Let me preface this by saying, yes I know a $920 phone is not frugal. I live frugally every day so I can have the extra cash to buy something nice every once in a while.
That said, there are a few different things here I'm considering on how to get the phone the cheapest I possibly can. There will be a summary at the bottom you can read if you don't want all the details.
I currently have a Galaxy S4 which I'm going to give to my parents when I upgrade (so I'm not reselling it for money to lower cost of S8), and I currently have Straight Talk which is $45 a month for my cell phone coverage which does all I have ever needed it to do.
The Galaxy S8+ costs $840 outright, and after tax is like $920 (or close enough). But, Best Buy has a promotion going on where they knock $100 off the phone if you buy it through them with 2 year financing, but I believe you can just pay it off after a month with no termination fee. So it costs $29.83 a month for 24 months (the numbers straight from the site) which is $715.92 total (not sure why that's more than $100 off but what ever).
Best Buy also has a store card, where you get 10% cash back on your first purchase. So if I buy it outright it would be $84 cashback on the $840 total I believe.
To buy it on the 24 month payments I will have to switch to Verizon how ever. The Verizon plan will cost me $35 a month for the plan + $20 a month for a Verizon "Screw you" charge because it's a smart phone. So $10 higher than my Straight Talk plan before taxes.
If I buy it on the monthly plan I could just pay it off in the first month and then switch back to Straight Talk to minimize how long I have to pay the extra over head on the Verizon fee. Or I could stay with Verizon if it has some feature I don't know about that makes it better than Straight Talk I guess
One other thing that bothers me is not buying it on my Discover card. Discover has buyer protection where they will refund you the price difference is there is a price drop within 90 days of you buying something. So if I buy it out right I'd only get the 1.5% cash back from my Discover IT card, but if the phone has a price drop within the next 3 months Discover will pay me the difference
TLDR;
Verizon's plan will cost me at least 10 dollars a month more for every month I'm on it, and I have a few options that I can see
- Take out a Best Buy Store Card solely to buy the phone, and then buy it for $840 with the 10% cash back and get back $84
- Buy it on the payment plan and pay it off immediately. This would require me to switch my number from Straight Talk to Verizon, then the next month switch it back to Straight Talk
- Buy it on the payment plan and pay it off immediately, and then just stay with Verizon
- Buy it on the payment plan, and not pay it off for 2 years just to keep my money in my bank in case I needed it
- Buy it on my Discover Card in case the phone goes on sale somewhere else and be refunded the price difference
April 07, 2017 at 07:49PM
