<p>Our kids are strewn around the country and beyond. Like most of us I guess, I pay for a "family plan" with generous minutes so we can all stay in touch and so the kids have easy phone access when needed. The expense seemed worth it. The minutes have crept up over the years and lately one kid, home from college for the winter break, seems fused to her phone. I just checked the monthly minutes and it's in the thousands! OMG. I've asked her in the past to keep an eye on her minutes, but she hasn't. I never imagined anyone could possibly spend that much time on the phone so I haven't been vigilant this month either. We're considerably over allowance and I shut off the phones in the house. I'm considering having her phone shut down by the phone company. Is that draconian? I'm sure she never intended to go over the allowance, and there must have been confusion over "unlimited IN calling" vs a 1000-minute allowance. Should I impose a strict limit and pull the plug if she goes over? Or wait and see? What would you do?</p>
<p>I'd pull the plug if you've warned her in the past. When I was in school, my father gave me his credit card and told me, "You can overspend. . . Once." That's the same thing I've said to my d regarding both her cell phone and our credit card. If she were confused, she should have asked, and obviously didn't look at the minutes, as you've requested her to do.</p>
<p>Of course, if you haven't warned her, this should be the warning.</p>
<p>We make our kids pay for whatever they go over. It works! Or consider having her pay the difference to up to a plan with higher minutes.</p>
<p>I would explain exactly what she may and may not do regarding the phone. I would let her know your plans, if she does not comply with your wishes. I have this problem concerning outside lights left on all night. I have repeated myself over and over and he finally remembered to turn them off when he comes home, but of course now he is leaving to go back to school. My H did put florescents outside to reduce our electric bill. Frankly, if your D and my son were required to pay the bill, they would both find the way to reduce the bill. BTW, we have unlimited minutes between family members and anyone with the same phone company. We are changing telephone companies next month, so thanks for reminding me to remind my kids about this small detail!</p>
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We make our kids pay for whatever they go over. It works!
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Ditto. </p>
<p>My S has to pay for any extras - ergo, he doesn't do any extras (text, downloading ringtones etc. etc. etc.). On a family plan, I guess you have to divvy up the minutes in some way, but once you do that and have the kid pay for her own overages.... watch the problem solve itself.</p>
<p>We have family plan also. Our rule is we pay the basic bill - any overages they get to pay. And if they don't pay it then the phone gets shut down. First time one of them handed me $50 for text messages was the last time I had a problem.</p>
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I've asked her in the past to keep an eye on her minutes
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I'm sure she never intended to go over the allowance,
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</p>
<p>Hmm - sounds like you have already given her a chance so it is not as if she is not aware. Maybe you can temporarily shut the phone down & tell her you will reinstate service once she pays off the overage? A temporary job at Taco Bell or MacDonalds may make her think a bit more next time. I don't think you are being Draconian at all. If it is important to have a way to keep in touch maybe a pay as you go phone - that way any excess use is not on your dime.</p>
<p>"I never imagined anyone could possibly spend that much time on the phone"</p>
<p>You don't know my 15 yr old daughter. The reason she does NOT have a cell phone and won't be getting one soon is because she has great difficulty contolling that urge to stay in touch with friends. </p>
<p>My husband, a univ. prof, has started taking note of cell phone use on campus. He reports that a very large number of students walk around campus grounds talking on the phone incessantly, and he estimates 80% of the gabbers are girls. They just love to stay in touch!</p>
<p>We have the family plan. Both kids were told if the minutes go over, they pay their overages. The bill breaks it down. I added a cheap text plan for my son but have told him if he goes over the number of texts allowed he has to pay that himself.</p>
<p>You may not have this problem, but we got a bill last month from Verizon that showed us going way over our family plan minutes. I had an itemized bill sent to us, and I was one of the offenders. It didn't make sense, because I do most of my talking after 9, weekends and to Verizon customers and the same was true for my sons. After a couple of hours at the Verizon store, they found that although I was coded for In Calling, free minutes, etc., I was being billed for everything. Not only that, the customer service agent finally admitted that I wasn't the only one experiencing that problem and they had a "glitch" in their billing system. Some glitch, and a big waste of time for me.</p>
<p>For those of you on Cingular's family plan, please make note-while the paper bill will show minutes used per member, it is hard to tell which member really went over. For example, when we have used up our daytime minutes, the person charged for the overages will be the next one to make daytime calls. Lets said you have 4 on the family plan with 2000 daytime minutes and you are over on day 21 of your billing cycle; mom makes a long call to her sister out of town and they chat for an hour, so now mom is billed for 60 minutes of overtime. Mom didn't use her phone at all during the prior 20 days, but she was now charged with 60 minutes at 25-45 cents per minute depending on the plan. </p>
<p>My entire family talks waaay to much on their phones, especially my husband now that he has a Treo that goes with him everywhere! Before the Treo, he left his cell in the car during work, but now will make calls during the day from his phone. Short story long, you may need to look closely to the bill to see which child (or husband) is the real user of those daytime minutes! We have had to increase the minutes on out plan after one child went over his first year of school; now most of the time the kids text message much more than talk on their phones.</p>
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For those of you on Cingular's family plan, please make note-while the paper bill will show minutes used per member, it is hard to tell which member really went over
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It is quite easy to check current usage online. It shows which phones are using which minutes and what type(moble to mobile etc)</p>
<p>Our kids pay for any extra minutes and ALL text messaging. We will NOT pay for that at all...period. It is not essential. We are paying for a phone. Text messaging can really add up and the kids get charged coming and going. There is no free text message time either. DS decided to have the feature totally turned off (after we made him pay a $20 monthly text bill). DD decided to add 200 text messages to her plan for $4.99 per month...her money. If she goes over WE will cut the text messaging from her plan, and she knows it. Any overages for calls are paid for by the user. I'm on the family plan too and I use very few minutes so the others really are getting the advantage. Oh...regarding the Cingular bill...I think it is absolutely AWFUL...very hard to read and figure out. DH goes through it every month and we find at least one large error (one month, they had the text message payment for MY number...I don't even know HOW to use a text message...and they charged DD for all of her calls). We have told both of our kids...we are paying for your basic phone service. With IM and your email accounts, and free calls in the evenings and on weekends, there should not be a problem.</p>
<p>"I've asked her in the past to keep an eye on her minutes"</p>
<p>You need to be more specific. How many minutes or how much in cell phone charges are you allotting her a month? Unless you're specific, she'll have no real guideline. If she goes over after you're specific, then either she pays for the extras or you cut off her phone service.</p>
<p>I second what swimcatsmom says; it is easy to look online every few days and see where things stand.</p>
<p>The OP has a bigger decision to make, though. A few, actually. The first is whether the phone use at the current level really matters. Is there a plan with more minutes, and if so is it worth buying? </p>
<p>Assuming the answer is the OP isn't going to pay for more than the current plan, then comes the next step. What to do? A big part of the learning in college is outside of the classroom. Lessons in dealing with people, planning ones' time, controlling ones' behavior. There are limits and consequences in the adult world, and we can't have everything we want. </p>
<p>If the OP has asked the D to keep an eye on the minutes and the problem still occurs, DD has realized it doesn't matter what she does. At least not up till now. OP can ask again, a little more forcefully. Or he could impose some consequences and take the phone away. </p>
<p>Personally I'd like to see kids have a cell phone in case of an emergency as well as for general communication. There are prepaid plans in which you buy a block of minutes in advance, and when the balance hits zero the phone stops working until money is added.</p>
<p>I LOVE text messeging...it is so much easier talking to my Ds when they are with friends, and its loud...I think texting is essential</p>
<p>there have been times when we can't hear each other, like after a concert, and I can text them where I am parked</p>
<p>we have a plan for unlimited text messaging....not much more (5dollars extra monthly) for all of us to text as much as we want</p>
<p>taking away a phone in this day and age isn't the best recourse, for a variety of reasons, having her pay, work it off, whatever is better</p>
<p>take a look at upgrading the plan, and see what the difference between overages, and the extra monthly charge</p>
<p>for us, an extra 25 a month for no limits at all caused a lot less stress...</p>
<p>My daughter used almost 1200 minutes last month. It didn't cost us anything because we have Cingular with unlimited member to member, and most minutes were to her boyfriend who also luckily has Cingular. Also most minutes were after 9pm and on weekends, also free. But I make her pay if she goes over her limit and it shows up on the bill. She had to pay me $4.60 for text messages over the limit.</p>
<p>Okay, many parents say "make her pay." I don't understand. She's in college. I pay her bills. I buy her clothes, her meals, her New Yorker subscription. She doesn't have an income. Her job right now is to learn and she's working really hard at that. She's a great kid and I'm really proud of her. It will be some time (likely 4 years undergrad, ? grad school) before she's earning money. If I "charge" her for phone calls, I'll just have to increase her allowance for living expenses, right? I don't understand what other parents are talking about.</p>
<p>You have the choice of . 1. taking away her cell phone, but then, how will you communicate with her? How will others communicate with her?
2. limiting cell phone use: how can you enforce it?<br>
3. making her pay: I'm assuming you can tell her to take a part-time job during term time as well as a job during summer. Ten hours a week of on-campus employment is far from onerous.
4. chalk it up to experience and the cost of having a daughter as opposed to an uncommunicative son.</p>
<p>yeah, Marite, I think I'll "chalk it up." I love to hear from her.</p>
<p>CG, whether your D is working or not, she should be on a budget as far as her routine expenses are. If a student is working, as ours has been, categories of items are expected to be paid for by her income. In our case, her cell phone bill was "hers" from the very beginning, though we're making it less expensive now by putting her on a "family plan" with our home area code as she has discovered that having a phone with an area code local to her college is not as much of a necessity as first assumed by all of us.</p>
<p>If she were not working, she'd be getting a per-semester stipend, out of which she'd be expected to pay for toiletries, entertainment, the occasional meal out, music CD's & etc., and, oh yeah, her cell phone. If she ran short of money and it were not clearly a case of underestimating expenses in the budgeting process, it would be up to her to figure out how to do cover the shortfall.</p>
<p>Learning to live on a budget is one of those vital out-of-the-classroom lessons that students need to be picking up, just as their peers who move out and join the workforce do.</p>