Lowering Your Costs For Text Messaging

Do you send text messages on your cell phone? If so, then more than likely you are paying for that additional feature on your cell phone plan. Just as there are many cell phone companies out there, that means there are just as many price packages, so on average you can spend anywhere from $5 a month for 200 texts to over $30 a month for unlimited texting. While I think this is a good feature to have, I really like the idea of actually speaking on the phone to the other person better. If you have teenagers then you know how costly it can be if you don't have unlimited texting on the phone. Regardless of what you pay, it adds up over the year. Let's say you have 2 phones and you have the basic $5 a month plan....that's $10 a month....$120 a year (all before taxes, so that price increases.) If you have a $30 monthly plan then you're looking at $360 a year (before taxes.) That's just way too much to me to comprehend paying.

So I found a site, in the April issue of All You magazine, that allows you to send text messages for free. It's called Textem. The only thing I have seen so far is that you have to know the other persons cell phone carrier to use it. That way they know how to send it to them. You can get reply messages sent to either your email address or to your textem inbox (once you create a free account that asks for no personal information other than an email address.) Now, if the person you are sending the text to does not have a text plan on their phone then they will be charged a fee as usual.

I just sent three messages using this service and they came through fine and the receivers said there weren't any issues seeing it. However, it did say something one person said about "converting message, fees may apply" but we think that meant if the person didn't have a text plan that fees would be charged. We are not positive about it, so we are going to try and find out more on that.

If you have used this service before or know of any other services like this that work well, let us know. Any way to save a dollar is always welcome.