Although roughly 28 million Americans say getting one of the new iPhones is worth going into debt, that might not be necessary, according to the personal-finance website WalletHub’s new 2018 iPhone Savings Report, which found that people can save $740 – $1,403 over two years by picking the right plan.
You can find some highlights from the report below. You can also crunch the numbers to see which iPhone plan is right for you, using WalletHub’s custom Cell Phone Savings Calculator, ahead of the newest models starting to ship on Friday.
- A no-contract plan from Walmart Family Mobile is the best way to get one of the new iPhones, beating plans from all four major carriers.
- For even more savings, keep your old phone. Individuals can save up to $1,552, and families can save up to $2,265.
- 5X more millennials say the new iPhone is worth going into debt for than baby boomers.
- 29% of cell phone shoppers don’t know they could be in for a credit check.
- 44% of millennials believe their cell phone has a bigger impact on their life than their credit score.
- “Early cell phones were purchased for consumers by their service providers, which hid their cost to some degree,” Lewis S. Davis, an associate professor of economics at Union College, told WalletHub. “Most consumers are not particularly savvy about long term contracts. In short, we’re really bad at compound interest.”
WalletHub’s Cell Phone Savings Calculator lets users input their upfront and monthly costs to compare the true cost of two-year contracts, installment plans and no-contract plans from all of the major carriers. You can check out the calculator, along with an embeddable infographic comparing the most popular plans, here: https://wallethub.com/cell-phone-calculator/.