Selfsufficientish.com

I have just seen an advert for T***o mobile where the guy says "all I want is a new phone every year", am outraged! Surely it is not necessary to have a new phone every year.

Then I remembered a phonecall I got about 3 years ago from my own mobile provider offering me a free upgrade. When I declined (since there was nothing wrong with my phone) I got the hard sell. I was told I might as well have it as it was free. She even suggested I just got one anyway so I'd have a spare phone and I still declined it so the next day I got a call from a more senior salesperson who had another go.

I'm quite concerned that mobiles are seen as so disposable and there must be thousands going to land fill. I'm sure the mobile companies won't change as they're out to make money but surely there must be a way to make consumers realise how wasteful this is.

Right, rant over, pleased to have got that off my chest. I'd be pleased to see what other people think...

Personally, I dont get the whole new moby every year - with my provider it was 18months and i never bothered - eventually i was in the shop and the guy asked if he could help - i replied that i was looking at handsets but couldn't see anything that was really all that much better t han the one i had given that all i do is phone, txt and take pix. He promptly said i should change my tarriff from 25 per month to 15 cos the other tenner covers the cost of your 'free' handset and really you're prob cheaper just paying 100 quid for a handset rather that 180 over 18months.....
Anyways, i took his advice and changed to cheaper tarrif and still have the original handset to this day :)

so ofrtunately not all companies give you the hardsell

on the plus side - if folks MUST renew their handset there is quite a vibrant 2nd hand market where the companies will give you dosh for your old one - partly cos i believe there's gold in them tharrr handsets........

Yeah I finally changed mine last summer and recycled the old one with one of those companies advertised on TV. I got 4 quid for it which wasn't exactly life changing but 4 quid more than I'd have if I'd just chucked it! It's worth sending them off.

My Uncle gets a new one whenever his contract runs out then he gives it to my Mom and then she passes it onto my Dad who usually uses it until it's so out of date and knackered he HAS to get rid of it but at least he re-cycles it (I think he gives it to one of those charities that ask for old phones).

I have always had second hand phones except for my last Motorola which I had for years (but ALWAYS hated it and it never worked properly) I recently bought a new Samsung phone for £30 and it's wonderful and I don't see myself getting rid of it until it breaks! I do use the other one for business though as a separate line so I can turn it off when needed.

I've never understood the preoccupation some people have with having the latest and greatest... I have an MP3 player and a camera thanks don't need all that cr@p on my phone... I rarely use it anyway as it is lol

My OH on the other hand has had the same phone for about 8 years and the one before that 8 years also... his is so old it has a green and black screen, no camera or anything and he's happy with it even worked when my Motorola didn't in a very remote spot He wouldn't even change it when I tried to twist his arm... the closest I could get him to it was a new SIM

I am on my 2nd ever mobile phone - my last one was quite big but this one is so dinky and folds in half and fits nicely in my handbag. It is pre camera phones (who'd want one anyway? I already have a camera ) and I only ever use it for emergencies (haven't needed to thankfully!) or on the rare occasion that I need to call my OH to come and collect me. I think the €5 I put on it is still there after a couple of years.

I'm sooooooo not into the mobile thing especially texting. I've just looked at mine and it has a green and black screen - what colour do you have SPS? I didn't know they came in other colours - I'm sure my OH's is the same and he gets new ones every few years cos he sits on them or something.

well on my first phone which I got in 2004 because my company was too cheap to get one for me and my immediate boss and my wife were always saying they could never get hold of me. so I spent 400 NZD on one that had a camera and video, which has been used but ever since I brought the dam thing no ever rings me on it, so I don't know why I have it. Plus just think of all that electromagnetic radiation thats trying to cook our remaining brain cells.

My rant is that sine the onset of email and cell phones know one ever actually bothers to write me a letter anymore, and I like getting letters, it gives me a reason to go to the mail box other than for the bills, besides it's nice to sit down in the evening and read a letter from a friend.

ihave a mobile but never use it. it just sits turned off in a drawer until it comes to the odd day out when i need it, well when others need me to have it! whatever happened to agreeing a time and place to meet up?

and i too like getting letters, usually only bills these days

Hi all, on the subject of letters (sorry! I know its a bit off topic, but i'll be brief!) I just wanted to tell you about a really cute little idea that i came across recently. I was working on a wee arts project; 1 space, 14 artists (mostly performance art), on for 2 evenings, each artist got to do their own little interactive piece. The theme was "social networking" and there were lots of funny games to play and things to get involved with. Anyway, the thing i wanted to tell you about was this: There were two postboxes side by side on the wall. One was green, one was yellow. One the table in front of it were two piles- one of envelopes, one of bits of paper the had printed on them "if you were my friend i'd....". The idea was that you worte your name and address on an envelope and put the empty envelope in the green postbox. Then you wrote a message for "a friend you haven't met" on a bit of paper and put that in the yellow post box. At the end of the two days, the opened both boxes and each message was put into an envelope and posted off. A few days later everyone who had taken part got a letter from their "friend they hadn't met".
I thought it was a really great idea- cause, as a few folk here have said, its really lovely to get nice letters not just bills!
Ok, hi-jack over!
Kate : )

It's very enlightening reading how other people use (or not) their mobiles.
I have to admit that I use my mobile exclusively and it's always switched on and (to get on topic) it's quite old now.
A couple of years ago we looked at our landline phone bills and realised that we were paying a quite extortionate line rental for just about bugger all, so cancelled it and switched to his and hers mobiles, both pay as you go.
We have no landline broadband, will never have landline broadband as the Irish national telephone company won't enable exchanges that are serving less than 1000 houses, so what's the point of having a fixed landline, talk about shooting yourself in the foot.
The amount of times I've rung some company who took my number and said "I'll ring you back", which meant sitting indoors waiting. Now my phone is always in my pocket and it doesn't matter if they take 10 minutes or 3 hours or never ring me back.

I can't see me changing my mobile any time soon for one very good reason ... as my phone lives in my pocket I need a flip phone or clamshell type (or the face gets scratched and fills up with fluff) and for some odd reason they have stopped selling clamshells in Ireland. Watch ANY American TV program and everybody seems to use them "over there" but not here, plus I like the way you answer a clamshell by just opening it and end a call by just closing it.

See, I can rant as well.

My current mobile is a Nokia N95 which I guess was pretty good and impressive when it first came out. It would have been quite expensive with all its gadgets, etc had I not bought it through someone I knew who worked for a mobile phone shop and got me a really good deal on everything to do with it. Now I am coming to the end of my contract in August and I am thinking things like "do I really need a barcode reader ?" "do I really need a satnav ?" "do I really want to be charged for using the internet on it ?" and many more such questions about facilities that frankly I do not need or do not need to convince myself that my life needs right now. So, as part of my attempt for a simpler life, I will be getting a pay-as-you-go phone next time that (and here's the old-fashioned bit) just allows me to ring people and be rung, to text people and be texted, have a basic camera on it and a simple music player and......errrrrr, that's it !! This phone does not allow me to get a signal pretty much anywhere in my house (except the loo and the garden - useful !) so is pants. Now where did I put that Sinclair Spectrum.........

My rant is why don't the latest sexy phones have a stylus to write with. My phone has one and I can write, in almost normal handwriting, (and draw) on the screen far faster than I could ever type, even with that horrible predictive text (ok maybe not as fast as a teenager with 6 thumbs), but the phone is getting old and so am I, I could do with a brighter screen but I want to keep my stylus.

My first lasted 4.5 years my new one is 2.5 years old. My brother kills his fast but we donate the broken/ severely worn ones to a local children s hospital that refurbishes and sells them again.

The trouble is the kids all want the very latest model - mine barely have theirs 6 months and they are after a new one with even more gadgets! My son actually said that if he used his MP3 player he wouldn't need a phone!

It's nice to hear that there are other people who don't keep needlessly replacing their phones. As I've got older, I think I've become more and more or a techno-phobe (and I'm only 30!). I'm really fed up of social networking,especially all those people who are constantly using theirr mobiles to update their online status all the time. I'm sure that a whole generation of kids are missing out on their lives because they're so busy trying to show how much fun they're having all the time! I have to admit I do text a lot but that's because it's a realy easy way to make arrangements, tell someone I'm running late etc and there has been the odd time when I've seen something I've wanted to take a photo of and used my phone. I certainly don't need a phone that does everything for me although if one was invernted that could bring me a cup of tea in the morning...

associated rant... try walking down any street these days - people talking to themselves, gesticulating, tiddling about with mobiles, completely distracted, not looking where they are going... there but not there. Bet the pickpockets love them though.

FWIW my mobile is a PAYG 10-year old model that cost a tenner off ebay and gets used a couple of times a month.