I felt the need to share this small amount of badassity, as it ties in well with a post written by MMM himself – Living Well on the Trailing Edge of Luxury.
My mobile phone contract came to an end a couple of months ago and I have always wanted an iPhone, but even in my pre-mustachian days considered them to be a bit too expensive whether purchased outright or via a pay monthly contract. My girlfriend was telling me how she wanted to upgrade to a newer iPhone as she had reached the end of her 2 year contract (she is not fully on board with the mustachian lifestyle… yet), so naturally she asked me to shop around to find her a good deal on a contract.
I managed to find a contract that suited her needs, and it was a lot more reasonably priced than her previous iPhone contract so she was happy. There was a £70 ($100) upfront charge for the phone, which I said I would pay providing that she gave me her old iPhone.
So that’s what I did. I then contacted Apple to get the unlock code for the phone, signed up to a network provider that offered a 30 day rolling contract and transferred my number over.
The result: I now have an iPhone that was the latest and greatest 2 years ago, it cost me half as much as it would have on eBay, and I pay less than $11 per month on a rolling contract which suits my needs (I seldom use mobile data as I always connect to my home and work wireless networks). At the same time my girlfriend has the latest and greatest iPhone that she’s happy with and is looking after it nicely so that I can upgrade to it when she upgrades in two years’ time :)
Meanwhile I have friends who are in the middle of costly contracts and are paying up to $70 per month or the same iPhone model that I have!
