone?).
Sure, you could spend the time researching options, charting the pros and cons of each company's service -- the benefits of rollover minutes versus paying a company to acknowledge that nights and weekends start earlier than 9 p.m.You could analyze your usage to determine what time of the day you make the most calls as well as what day of the week. You could plot which numbers you call the most frequently --- and for the longest period of time --- to try to ensure you stay in the same network as those folks.
And then you could make the same calculations for your text messages.
Or, you could let billshrink.com do it for you --- if you don't mind giving up your cell phone number and password, that is.
The Web site, which I first learned about via Consumerist.com (via Lifehacker), allows you to import your online bill and see graphs of your calling patterns, including your most-frequently called list, a breakdown of whether you're calling mobile phones or landlines and when you're calling them.
It will even crunch those numbers for your text messages.
I think this is a fascinating exercise and you might find that you need more or less minutes than you're currently purchasing every month.
Give it a whirl and let me know what you think!
(photo: Doug Kapustin/Baltimore Sun)
A native of Vietnam, 