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Check My Math - I'm Paying In Full
- Thread starter ohsnaphappy
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Or go with one of the 0% interest monthly financing plans through the carrier and pay off the remaining balance after month 11 and sell the phone on your own. That's the cheapest way to upgrade each year. Either option (buying it outright or monthly installments) costs the same since the monthly installments are at 0% interest and you can pay off the phone early. I'd personally rather pay a small amount each month since there is no disadvantage to doing so.
Yes. But there is the hassle. With selling it, you have to find a buyer (listing it on Amazon isn't the same as actually having someone buy it through Amazon... you may need to also try eBay or Craigslist), hope someone buys it, hope they do pay you enough for it, mail it out, hope theres no issues along the way.
If time is important to you, then you may want to pay the extra $100 and just not deal with any of that.
If money is important to you and you're willing to do the work, you can certainly squeeze an extra $100 or so of value doing it yourself.
I have sold many things before and since I'm not a "professional seller" I personally dread dealing with all that time/hassle. But others may not feel its a big deal. So its quite a personal choice.
If time is important to you, then you may want to pay the extra $100 and just not deal with any of that.
If money is important to you and you're willing to do the work, you can certainly squeeze an extra $100 or so of value doing it yourself.
I have sold many things before and since I'm not a "professional seller" I personally dread dealing with all that time/hassle. But others may not feel its a big deal. So its quite a personal choice.
It's certainly an option. For me, I'll be charging it on my miles card and then paying it off that bill cycle (so no interest but lots of miles). I suppose I could use that same card to pay a monthly installment but it just seems easier to do it in one transaction.
Are you concerned at all with Apple charging fees for damage when your turn your phone in with their program? If it's like a car lease, if the car has scratches you have to pay for the scratches when you turn in the car. No one has really talked about that.
Even smarter, let Apple finance it for 0% interest and then just pay off the balance in 12 months and then sell. This way you get to keep most of your money until the last month.
It's still a little more profitable to pay off your phone on month 11-12 and sell it to one of the many sites that buy used iPhones (NextWorth, Gazelle, etc.) after 1 year most of the time (vs. just giving it back to the carrier and "upgrading" while continuing to pay the same installment fee forever). You don't have to sell it to a private individual on eBay and incur fees/hassle/potential scams/etc. - there are plenty of trade-in sites you can sell it to and you can lock in a price for 30 days with some of them (in advance of the new iPhone launch). That's what I did - just need to ship my old phones to them shorty after receiving the new ones.
On a side note, I've done this exact same thing with leased cars. Sometimes you can get more money from a dealership (i.e. CarMax) than the payoff amount that the financing company for the lease wants. I pocketed $2000 on my last lease a few months before the lease was over by selling it to a dealer who paid off the financing company and cut me a $2000 check for the difference. I simply sold them my almost 3 year old car outright and didn't purchase a new one from them.
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In which case you pretty much break even with getting the normal plan except you're adding a lot of hassle and possibly even the risk you lose out a bit.
I don't know... as an adult who runs a business and has a life *I* personally feel its better to take the option that saves the most time/hassle. But I can totally get/respect someone for whom every last dollar is more important and they have plenty of time.
BTW sites like Gazelle or other trade in sites are the WORST value. They are offering $350 right now for an iPhone 6 Plus 64GB. They do save you hassle though, but if you're taking that much of a bath on the price you might as well just do the lease program and swap your phone out every year through it.
swappa.com is where I sell all of mine. Super easy and you can a pretty good price. Perhaps not quite as much as you would if you Craiglisted it, but much easier. I'm done with Craigslist, way too many loonies.
You need to know where to look. I got a quote from NextWorth a little over a week ago (before the new iPhone was officially announced) for $429 for a 16GB non-plus iP6. This was using a +10% promo code that was found online. There's no way that I'd make more than that after eBay/PayPal fees by selling it online. I got quotes for both of our phones and I have 30 days to deliver the phones to them (after receiving new ones on launch day hopefully).
This works out better than simply trading the phone into my carrier and continuing to pay the same monthly fee forever.
I believe that is what the included apple care plus is for. Worst case Sanrio, you pay $100.