Family on the Phone

Since text messaging is so popular – especially among teenagers – I thought it might be a good idea to post some information on how to save money on texting services. It is baffling to me why the cell phone companies charge such exorbitant fees for text messages. Twenty cents for each message sent and received is not unusual. That’s forty cents for every single text message that goes through the system. This is in addition to your regular service fees of course. Personally, I think this is highway robbery.

Good things often come in packages.

You are probably already aware that most (if not all) cell phone carriers offer some kind of texting package. They may offer a certain number of text messages at a discount or even a completely unlimited texting package. Depending on your needs, one of these may save you some money. For Instance, Verizon offers unlimited texting to any other Verizon customer and 250 additional text messages to anyone for about $10 a month. They also offer a completely unlimited texting package for about $20 a month. You will need to check with your cell phone provider for their plans and pricing.

If it’s free, it’s for me.

you may not be aware however of a completely free option for text messaging. You can send and receive text messages by e-mail. The person you send the text message to will receive it just as usual except that it will show up as coming from your e-mail address rather than your phone number.  When they reply to you, their message will come straight back to your e-maiol inbox. It’s a really great way to use the texting feature without shelling out the big bucks

There are a couple of considerations you will need to keep in mind if you choose to use this free texting technique. First, you must know the carrier of the person you wish to send a message to. Second, you need to keep your messages brief. Some companies have different character limits for their text messages.

Below is a good list of cell phone providers and their specific character limits and e-mail formats for sending text messages. To give credit where credit is due, I found this information at AskBillFirst and I encourage you to visit his blog if you are interested in techie stuff.

• Virgin Mobile – 125 characters – PhoneNumber@vmobl.com
• Beyond GSM – 160 characters – PhoneNumber@txt.att.net
• Cingular AT&T – 160 characters – PhoneNumber@txt.att.net
• Verizon – 160 characters – PhoneNumber@vtext.com
• Boost Mobile – 140 characters – PhoneNumber@myboostmobile.com
• Nextel – 140 characters – PhoneNumber@messaging.nextel.com
• Sprint – 160 characters – PhoneNumber@messaging.sprintpcs.com
• T-Mobile – 140 characters – PhoneNumber@tmomail.net
• Alltel – 140 characters – PhoneNumber@message.alltel.com
• Qwest – 185 characters – PhoneNumber@qwestmp.com
• MetroPCS – 185 characters – PhoneNumber@mymetropcs.com
• Cricket – 143 characters – PhoneNumberMMS.mycricket.com

Give this a try and let me know how it goes. Also, please let me know if you know of other ways to save money on texting.

photo credit: aprilzosia