Switched from Verizon's ancient Family Plan (since the mid-90's I think) to StraightTalk, going from $95 a month for two phones, 1000 minutes total, to $60 a month for two phones, unlimited talk and text, and, I think, 2MB of data. Since we have basic phones, we use the data for local search only, and never come close to using it all up. Have been thinking of converting to Smart phones in order to leverage the data in our plan, but just can't get excited enough to do it. Too many years of being chained to a BlackBerry via my j*b. Plus, our Kindle Fires work just fine in our normal lives. Lots of free WiFi out there.
We bought Verizon compatible Basic phones ($49 ea), and I can't tell any difference between our former 'front end' Verizon service vs our current backbone Verizon usage via StraightTalk. Should have done this years ago!
I made a bunch of other cost saving changes our first year in retirement:
- Revised housecleaning service from every two, to every three, weeks.
- Revised haircuts from every six, to every eight,weeks.
- Dropped cable and landline phone.
- Started taking group lessons in place of private lessons (dance, tennis and piano).
- Use Goldstar.com for 50% off almost all of our live theater events.
- Use TravelZoo.com for many of our travel jaunts, going wherever the next great deal is. We are able to be flexible with our travel dates in retirement, which has been a great way to leverage these 'hot' deals.
- Stopped ordering alcohol when we dine out, instead starting off the evening with our own wine and cheese plate here at home. We dress up and flirt, just as if we were already at the restaurant. Actually has turned out to be a great addition to our night-out evenings.
- Started washing our own cars.
- Dropped all online subscriptions - news, radio, credit monitoring - and use free sources instead.
- Dropped all snail mail subscriptions except one each, which we still barely have time to read.
- Cook from scratch, which is probably more a hobby for me than anything else. The result though, is that we eat wonderfully, our fridge/freezer/pantry are always full, we cut our food budget back by almost $2,000 a year, and I haven't had to increase it in the four years since we FIRE'd.
- Raised our AC to 77 in the summer, and pretty much keep it off in the winter other than a quick 15 min warm up on the occasional cold mornings. (We live in a warm climate). That added up to almost $500 in annual savings.
- Scoured our automated online banking transactions in Year One, and found a ton of stupid stuff we cancelled - life insurance, virus software for old computers, pest control (from when we had a dog, i.e., fleas).
- Raised our HO deductibles to $2000. Purchased an umbrella policy with the premium savings.
In looking through this list, there is nothing we'd go back to even some four years later. All painless stuff that isn't missed whatsoever.