I got a new cell phone. Not big news, but it’s primarily because I need want more storage. It’s a little indulgence, but it doesn’t change my budget much, so I decided to just upgrade.
A couple years ago I moved to Google Fi. If you haven’t heard of it, Google decided to become a cell phone service provider. I think this was because of their Pixel devices, or maybe because Larry/Sergy just wanted to. Who knows.
In any case, they offered a few phones with their service. The attractive thing for me was that they charged $10/GB of data, prorating usage and capping costs at $60. That’s a good move, especially as I sometimes go over 6GB in a month of heavy travel. At home, I rarely break 3GB, which means I may pay $30 or less for data. I think my lowest has been a $22.50 bill for 2.25GB.
The other attractive thing was that they partnered with various providers to give no charge roaming around the world, using your existing plan. Not everywhere, but everywhere I go. This was a huge change from Verizon, which was a $10/day charge outside the US. That adds up quickly as I often have 5-10 day trips overseas. I’d gotten used to not using my phone, but that’s annoying, especially when trying to get directions.
In any case, they offered only a few devices as their phones used a multiple carrier roaming tech to hop across multiple carries. They use Sprint and TMobile in the US, and fortunately, they cover the ranch. At the time, I wanted a headphone jack and the Pixel XL was the best choice. Unfortunately it only had 32GB models for sale.
After a year and a half of that, I feel cramped. I’m constantly managing storage with all the pictures I take of family. Recently Google put the Pixel 3 and LG phones on sale, plus they offered a service credit. Since I still want to headphone jack, I settled on a 64GB LG G7, which will end up costing me about 5 months of extra charges for the device after credits and sale.
Plus I can add a micro SD card to the device. Since I’m thinking to get a 128GB card, I guess that’s 6 more months of payments 
