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How a smartphone can pay for itself

Taking advantage of your cell's multiple uses -- from cameras to GPS -- can save you significant money. Here are 10 ways to make the phone pay.
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By Amanda Lilly, Kiplinger's Personal Finance magazine

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  • Have phone, cut costs

    Twenty years ago, telephones were simple and relatively cheap, with the average U.S. household spending $57 a month for a land line. These days, nearly half of all American adults are packing smartphones, with initial price tags of as much as $200 for a new phone every couple of years and monthly service plans costing $100 to $200, sometimes even more.

     

    But your smartphone doesn't have to be a budget buster. In fact, it might save you a lot of money. This jack-of-all-trades is quickly replacing costly stand-alone devices such as MP3 players, digital cameras and GPSs. It also can be used as a diet tracker, a pedometer and much more. Click ahead for 10 ways your smartphone can pay for itself.

     

     

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  • As a source of on-the-fly discounts and deals

     

    Estimated savings: It's up to you.

     

    A smartphone is a bargain hunter's best friend.

     

    Save money on every trip to the grocery store without clipping a single coupon. With apps like Coupon Sherpa and the Coupons App, you can quickly review available coupons from your favorite grocer, check off the ones you intend to use, and see the discounts applied at checkout when you swipe your loyalty card.

     

    At other stores, make sure you're getting the best deal by using smartphone apps to compare prices. For example, with Amazon's Price Check, you can scan a product's bar code to compare prices at Amazon.com and its numerous merchants. Other comparison apps, such as Gas Buddy, identify your current location and find gas stations in your area with the cheapest fuel prices, while banking tools such as MasterCard's ATM Hunter can search for your bank's closest ATM, helping you avoid unnecessary ATM fees.

     

    Location-based services such as FourSquare are also great ways to discover discounts. By "checking in" at certain restaurants or stores, you can "unlock" rewards or special deals.

     

     

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  • As a day planner/calendar

     

    Estimated savings: $10 to $35 for a paper planner (plus annual refills)

     

    Forget about lugging around a daily planner and pen -- and the associated hassle of manually logging annual dates and regular appointments in each new year's calendar. Most smartphones come with a basic, built-in calendar and scheduling tool, and you can download more-sophisticated planning apps for free. You can set alarms to remind you of engagements in advance, color-code different appointments and tasks and sync it up with your office calendar.

     

    Perhaps the biggest advantage of using your phone as a day planner is that you'll almost always have it with you. Whether you're at the doctor's office or a business lunch, you can quickly make note of a new engagement or check the time of your next meeting.  

     

     

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  • As a GPS

     

    Estimated savings: $100 to $250 for a GPS

     

    Whether you're out on the road or hitting the trails, it's easy to use your smartphone to get around. With Google Maps integrated in Android devices and free navigation apps available on other smartphones, there is less of a need for traditional GPS, particularly if you're just looking to get from Point A to Point B.

     

     

     

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  • As a portable music player

     

    Estimated savings: $50 to $400 for an iPod from the Apple Store

     

    Smartphones are a great place to store your music. With storage limits of up to 64 gigabytes, some phones can actually hold more songs than a stand-alone iPod or MP3 player. For example, you could spend $199 on an 8G iPod Touch that holds approximately 2,000 songs, or you could store that same number of songs on a 16G iPhone 4s (also $199) and still have eight gigabytes of storage space left over.

     

    With a smartphone as your music player, you can stream music from the Internet using apps such as Pandora or YouTube. With apps such as iCloud or Google Music, your smartphone also has the ability to access the music library on your computer, which means it'll take up less storage space on your phone.

     

     

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  • As a camera

     

    Estimated savings: $70 to $150 for a basic point-and-shoot digital camera

     

    With your phone almost always in hand, never miss a single Kodak moment.

     

    Although photos taken by a mobile phone traditionally have been grainy and out of focus, the latest smartphone cameras should satisfy most casual photographers. With resolutions of up to eight megapixels and wider apertures, smartphone cameras are "cannibalizing the point-and-shoot market to a certain degree," says Zach Honig, a senior associate editor at Engadget.

     

    Instantly share photos with friends and family by uploading the images from your smartphone to Facebook or sending them in an e-mail. Built-in editing software and free apps such as Instagram let you edit and customize photos on the fly. One thing to consider: If you want to print good-quality photos, you'll need to step up to a traditional digital camera, Honig says.

     

     

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  • As a video camera

     

    Estimated savings: $150 to $300 for a full HD camcorder

     

    Traditional video cameras can be heavy and difficult to lug around, and you have to worry about carrying an extra tape or SD card.

     

    Sure, your smartphone's video camera won't match the high-quality video of a dedicated filming device, but the technology is always improving. Many phones already allow you to record high-definition video. And with a smartphone, you can instantly upload a video to YouTube or save it to the cloud, which allows you to delete it from your phone before it starts taking up too much memory.  

     

     

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  • As a home phone

     

    Estimated savings: $360/year on land line phone service

     

    If you're already paying for a smartphone service plan, why add an extra $30 to $40 a month for an additional line?

     

    The cheapest calling plan for smartphones from both Verizon and AT&T is $39.99 for 450 minutes (long-distance included). In Washington, D.C., for instance, a land line from RCN costs $30 a month. Add the charges for any long-distance calls, and it's easy to see how ditching the land line can save you money.

     

    Another advantage to using your smartphone as your primary calling device is the ease with which you can make international calls. With free apps such as Skype and Google Talk, you don't even need a computer or Internet connection to talk with friends and family outside of the country (assuming you have a decent data plan).

     

    If you decide to lose your land line, first make sure you get decent cell reception around your house. You wouldn't want to find yourself in an emergency and unable to make a phone call.

     

     

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  • As an alarm clock

     

    Estimated savings: $10 to $30 for an alarm clock radio

     

    In many ways, mobile phones are more reliable alarm clocks than their traditional counterparts. Not only can you set multiple alarms on the same device, but you can also program the alarms to go off on a regular schedule -- for example, at 7 a.m. Monday through Friday. They're also great for traveling, especially considering how confusing it can be to set the alarm clocks at most hotels.

     

    Some great apps can optimize the alarm clock on your smartphone. For example, the Winter Wake-Up app tracks the weather while you're asleep, and if bad weather sets in overnight, it will wake you up earlier so you have extra time for your morning commute.

     

    Just be sure to charge your phone every night: Your smartphone's alarm can't sound if your battery is dead.

     

     

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  • As a modem

     

    Estimated savings: $90 to $200-plus a year on home Internet service

     

    Sharing the wireless Internet connection on your smartphone with a laptop or desktop computer, known as tethering, can save you money, but only if don't go online at home very often, or only do so for basic activities such as sending email and Web surfing.

     

    For example, on AT&T's 5GB and Mobile Hotspot plan, you could send and receive more than 400 emails and view 500 Web pages every day and still stay under your monthly data limit. At $600 a year, that plan may seem expensive compared with the $480 a year you would pay for Comcast's cheapest home Internet service in Washington, D.C. ($29.99 for the first six months, $44.99 for the next six months). But it's still almost $100 cheaper than paying for AT&T's cheapest data plan ($240 a year for a limited 300 megabytes a month) and home Internet ($450 a year). Bump that up to $30 for three gigabytes a month, and you would save more than $200 a year by ditching your home Internet.

     

    While some online activities, such as surfing the Web or checking email, won't eat up too much data, it is nearly impossible to regularly stream video via your phone without paying an arm and a leg. And unless you have a 4G connection, you'll likely have to wait a long time for the video to fully load. So if you regularly stream more than 30 minutes or so of low-quality video each day, you'll probably want to stick with your home Internet provider.

     

    If you're tethering, be sure to set up alerts on your phone to let you know if you're approaching your data limit.

     

     

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  • As a portable gaming device

     

    Estimated savings: $50 to $250 for a hand-held game device

     

    For the casual gamer on the move, smartphones are quickly becoming the device of choice. Since 2009, Android and iOS have gone from controlling just 19% of the U.S. portable game software market to 58% by 2011.

     

    Mobile devices offer countless free games, while apps such as the OnLive cloud gaming platform let users access the same console-class games they play at home.

     

    Sony has even released its own "PlayStation Certified" Android phone, complete with "real" gaming controls and access to a growing number of PS games via the PlayStation Suite. While these games typically cost $3 to $15 apiece, that's still cheaper than what you might pay for a game on a dedicated hand-held gaming device. Sony has announced plans to make its PlayStation Suite available on more Android devices in the future.

     

     

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    Published Nov. 7, 2012

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    7Comments
    Jay2010
    Nov 8, 2012 5:33PM
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    All this would be well and good if the most common phrase used on cell phones wasn't "you're breaking up!"

     

     

     

    notvinmylife
    Nov 18, 2012 2:52PM
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    You can get all of these options on many phones but until I have to lay out zero cash to get these benefits I think it is never going to pay for itself.
    Skeptic in Oregon
    Jan 3, 2013 4:05AM
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    In addition to "breaking up," some of us live in areas with no signal, or next to no cell phone signal, so a land line is absolutely necessary in addition to a cell phone.   As for what your smart phone can do, Yes Armando Garcia, there are people in this world who are new to smart phones and don't know what all they can do, and we don't need facetious comments to add to our insecurities.   So some of the suggestions are irrelevant to my life, but some are quite useful.    
    No to smarphone plan.
    Jan 23, 2013 7:00AM
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    This article isn't helpful. Most individuals already have the other devices you say we would be saving on, i.e.: camera, gps, alarm clock. Why get rid of your home internet when most people need that connectivity because most games require online services, also you would be able to use Netflix. I save way more money by utilizing the devices I already have which are a one time purchase fee and home internet services then I would with a Smartphone plan.

    isaac de la rosa
    Feb 8, 2013 3:21PM
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    Most of these suggestion are out dated. People have already, with out thinking, have done this. But the modem suggestion is rediculouse. Internet bandwidth use on a cell for an average user would kill you in fees.
    whatthenut
    May 5, 2013 4:21AM
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    these don't pay for the phone.  i have all the functions they said, but i still need the others because for one, the battery dies and all of them die.  they are convenient, but you get all those functions (minus the tethering) with a "dumb" phone, so the argument is any electronic device pays for itself just because it replaces something you already have? sorry stupid article.
    Armando Garcia
    Dec 29, 2012 2:21PM
    avatar
    In this day and age, are there actually people who have smart phones that don't know that they do these things?  This article feels kind of pointless.
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