Cos these kind of things, if I help her save money, I'm marginally happy, I don't see the savings myself, but if there's any mess up in the process, or significant downgrade of services by the telcos, then I get blamed for not handling it well or recommending a bad idea.
The thing about this is, usually, the older folk don't know what they want in most cases. And I understand that, cos... these days, there's internet speed, mobile plans, fibre or cable, subscription TV and they get all confused with that. Especially when the telcos throw in discounts when they subscribe to a bundle.
When I visited my mum over the weekend, and we were chatting on the couch, she initiated the topic. "Hey is using Android ok?"... OH NICE... To me I took that as an opportunity. Cos I've always wanted to ween her off her iPhone. She's been using iPhone since the start of smart phones and was always lazy to do the conversion. For me, I'd liked her to do it sooner rather than later cos iPhone ARE more expensive and Android phones aren't much worse off. I do think that iPhones are a better product, but it's just unnecessary, and since she was open to switching, then why not right?
So my response to her was... "For your uses, Android phone is fine. Just calls, Whatsapp, photos, light games, Youtube for grand kids, simple stuff. The problem is the conversion. Cos I can help you do the contacts and most of the stuff, but your games and all that, I hope you know your password to re-log in, cos I can't be helping you to retrieve all your passwords on all your games just cos you forgot them. Your birthday is coming up, I can buy you an Android phone, you can switch to the sim only plan and save half of your mobile costs. Since we're at it, we can look at your home internet and subscription TV as well."
Then I asked her, "Is your phone due for re-contract? Yes? Ok that's good."
Her monthly bill is $120 or so. $54 is for her mobile plan and the remaining $66 is for her subscription TV and internet. She has some package so there's some discount within the subscription TV and internet.
I did a quick search online. If I split up her package, internet is $30+, and subscription TV with her additional selections cost another $30+, and she has a lot of add on channels.
So I thought, hmm... maybe it's not worth messing around with her internet and channels. Not much savings and may need to pay more to change to fibre and get a new modem. So I just left those as it is.
The mobile plan had more potential. Just a simple change to sim only plan would save around $20 per month, not too bad.
So I told her, "How about you call your telco, and verify your account and tell them I'll help you talk about what you want to do."
She called the telco and did just that and passed the phone to me.
So I asked the customer service, "If I change the mobile plan to sim only, it won't affect her internet and TV subscription right? All her discounts and everything will still stay right?"
"No sir, it will not affect her other services."
"Ok then I would like to change her plan to sim only plan..."
"Sorry sir, your mum's mobile plan is not yet due for recontract, to change to sim only plan the contract needs to end first. There is still one more year til she is due for recontract..."
-.-|||
"Ok thank you very much"
So apparently, I found out that she had recontracted one year back and given the phone to my sis and forgot all about it.
"So do you still want the phone for your birthday? I can still get it for you and help you with the transfer."
"Nah, the iPhone is still fine for now. Might as well do it next year or when the iPhone isn't working well anymore."
Oh well... that's the end of that initiative... Looks like nothing more can be done til next year then. Maybe I'll still get her a new phone and transfer for her, so that come next year she will have no excuses not to move to the sim only plan.
Ok I know that it would be best if I could get her to drop her subscription TV and get one of those smart boxes and just use the internet to watch shows. That would give a whole load of savings. But these kinda things... I'll take whatever I can achieve without any effort. I don't want to disrupt her life in my attempts for her to save money. She has her daily shows, whatever...
As I said above, I don't want to help her save money but when things are changed and she's not happy about them, she comes back to say, why this, why that. So I rather do what I can when I can, take my winnings when I can. The plan to change to sim only is a simple change and wouldn't affect her daily routine so it would have been an easy win.
The rest... I'll leave them til a more appropriate time, when she feels that it's worth changing.
Subscription TV does have some benefits which I never realized.
1. Older folks like the routine. For it allows them to watch that 1-2 hour of show at a specific time.
2. Kids like the routine. My nephews come over on weekends. And at a certain time, they expect a certain show. It's good. It keeps them entertained so that the adults get some peace.
3. It also teaches the kids that they don't get what they want on demand. There was a time they were unhappy when they couldn't get specific shows and my sis just gave them the phone/tablet and streamed Youtube. This actually creates a bad habit that they can get whatever they want on demand. Now, they have learnt that they can only just watch whatever's on the TV. If it's not on schedule then too bad, they have to wait til it shows at whatever time it's supposed to show.
Is it unnecessary? Yes.
Is it expensive? Yes.
Would I like them to drop the subscription TV and use some smart box? Yes.
But I'll take my winnings when I can, since it's not the time for this change then I'll just leave it til another day. I just hope that 1 year later she will still be willing to convert to sim only plan and not want to buy the next available new phone on contract...
*Fingers crossed*
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