<p>My husband and I are having a discussion about whether to continue to pay our son’s cell phone bill. He graduated from college last month and will be starting a new job in February. He will be making a nice salary, so being able to afford the phone bill is not a problem. The issue is that it will cost my son significantly more a month for an individual plan than it will cost for us to continue with him on our plan. He has offered to pay for his portion of our cell phone bill, which is reasonable to me. My husband disagrees and wants my son to get his own plan. He feels that it is time for him to stand on his own two feet and having his own cell phone plan is part of being independent. I see no reason to put the added expense on my son right now, especially since both of my kids have unlimited data plans, which are no longer available through our current carrier. What opinion on keeping an adult child on your cell phone plan?</p>
<p>Maybe you could compromise and pay for a certain time more. Perhaps until the contract is up or your son needs a new phone. Although our children are still in high school and college, we have a35 year old niece whose mother still pays her bill, so we have had this conversation recently.</p>
<p>I see no reason for you son to have his own plan. He’ll pay his share, where’s the harm? What may happen is what happened with us. We eventually decided to change our plan and our older son didn’t like what we did, so he’s now got his own plan.</p>
<p>Easy answer,
Get your son to pay your phone bill on his plan.</p>
<p>DS was on our plan. He wanted an Iphone which meant changing carrier, new contracts, and of course phones. He offered to pay-no objection from us. :)</p>
<p>Alas, his company is giving him an Iphone and paying for service (he’s an app developer) but his company will not carry us on the family plan. 
the good part is we get better phone service when we take over the phone responsibility.</p>
<p>Does your husband think paying for his son’s cell phone will stunt his independence given that he has already found a nice paying job? Is he in the camp that thinks poverty builds character?
We still have both of my kids’ cell phone in our family plan and they have been financially independent for years. We’ve been in a family plan for over 12 years and see no reason to change plus the kids get to keep their same (local) phone numbers even though they live on the opposite coast.</p>
<p>I see no harm in having son pay his share.</p>
<p>With the family plan situation, everyone I know keeps their kids on the family plan. Why should anyone pay more? Just have him reimburse you if you want him to feel independent.
I know families with married children and each spouse is on different (original) family plan.</p>
<p>personally I see no reason to pay for 2 separate plans.
I beginning to think that I’d pay for another phone for him. Its a 10 buck expense vs 70.</p>
<p>Both of my adult kids are currently on my plan. For awhile only the younger one (D, now age 23) was on the plan, but now the older one (S, age 28) is on the plan as well. If you look at the costs, it simply makes more sense that way. </p>
<p>When my d. was getting ready to graduate from college, I suggested that she should look into getting her own plan, but she pointed out that it would cost much more that way. I looked to see the difference in cost – and she was absolutely right. </p>
<p>My son had his own plan for many years, paying for it on his own both while he was working & in school. After he got married, he offered to take me onto the plan he shared with his wife - on his plan with TMobile he could add extra users for free. By that time, I had a smartphone with a data plan, so I declined the offer. Since then, my son split up from his wife – so of course they dropped the plan they had. I offered to put my son on my plan then, and he agreed – the cost to add him to the plan was +$10/month. The cost for a basic data plan (smart phone) was +$15/month, plus maybe $20 for the latest & greatest Android phone unit (with a 2 year contract of course). I’m sure that the entry level plan for a single user with data plan would be at least $75.</p>
<p>The cell phone bill is available to us monthly in PDF format, and the first page of the bill has a section which summarizes the charges for each separate phone-- with each of our names on it. When the bill comes, I email each of my kids – who live in different states, and they reimburse me. My d. in turn gets employer reimbursement for her share.</p>
<p>There is probably a net savings of $75-$100 each month for the 3 of us to share a plan rather than having 3 separate plans. That extra money could be going to ATT or TMobile or Verizon-- or it could be going to help feed & clothe my grandson. We may be spread out across the country, but we’re still a family.</p>
<p>The son needs to start paying his own bills so that he can develop a credit history</p>
<p>What, and give the phone carrier even more money? Why do that? Let the kid pay his share and stay on the family plan. I’m sure my kids will stay on my plan for quite a while.</p>
<p>Why enrich the cellphone company?</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>He can do this other ways, though, can’t he? Being under the family plan would certainly save him money. He could get his own credit card and do it that way. Perhaps own his own place.</p>
<p>Eh. There are many ways to build credit history, far superior to a cell phone plan.</p>
<p>We also have 2 adult kids on the family plan. Saves each one of them $90.</p>
<p>It seems like the consensus is to keep son on our plan and have him pay his share. He has credit cards in his own name, two apartment leases in his own name and a car loan in his name, so building a credit history is not of great importance. We will be discussing this further tonight, so we will see what we can agree upon.</p>
<p>We continued to pay for son on our family plan for one year post college since he was getting set up with an apartment, paying off student loans. Since then he reimburses us to stay on the plan. Alot cheaper than having his own plan. Younger son is still in college and we pay the bill now and will do same with him once he graduates-will pay first year only and then he needs to reimburse us.</p>
<p>I agree with the consensus, but my husband does not.</p>
<p>When our daughter got her first full-time job and her own apartment this summer, she wanted to stay on the cell phone family plan and pay her share because this would be $20 a month cheaper than having her own plan. I thought this was a good idea, but my husband vetoed it on the grounds that she should be an independent adult. </p>
<p>I don’t see the point. Why should the cell phone company get an extra $20 a month of our family’s money? </p>
<p>Building a credit history doesn’t seem to be an issue for the OP’s son, but for those who do care about it, there’s a simple solution to that, too. Put the family plan in the young person’s name and have the parents pay the kid their share every month instead of doing it the other way around.</p>
<p>Our son graduated college and got his first job last summer, with a decent income. It seemed nuts to have him pay twice as much for his own plan (not to mention we’d pay a cancellation fee if we closed his line before next July, since we have a 2 year contract). He is still on our plan, but he pays me for his line every month. </p>
<p>On our grandfathered Verizon family plan he has unlimited voice, texting and data for $40/month. It would cost him at least twice that to get his own plan, and I think unlimited data plans are nearly non-existant these days.</p>
<p>As long as he’s paying me for his line I think he’s an independent adult. I know people who have the grandparents on their family plan - it’s just so much cheaper. And the grandparents don’t live with them, they’re independent adults too.</p>
<p>I figure he’ll get his own plan when he gets married.</p>
<p>Coming clean:</p>
<p>Our son gets a 25% employee discount, so we transferred the entire phone plan to his name, but we pay the bill, and he pays us back for his data package. Win-win.</p>
<p>Skimmed the responses, so apologies if this variation has already been described.</p>
<p>S has great, well-paying job. But he stayed on our plan, because it only makes sense.
However, instead of paying just the $9.99 (plus taxes and fees), he pays us $25/month.
Win-win … less than he’d have to pay for his own individual plan and contributes toward the base cost of our plan.</p>
<p>Maybe your H would like that option.</p>