Getting Mr. NaD to cut the Iphone Umbilical Cord

I’m trying to convince Mr. NaD to give up Verizon cell phone service and Iphones by showing him what our current situation is costing us and what it will save us. (I’ve rounded off the numbers.)

Current Fancypants Verizon Cell Service Plus IPhones or Republic Wireless with no data?

	Monthly retirement  contributions needed ...	to reach this amount in retirement savings ...	to pay for this monthly bill.	Monthly retirement savings plus bill combined
current cell bill	375	50,100	167	542.00
proposed cell bill with no data service	86	11,400	38	124.00
savings	289	38,700	129	418

Our cell phone bill could go from $167 a month to $38 a month. The $38 includes the cost of two $200 phones plus tax spread out over 36 months. I like the $130 phone currently available at Republic Wireless and would probably get that instead but when we switch over (If we switch over, Mr. NaD says) they may not have a cheaper phone so I wanted to be conservative. The 36 months is realistic. I’m pretty hard on my phones. I may be able to keep it longer, but most likely not.

We would go from needing $50,100 in retirement to service our current cell phone situation to $11,400. This would keep us from having to save $38,700! We could retire sooner or we could work longer and apply this money to something else. $38,700 x .04 = $129 a month for life. 

In order to reach the $11,400 retirement savings amount in 8 years so that we can both quit full-time work in our 40s, we should be saving roughly $86 a month. (I didn’t know how to do the math here so I used a compounding calculator and kept changing the monthly amount until I got close enough.) I used an 8% return.


We would save $418 each and every month by simply giving up data and IPhones. We’d still have smart phones with cameras. 


So no data/IPhones and retire earlier/have $38k in stocks generating $129 a month for life? Or keep the Iphones and Fancypants service?

Mr. NaD is still not on board. I have to admit that giving up all that convenience is not easy. I think that once we are closer to retirement and he's tired of working, he will see cutting out a data plan and IPhones is a short cut to him quitting. I'm just going to have to bide my time and be patient.