Only $60 a month...

We don't have personal smartphones.  Kevin has a smartphone through work, and the kids and I have 2 Trakphones we use.  The Trakphones are about $6 a month, as opposed to the $60 per month that a smartphone would be.

Let me first of all say that I have NO problem with people having smartphones. For some families, they are extremely useful and wise to have.  Since we're home most of the time, we've decided smartphones aren't a wise use of resources.

A few days ago, Kevin commented that he makes $60 in a short amount of time at work.  It makes sense for his employer to pay for his smartphone (which costs approximately $60 per month) because Kevin uses it to stay organized and to keep up with work emails while at home.  (To be clear, he keeps that under control and doesn't check his email constantly while at home.)

When we talked about how quickly he makes $60, I thought, "Why do we make such a fuss about $60 a month when he makes so much?"  Because -- you know -- smartphones ARE kind of cool and it would be fun to have one.

Kevin said that the better question is whether we want to spend that $60 per month on a smartphone or on something else. And that IS the question, isn't it?  $60 a month may not sound like that much, but that is $720 per year!  That's a largish extra dollop on our mortgage principal, or a bunch of homeschooling supplies, or a whole slew of Tom Baker Doctor Who DVD's.  :-)

Right now, a smartphone just isn't a wise use of resources.

There is another factor too.  Kevin makes a lot, yes.  But we also have a large outflow!  We pay $2500 to $3000 per month on our mortgage alone (we are paying off the principal as quickly as possible.)  We have $1300 per month allocated for groceries and eating out. We have electric bills and pay hundreds of dollars for gasoline each month.  We have taxes to pay and clothes to buy.

Suddenly, $60 a month starts sounding like a substantial amount of our "extra" each month.

And that is, I think, and important factor to remember.  Much of our income is needed for necessities and we need to be wise with using money for wants.  We have plenty of wants and certainly not enough income to get everything we want.  So we need to prioritize and decide what we want to buy and what we can go without.

We can easily go without smartphones.