No one likes to pay for something that’s not being used, but maybe you’re doing this with your Smartphone.

When choosing to upgrade or renew a mobile phone contract, there’s one thing you need to give some thought to….
 
It’s the amount of data you envisage using each month. Right now, with the majority of us spending a lot of time at home, this won’t be an issue, if your phone is connected to the home wifi. But this will be worth taking notice of when life returns to some kind of normality.

In the past, before lockdown, you might have received a regular text from your mobile phone provider, saying that you’ve nearly run out of data for that month?

A common reaction is – ‘but I haven’t used that much!’
 
With smartphones, you could leave it on standby without ever touching it for a month and still end up using your data allowance. How can that be?…
 
As mobile phone programmers are constantly developing newer and improved versions of the apps installed on your phone, it’ll automatically download and install these updates for you.

On average these apps can be as much as 400MB in size. So if you have a lot of apps installed, this will increase the chances of you reaching your monthly data limit.
 
So how can you avoid this from happening?

Well here’s my 5.1 guide….
 
1) REMOVE APPS

If you have apps that are never used, then get them off there.
 
You’re simply wasting away your data allowance every time it downloads a newer update for an app you never click on!
 
2) CHECK THE APP SETTINGS

Each app will have a setting to disable data access.
 
Just turn this off for the apps you don’t need data access for when you’re out and about.
 
3) MUSIC STREAMING

If you use Apple Music or Spotify, sync your playlists so you can listen to them offline. This will prevent it from streaming and downloading the music each time you listen.
 
4) WI-FI ONLY

A great strategy is to configure your phone to download app updates over Wi-Fi only.
 
So if you’re out and about, the downloading of new updates will be paused until you reconnect to a Wi-Fi hotspot.
 
This setting alone will have a massive impact to your data allowance.
 
5) TURN DATA OFF

Another option is to switch the data feature off completely.
 
Might not be practical in some cases, especially if you’re a regular user of the web or WhatsApp for example.
 
Using this method means you’re relying solely on a Wi-Fi connection.
 
5.1) ALERT OPTION

Set your phone to notify you by text when you reach a certain limit.
 
All useful options to help avoid a nasty shock with your next bill.