Upgrading to a new iPhone

That is definitely not true. The reason I have not upgraded from my 4S is that my contract ended over a year ago and I have been on a month to month program. ATT gives me an awesome deal whereby I only pay $50 per month for unlimited talk, text, and data.

As soon as I upgrade (even to the iPhone 5) I have to enter into another 2 year contract with at least a $100 per month bill. I am holding onto my "outdated" iPhone until it no longer works!

Yes you enter into a 2 year agreement, but you do not have to change your plan. I have a grandfathered plan and I upgrade my phones and make it clear that I do NOT want to change my plan, all it does it commit me to another two years. They keep trying but I tell them to keep how I have it.

When I upgraded from my iPhone 3G to the iPhone 5, AT&T not only was willing to "grandfather" the new phone into my existing plan, they found a way to lower the cost a bit while keeping the same benefits (like unlimited texting, for example). Either way, though, with continuing the old plan or changing to the less expensive one I did have to begin a new 2-year contract with them. I'm glad Cha1k started the conversation, because it's good for all of us to talk with our wireless provider and think about what might work best. Often, the companies have more options than they're willing to admit to up-front.

It is true that they will "grandfather" you in. I am with Verizon, and several years ago (back when flip phones where the most current technology) I had a contract plan that provided 300 min for $30 with free night and weekend. I mainly talk night and weekend, so the 300 min works really well for me. They grandfathered me into that plan, and even now that I am upgraded to an iPhone, I still have that plan but added data to my phone.

Now, if I change my plan to their most current offering where I would get unlimited minutes, I would pay more for that plan. It would provide me with more data in this plan then I currently have, but I just monitor my usage to keep that under control. Since I generally only use a little over 100 min per month, the additional cost for the unlimited plan isn't a good option for me. So I stay put with my grandfathered plan.

Chalk you make a good point about selling your old phone when you do the upgrade. And to get the most bang for your buck, upgrade at the 2 year mark so when you sell the phone you get top dollar. Between what you make on the sale of the phone, and the cost of the new phone, the difference between the two is actually what you are playing. In your case, $39 for a new phone, which you plan on using for the next two years.

I don't know about the grandfathered plans so if you want to keep something like that this comment is not for you But I am very happy with my Verizon Edge program. I'm still trying to figure out how they benefit from this but it seems to be a good deal. I get a brand new phone (2-yr contract I suppose) and I pay off the full price of the phone over 20 monthly installments. Thing is that Verizon also gives me a $25 rebate every month. In my case with my current Samsung S5, I pay $24 and change but they give me $25. So technically they pay me a few cents every month for the new phone I got in June. When I'm done paying for the phone the monthly payments stop and so do the monthly rebates.

And once half the price of the phone is paid off I can turn it in and start a new Edge plan with a new phone if I want.

Now none of this has anything to do with the minutes, texting, data plans but I'm keeping those anyway. For me the Edge plan was a no-brainer. Oh, the $25 rebate is only that high because we have a 10GB data plan. If you have a lower data plan the rebate is $10. Keep that in mind. But my mom is on our phone plan and her iPad/smart phone are the only internet access she has so we need 10GB and it's worth it to us.

Had thought about upgrading; however I took a look at the IPhone 6 models yesterday. Yikes, they are large phones. I just can't imagine carrying around a phone that large.