You have to be pretty careful these days when it comes to phone bills. More than ever before there are ways to accidentally chock up hundreds or even thousands of dollars in phone bills without even barely blinking an eye. Fortunately, there are a few easy things you can do to cut back on that bill without really cutting back on your talk time with friends.

Switch to Data Only

These types of plans aren’t available across every carrier at the moment, but many of them do have data only plans, and it’s likely that this trend will only continue into the future. It can be easier to keep track of data only plans, for one thing, since many smartphones will let you set limits on your phone to make sure that you know when you’re using more data than you have allotment for in the month. It can be harder to keep track of minutes, after all. Minutes might also be unnecessary, depending on how you make calls.

Eliminate Unlimited Talk and Text

At the very least it pays t be careful when it comes to unlimited talk and text plans, because these plans will often charge you a huge sum of money when compared to other mid-level plans. Plus, if you use other approaches to communicating with your friends, you may not need to text them in a traditional way at all. It helps to get a sense of exactly how much you use per month to see if you’re really going to use way more minutes than the currently available plans based on allotted minutes.

Use Free Loopholes

Some plans will let you make free calls during specific time periods, such as nights and weekends when the load on the network is much lower. There are also certain government programs that can help give you free cell phone minutes as well. This is only for certain people who qualify, but it can be a major help with getting your bill either way down or to almost nothing. Many of the services from this program, called Lifeline, will allow you to add minutes for a really cheap rate if the government allotment on the month isn’t quite enough for your needs too. Making the switch could cut your burden to almost nothing.

Use Chat Options

Instead of shooting your friend a text, why not hit them up on Facebook? It’s pretty much the same thing, after all, and if you’re on Wi-Fi it’s completely free instead of costing you a high rate for every message like many cellphone providers do. And if you’re on the road and not currently using Wi-Fi, the load in terms of data is practically nil. You can send messages on Facebook to your friend all week and still barely use a couple of MB which isn’t anywhere near what most standard allotments are.

Overall, whether you use chat program to send messages, or switch to something like Viber of Skype to make phone calls using data instead of minutes; it’s surprisingly easy to get that phone bill down if you take a minute or two to go over it.

This is a post by Ashley Williamson. Ashley is a freelance writer and an occasional guest-blogger interested in tech, business and health related topics. When she is not working she likes to travel and read as much as she can. If you have any question please do not hesitate to leave a comment.