
My fault entirely, but maybe you can benefit from my own (repeated) mistake
I really, really, do not like un-necessary marketing and sales emails, notifications, text messages, popups, or other incursions into my digital life. Whenever I set up a new online account, almost the first place I head for is the “settings” or “options” to turn off everything that I can. By and large, this does work and I suffer only a tiny fraction of the guff and rubbish I see pouring into other people’s digital space.
So, when a 12 or 24 month contract expires, I tend to rely on the fact that, thereafter, the business will then proceed on a “rolling monthly contract”. In other words, things will carry on just as they always did and both parties are able to cancel the arrangement at one month’s notice.
Lo and behold, I was offered a better deal covering both phone and mobile wifi for just £14.50 per month compared with £33.37 that I had been paying before. When I rather tartly asked why they hadn’t offered me this deal without my asking, I was very politely informed that it was because I had all the notifications turned off in my account. Hmm. Can’t argue with that.
My SIM only phone contract expired in 2017. At a rough guess, I must have paid about £750 more than I needed to in the six years since then. Think how many units of electricity that could have bought me – even at today’s prices.
By the way, I do realise that my iPhone can provide a “mobile hotspot”, but for some reason I can sometimes connect to either the mobile wifi or the phone from either my own or clients’ devices, but sometimes one or the other won’t connect. A mystery.

Just click on the jar…