I remember when Motorola first brought out the Razr telephone. I was absolutely smitten with it, and even though there was nothing wrong with the phone I had, I just had to have the new Razr. At the time I was still living in England, and the Razr was expensive. However, with a bit of shopping around I managed to get it for ‘free’. That is to say, I managed to sign up for a contract with a big telephone company who then gave me the phone for free.

When we actually sat down and calculated how much of the contract had been ‘wasted’ , it transpired that in fact I had paid more or less the same for the contract as it would have cost me to just buy an unlocked phone.

After we moved here, I therefore bought an unlocked phone and chose my own service provider. Initially I just used pay-as-you-go, so that I had an opportunity to look into the different companies that provide mobile phone services here, and could compare their charges, what was included in the contract etc. I am now with a small company that charges very good rates for calls to other European countries, a must for me, with friends and family all over Europe. Even though the initial purchase of the unlocked phone appeared to be ‘expensive’ , after a year I have more than saved that money back in being able to choose my own service provider and my own contract.

It is so easy to fall for the advertising of the big phone companies, who also plug into our wish to own the latest and most popular phones, but with a bit of shopping around there are usually better deals to be found if you go it ‘alone’

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