The Edit Down: Mobile phone plans

When people ask me for my mobile number and I recite it to them, I can almost predict the tiny hesitation when they read the number back to me for confirmation. Some of them can't help blurting out "What kind of number is this?", which I find amusing. That's because they don't recognize the first few digits that identify whether my number is a Globe or a Smart postpaid line.

Or sometimes, a friend will ask to borrow my iPhone to make a call, and will get very confused when I say that I don't have enough phone credits to make a call.

The reason for all this confusion and amusement is because I'm on prepaid (aka pay-as-you-go).

This wasn't always the case. In fact, I used to always be on a postpaid line, even back when I was in college and my father got me my very first mobile phone. (Yes, I'm in that age bracket. I still had a pager when I was a freshman.) I had a postpaid line when I was working and my previous employers were paying for it, and there was a time when I had two postpaid lines -- one for work, and one for my personal use. I gave these all up when I moved to Sydney to pursue postgrad studies, and when I came back to Manila, I sat down to mindfully assess my telecomunications situation instead of automatically signing myself up for a new two-year mobile service contract.

I have two very good reasons for shifting from postpaid to prepaid.

1. I've had a traumatic experience with my postpaid plan in the past. Once, I was charged about Php 20,000 (US$ 400) for exceeding my data cap. In the first place, I was on an unlimited data plan. In the second place, since I had worked at that particular telco and had actually led the launch of that unlimited data plan, and reviewed and edited the FAQs myself, I knew that data plan inside and out, and had made sure I had the correct settings in place so as never to find myself in this situation.

It took a branch visit, long moments spent on hold during several phone calls to customer service, asking industry friends for help, and finally, just emailing my old boss to for the love of God help me correct the erroneous bill, to finally get the bogus charges "forgiven". I was thankful for the help, of course, but as far as I was concerned, what was there to forgive? I wasn't the one who made a billing error. And yet, I was the one being harassed over and over again by bill collectors who didn't know or care that I had already filed a complaint to dispute my bill, and I was the one whose phone service would periodically stop working because they claimed I hadn't paid my bill.

Since I hate dealing with customer service, getting myself on a pay-as-you-go service has freed me up from the trauma and the heartache of calling the customer service hotline: keying in my account number and a few other buttons to ostensibly connect me to the right person, enduring piped in music and recorded promos for half-an-hour, finally getting a live person on the line who will ask me to dictate the account number I keyed in half-an-hour ago, having that person tell me that I still owe them money and no progress has been made on my complaint, having the phone call cut before she can give me any additional useful information, and spending more of my precious time calling them again. Rinse and repeat.

The truth is, half of the reason I'm on prepaid is as a form of protest against telcos by not giving them any more of my money than I absolutely have to. There are only two major telecom companies in the Philippines, and they hold a duopoly. This means people have no choice but to settle for one or the other, enduring slow internet and crappy customer service. This is why competition is so important in the functioning of a market economy.

But I digress.

2. The second and just as important reason I'm on prepaid is for the savings. Instead of getting a "free" phone in exchange for 24 months of paying the telco Php 2,599 monthly, which comes to this much:

Php 2,599 x 24 months = Php 62,736 (US$ 1,260)

I instead asked my sister to buy me an unlocked iPhone 6S back when it launched in Hong Kong, and I spend Php 300 a month on a 1.2 gigabyte data promo. This is more than enough for my needs since I'm on wifi at home and at the office, which is where I spend a huge chunck of my time when I'm in the country. My monthly purchase of Php 300 of phone credits also comes with more free text messages than I can ever use up. Lastly, I almost never need call minutes because 99% of the people I know are reachable through FaceTime, Viber, WhatsApp, Skype, or Facebook Messenger voice calls, all of which require only a data plan. For the rest, which are always work calls, I use the landline at the office.

When I'm overseas, I just buy a prepaid SIM card, since wayward roaming charges are another kind of traumatic experience that I never want to undergo again.

All in all, my actual expense is...

Php 300 x 24 months + Php 35,000 for the phone = Php 42,200 (US$ 848)

That's almost Php 20,000 (US$ 412) in savings as a result of my decision to think carefully if I really needed a postpaid line just because it's what I'm used to.


More importantly, I haven't had to waste any more of my valuable time on the phone with an automated answering service, waiting for customer service to listen to my issues. :)

I'm not suggesting this works for everyone, of course. Each person has his or her own phone service requirements. The important thing, I think, is to be mindful of the monthly services we sign up with, making sure that it matches our needs. What are some other services we subscribe to, but might not actually need, or which we might be able to pare down to simplify our lives? I'd love to hear your suggestions!

Welcome to The Edit Down

I'm starting this blog to document my journey in editing down my life to create space for what I love. 2016 was a year of great change for me in the way I live my life. I've been pretty acquisitive for most of my 30+ years, amassing a lot of stuff: clothes, accessories, beauty products, books, all sorts of paperwork, memorabilia. I guess this behavior stems from not really having that much growing up. But several things happened to me this year that have led me to change my thoughts and attitudes towards stuff.

The first was that I started doing yoga. I only began doing it on a whim and a vague notion that I should be doing some sort of fitness activity since I lead a fairly sedentary lifestyle, moving from bed to car to office chair and back again for the majority of my days, except when traveling. A year of practicing yoga brought more movement into my life, but to my surprise, it also led me to a more mindful and healthy path: I completely stopped smoking without really planning to (because all the ujjayi breathing during practice doesn't feel good if you've smoked, even if it's just one ciggie), I appreciate healthy food so much more (although I still love my crispy pata and chicharon), and I've noticed that I've gained a more positive outlook in general.

The second thing was that I became interested in Marie Kondo's KonMari method of decluttering (more on this in a future blog post). I must admit that I wasn't too enthused at first when my sister told me about it. Why would I want to get rid of all my fabulous stuff? But then she started giving me some of the clothes that didn't spark joy for her anymore, and I sold the rest to raise funds for our company scholarship program for bright kids from underserved communities (another topic for a future blog post). I also began clearing out some of my own things to sell for the fundraiser, and kept on thinking, as I picked up one decade-old item after another "Does this spark joy?" Sure, most of my clothes still fit me even if I've had them for over ten years, but was that reason enough to keep them? Surely not, if I hadn't worn them in the past year. And so I started tidying up too, in Marie Kondo fashion, kind of.

Lastly, I watched the documentary films "The True Cost" and "The Minimalists" this year. The first one focuses on the fashion industry and the negative impact that our mindless consumption of fast fashion has on our planet and on its poorest workers. I immediately stopped shopping after watching The True Cost -- and for people who know me, they know that's a big deal, because I love fashion. The second film, The Minimalists, shows how a bunch of people have pared down their stuff, their houses, their habits, to lead a simpler life. What they showed and talked about made a lot of sense for me. For example, a friend showed me an article about Marie Kondo's apartment the other day, and Marie Kondo said her kitchen drawer only contains one Global brand prep knife, like so:

And that got me thinking. I have four kitchen knives of roughly the same size, and I only use one. I don't need four. Same goes for my towels. I have ten bath towels, but I live alone and have favorite towels, so I only use about three of them.

So with all of these thoughts and with the new year coming up, I've decided to embark on a new project of decluttering my apartment and  my life. There are things that I'm already doing to lead a simpler life, which I'm also going to share here, but I'll be doing the majority of my simplifying activities in the next few months, and I hope to continue it in the years to come. And I'm documenting all of it in this blog.

Why The Edit Down? This is a term I encountered working with production crews on television commercials, in the course of my marketing work. It's about shooting hours and hours of footage, reviewing all of it closely, marking and picking out what looks good and what works, and finally editing it down to thirty precious seconds of film deemed worthy enough to communicate the intended message to the target audience, in hopes that it sparks something in them. And that's what I intend to do: I'm editing down my life, my stuff, my work, and my relationships to create the space and time for only the things, experiences, and people I feel strongly about.

I hope reading about my journey helps you in some way. :)