Google Fi Badassity

[EfficiencyNerd]

Just wanted to share my newly discovered badassity with Google Fi. The total bill for this month for both my wife and I was less than $3. :)

I live in Toronto, Canada, so it's not technically available here - but I'm a US citizen and still have US credit cards and am associated with a US address that I can use. It's still gaming the system a bit though. Service in and around Toronto is quite phenomenal - I tried a speed test from our apartment and got speeds of 120 Mb down and 30 Mb up (!!!!!) which is far faster than our DSL internet.

Anyways, the hacking that resulted in this month's bill....

Initially I got us both Nexus 5Xs, at $250 each. They had to be activated on Google Fi to get that price, so I got two full sim cards initially ($20 for the first plus $10/GB, $15 for second line). Since we're both in Canada, I set up an Ooma which allows us to have a Canadian number and place/receive calls using the Ooma app over data, which works out to around 0.5 cents per minute instead of 20 cents/min for using the Google Fi number. We also set up free texting to our Canadian friends using an app called TextMe, which has worked well. We both have set up a second Google Voice number on different Google accounts (which is separate from the Google Fi number) allowing us to call and text US friends via the Hangouts app, also completely over data.

After a couple months of that, I canceled one phone's SIM and ordered a free data-only SIM since we aren't really even using the texting/calling part of the phones.

So for this month, our bill was:

$20 for one line
$0 for a data-only sim
$10 for 1GB to start out (split between us)
-$5 credit for unused data (approx)
-$4 credit for canceling one full sim part way through the month (approx)
-$20 credit for using someone's referral code, which was applied this month (after 30 days I guess? I completely forgot who's code I used, just found it online...)
+ taxes and fees
= $2.83 total for this month, for 2 cell phones and 1 GB of data. Not bad.

Google Fi is great stuff for Mustachians. There are literally NO FEES for using more data/less data/cancelling early/etc. And the data is good at the same price of $10/GB (or really $0.01/MB as it's billed) in something like 140 countries. Here in Canada, I have no complaints.

If anyone wants to join, and wants a referral link to get a $20 credit, here's mine: https://g.co/fi/r/3NJ6R2
If you don't want to use my referral, that's cool too, I'd still highly recommend the service.

[sequoia]

So, please correct me if I am wrong here. You only use data to make or accept phone calls, basically without wifi, you can not accept a call, correct?

This is pretty badass. I may need to copy your setup here.

[EfficiencyNerd]

So, please correct me if I am wrong here. You only use data to make or accept phone calls, basically without wifi, you can not accept a call, correct?

This is pretty badass. I may need to copy your setup here.

I only use data to make or accept phone calls, but I can do that via wifi or via cell data. On the Hangouts app, I'm signed in with two accounts and can easily switch between the 2. One of the numbers is associated with Google Fi, which I don't really use at all. The other is an account I have a Google Voice number with. There is an in-app option to enable receiving Google Voice calls via the Hangouts app, and you can also call out from Hangouts with the Hangouts Dialer app/addon. When I make/receive calls using cell data, I don't get charged minutes but rather for the data, which works out to around half a cent per minute. Google Fi ultimately charges you for data used in 1 MB increments, either via a credit (if you use less than you first paid for) or extra charge (if you use more). Use 382 MB in a month? That's $3.82. You can set when you want notifications about how much data you've used.

It gets slightly more complicated being in Canada and having a separate Canadian number - I have a free TextMe account which allows (ad-supported) free texting and incoming calls to a Canadian number, both over data (either wifi or cell data). If I need to call out from a Canadian number, I use our Ooma number (super cheap home phone service) via the Ooma app. Again, that also uses data which translates to a super cheap per minute rate (or free on wifi).