Woman Saves $60 Per Month on Cell Phone Bill With One Small Change

A woman determined to clear all her debt looked into changes she could make in her outgoings and was shocked to find an instant way to slash her phone spending.

Lauren Savalle, 27, is a stay-at-home mom whose partner is a firefighter, and she lives in Phoenix, Arizona.

“I’m working to pay off my debt this year,” Savalle told Newsweek, and as part of this, she shares tips and updates to her TikTok account, @laurendoesntspend2025. A recent video proved hugely popular, racking up over 830,000 likes since being shared on January 4, as she revealed how she “cut my phone bill by more than half.”

In it, she says she “discovered a life hack” to slash her monthly costs. She explained she was paying $90 a month for her phone bill with Verizon, despite having already paid off her phone.

She then found out about a company called Visible, which is owned by Verizon, and admitted that she had “never heard” of it before.

But with some research, she learned it was a more basic phone service without the extras she gets with Verizon that she doesn’t use, and runs off Verizon service towers.

Visible, however, is $45 a month — but it was also doing a deal where the first 25 months for new customers would be just $30.

“It is literally Verizon,” she said, asking: “Who is gatekeeping this?”

Savalle canceled Verizon and signed up with Visible, and was able to keep the same phone she had. She warned, however, that this only works if your phone has already been fully paid off.

“My bill now is from $90 to $30,” she said. “That is insane.”

Newsweek spoke to Adem Selita, CEO of The Debt Relief Company, who explained that Visible is “an example of a Mobile Virtual Network Operator (MVNO)” such as Cricket Wireless and Mint Mobile.

“The main reason these companies can offer such a lower price point for customers while still turning a profit is that they lease the network from the three major carriers within the United States.”

There are benefits of these MVNOs, he explained, as if you live in an area that offers good coverage, customers could receive “a similar quality of service” for “a lot less per month than they would from one of the three major wireless carriers.”

However, he warned MVNOs “have less customer support and will have more restrictive areas of coverage. In times of severe network congestion your ability to make use of the service could be impacted.”

Speaking to Newsweek, Savalle said she discovered Visible when she “just happened to stumble across a video” of someone talking about it, then “started Googling and doing research.”

“It’s going great so far,” she said. “It was so easy to switch over my service, it took less than 10 minutes.”

She added: “So far so good. I highly recommend it for anyone who is looking to lower their phone bill.”

TikTok users reacted in a big way, many sharing their own stories, one writing: “I have Mint Mobile … paid around $300 for the YEAR for unlimited.”

“Me with Cricket (runs off ATT towers) and I’ve NEVER had issues with service. $45/month,” another said, as one wrote: “Using a 3rd party like this, mint, cricket is SO smart and I can’t for the life of me figure out why more people don’t use them.”

Some commenters also warned, however, that the service may not be as strong in some areas or may not have priority at busy times

The three names repeatedly cropping up in the comments were Visible, owned by Verizon; Mint, owned by T-Mobile; and Cricket, owned by AT&T.

According to Statista, Verizon is the leading provider of cell service in the U.S., with a market share of over 37 percent in the second quarter of 2024, followed by T-Mobile at 32 percent, and AT&T at 29 percent.

Newsweek has contacted Verizon for comment on this story.

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