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Like any other young couple living in the 21st century, my husband and I enjoy our technology. We have also been known to text back and forth throughout the day. The usual How are you?, What are you doing?, Is Indy behaving?, My arm hurts!, I'm tired!, Indy ate what?, I just saw someone fall down and it was funny... And, now that AT&T finally offers picture messaging for the iPhone, pictures and video go back and forth. Mostly of Indy, but don't judge, ok? I'm not in your relationship, but I don't really see anything out of the ordinary here. It's much quicker and easier for me to fire off a text than an email* while I'm at work and talking on the phone that much is obviously out. But anyway.


A recent once over of our recent AT&T mobile bill confirmed the fact that Matt and I text. A LOT. So much that we went over our included messages by quite a bit. If you had asked me yesterday what our text messaging plan was, I wouldn't have had the slightest clue. I probably would have assumed it was unlimited. But, now I know that we were each paying $5.00 for 200 text messages (sent and received) each. I went so far over this it's unreal. I'm an adult. I expect this behavior out of an 18 year old who just got her own cell phone for the first time. This doesn't happen to me. If it's any consolation (it isn't), Matt went over too, but not nearly as much.

I immediately went online to increase our texting package because $.10/message over 200 can really add up. But, here's the thing. The next plan up is 1,500 messages and $15/person. There is nothing between 200 and 1,500. Seems a little odd, yes?

Our overage cost was almost exactly $20. Add that to the $5 we're each paying for our included messages and you have $30. So, do we spend $30 to be guaranteed we won't go over (if we do, we have a SERIOUS problem) or do we float and spend the guaranteed $10 plus any overage?

While it may seem logical to just bump up our plan and be guaranteed to never go over our messages, I decided not to do it. I figure I'll try to cut back a little on the texting and see how it goes this month. I would rather pay a slight overage for the messages that I actually use than pay more overall and end up not using the messages I'm paying for. So, when our next bill comes, if it is more than $30 for texting, I'll go ahead and bump it up, but I don't think that it will be. Sigh.

Are we the only ones with this problem? I suspect yes. How do you communicate with your other half during the day? Are we weird for even doing that?

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*The iPhone actually does make it much easier to fire off an email. Unfortunately, while Matt is on the go, texting is easier for him. This will change once he gets his iPhone.