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013: Choosing an internet plan
434 Plays6 years ago
Mia and Dinah talk about switching broadband internet plans to save money and improve their service.
There are more than 35 internet service providers in Australia, with an array of ever-changing offers and promotions. This, combined with advancements in internet technology such as the NBN and improved modems and routers, and the changing use of technology by households, means that most of us should be reviewing our internet service plans to make sure we are getting the best deal.
The key criteria for selecting a plan are:
- Data needs – do you need unlimited or will a smaller plan be enough for your household usage?
- Cost – what savings are worth it for you to switch?
- Provision of equipment – will they provide the latest modem router to maximise your connection speed?
- Network performance – is uptime and speed important for your family?
- Customer service – is help at hand when you need it?
- Contract length – are you willing to lock in for two years, which is the most common contract length?
- Bundles – do you want to bundle with other telephony or streaming services?
- Ease of activation – do you need to make appointments for a technician to visit?
To compare broadband plans:
- Confirm your current monthly costs, plan details and monthly usage history
- Decide what criteria are important to you
- Speak to your current provider to see if they can improve your current deal
- Use comparison sites to shortlist providers based on your criteria
- Compare the providers for your key considerations
- Phone your preferred provider to confirm their offers and then switch.
LIFE ADMIN HIGHS OF THE WEEK
- Mia talks about how she has moved from Microsoft Outlook to Google Calendar for her household’s shared calendar, which has fixed synchronization challenges and provided a seamless experience across iOs and PC devices.
- Dinah talks about how she has added her To Do List app (Wunderlist) and shared family Google Calendar to her daughter’s phone, which has allowed some more delegation.
LIFE ADMIN LOW OF THE WEEK
- Mia talks about how her son’s passport has expired and that she procrastinating about renewing it.
- Dinah talks about the fact that the Google Photos app does not work effectively for sharing photos and she needs to research an alternative app.
POWER TOOL
- WhatsApp – great for group chats and voice messages. Also you can use Siri to send a WhatsApp for you when you need to be hands free, such as in the car.
RESOURCES
Choice Magazine – consumer advocacy group that surveys members to publish independent reviews and ratings. Free online access may be available through your local library.
Canstar Blue – broadband comparison site, whose annual survey of providers is supported by referrals to advertisers
Whistleout – broadband comparison site, with paid referrals to advertisers
SHARE
Please head to the Life Admin Life Hacks Facebook page to connect with listeners and share your thoughts, questions or suggestions.
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Introduction to Life Admin Life Hacks Podcast
00:00:30
Speaker
This is Life Admin Life Hacks, a podcast that gives you techniques, tips and tools to tackle your life admin more efficiently, to save your time, your money and improve your household harmony. I'm Dinah Roe Roberts, a commercial and finance executive.
00:00:46
Speaker
and I'm Mia Northrop, a user experience designer, researcher and writer.
Why Review Internet Service Plans?
00:01:09
Speaker
Following on from our last app on health insurance, today we're going to talk about another area where our listeners have told us they feel like they could be getting a better deal, internet service providers. Now, again, for our overseas listeners, there will be some relevant content, but we will have quite a bit of content here that's about Australian internet service providers. So Mia, why did we choose to look at internet service providers next?
00:01:32
Speaker
Well, 27% of survey respondents thought they were possibly wasting money on their broadband plans. And for the 21% of you who feel like it's pretty much sorted, if you're paying over $60 a month for internet or are ever using up your monthly quota of data, you really need to switch.
00:01:50
Speaker
I tell you what, there are over 35 internet service providers in Australia. It's a very competitive market and there are always active promotions in the market. And also you have to consider the technology changes that have happened in the last couple of years.
00:02:05
Speaker
So in Australia, the National Broadband Network has been rolling out, which in theory is supposed to give you much faster internet. There are the cable and ADSL. Why was that so funny? You can just laugh at the National Broadband Network. It was very funny. Yeah, well, you know, it's taken a long time to roll out. This has been a
00:02:30
Speaker
a promise from various governments for a long time. They chose what some experts believe was an inferior technology to roll out across the country. It's taking forever. And then some people who have it are pretty non-plus by it. Some of them wish they
00:02:47
Speaker
hadn't changed and some of them are paying a bit more and not really noticing any lightning fast
Adapting to Modern Digital Needs
00:02:53
Speaker
speed. So that's why I was chuckling. We don't have it yet in that area. It'll come in 2020 apparently. Wow, still got some time to wait. Yeah, they probably invented new internet by then.
00:03:05
Speaker
Yeah, so technology has changed. A lot of people will still be on cable or ADSL2+. Modem upgrades have changed. We still have a separate modem and Wi-Fi router, but they come in all in one little boxes now.
00:03:21
Speaker
And then I don't know about you, Diana, but we've seen our personal usage change a lot in the last couple of years. You know, we used to just have our laptops connected to Wi-Fi. Now we've got tablets, e-readers, smart TVs, smart watches, the gaming console. We've got one of those Google Home thingies. You know, other people out there have those fridges that are connected to the internet. They might have an Amazon Echo or Alexa or smart speakers.
00:03:50
Speaker
There's a lot that's actually using up your data these days. And as we went through this exercise, I really was surprised by how much data we're using. And I think that things have dramatically changed for us over the last couple of years with both Netflix and YouTube and also just with the age of my children getting into online gaming.
00:04:10
Speaker
And I think that a couple of years ago, it really wasn't an issue. We really didn't use it except for work and a little bit of, you know, surfing for the internet. But now, you know, our life kind of feels like it depends on the Wi-Fi. When it goes down, everyone's upset. It feels like they can't go on. We have to talk to each other and read books and stuff. I know. Imagine. You can't read books because you're Kindle. You can't download anything. That's right. That's right.
00:04:36
Speaker
Yeah. So obviously you might want to save money. You might want to have faster speeds and get better value. It is an area where the plans have changed a lot over the last couple of years. And so it is one of those, if you've just kind of become a bit complacent, you're probably getting ripped off. Yeah.
Resolving Internet Throttling Issues
00:04:54
Speaker
And I, what prompted this is that this month is still February. We're recording this in February. I got through a throttled mid-month due to hitting our data allowance limit.
00:05:05
Speaker
throttling is when suddenly the internet goes super slow and the internet service providers call this shaping. So on some plans, if you hit your data limit, you don't pay extra for more data. They just make your internet really slow and it is so slow. It's like dial up. It's like not worth using. So my plan, I, I'm out of contract. I've been with the same provider for a long time, but I probably upgraded our data limit, I don't know, several years ago.
00:05:35
Speaker
But I was on a 120 gig broadband plan. I was on what's called a naked plan, which is just internet, no phone line, because we don't use our landline phone. And that 120 gig plan had a 50 gig peak limit. So I could use it between 12 PM and 12 PM and enjoy 50 gigs there. And the other 70 gigs was from 12 AM to 12 in the morning.
00:06:03
Speaker
And once you hit the 50 gig limit, it goes slow. And we only use about 80 gig a month, but more and more, we were bumping into that data limit and getting this slow internet.
00:06:16
Speaker
And so could you not watch TV or anything when you hit that and what would happen? Yeah, so when that happens, yeah, like the smart TV, Netflix, Stan, YouTube, they're like, nah, not even, can't even get the juice happening. If we're using our phones or our laptops, it would just go really slow and the iPads just kind of clapped out entirely. Often if that happens and it's like near the end of the month, we like just deal with it for a couple of days. But this happened in the middle of the month.
00:06:44
Speaker
And the more I thought about it, I thought, you know, already got 120 gig plan, which these days is ridiculously low. And I tell you what happened. I did a live chat with Optus to say, look, we've hit our limit. I think I need to buy a data pack just to tie us over for the rest of the month. And the live chat person just unthrottled our account. And I was very suspicious. I said, so do I have to pay extra? No.
00:07:12
Speaker
Is this going to last till the end of the month? No. That's when you know they're actually. Exactly. They're just giving it to me for free. Something weird's happening. And then when I got online and checked, I'm like, oh my God, we are paying way too much for nothing. Yeah. You know, I recognize that we needed a higher data allowance.
00:07:34
Speaker
faster connection speed would be a bonus for us and you know getting some text notifications when we're approaching our limit I mean they all pretty much provide that but setting that up would be good. So how did you go about you know deciding how you were going to choose what your principles that you used? From the outset this process is a lot easier than say changing health insurance it's a lot less complex because
00:08:00
Speaker
When you go to the websites of the different internet service providers, the first thing you do is put in your address and they will tell you what service they can deliver to your house. So it's a lot fewer to choose from. But I did want to sort of, you know, because there are 35 providers, I did want to narrow it down.
Choosing the Right Internet Service Provider
00:08:20
Speaker
And I looked at Choice magazine. They have annual surveys and reports where they look at all the different ISPs against different criteria.
00:08:30
Speaker
and make a recommendation. And I also looked at Canstar Blue. Canstar Blue offers a similar service where they compare all the different ISPs and share their criteria for decision making. They earn their money by getting referrals. So if you click through from the Canstar Blue website to their website, they make a bit of money. Choice makes their money by having subscribers.
00:08:55
Speaker
and they compare their internet plans by surveying all the subscribers and then getting feedback on their own tests. And are you still able to access that Choice magazine through the library or are you subscribing to it, Megan? They're online through your library. So if you log onto your library's website, you can access all of the Choice magazines and all their reports for free.
00:09:17
Speaker
You need to decide what's important to you before you think about how you're going to decide which providers you might want to look at in a bit more detail. We've talked a bit about network performance, but I do think that for some people that's really important in terms of both the uptime and the speed. Some of the speed is affected by your proximity to the exchange, so there's not much you can do about it.
00:09:44
Speaker
but it can also be affected by your equipment. And some providers give you a modem as part of the switch to their network. So I do think that you need to decide whether that's going to be something you look for before you decide which provider. You probably also want to consider customer service. So a lot of those comparator sites that you mentioned before, like Canstar and Choice,
00:10:08
Speaker
do have some data based on consumer feedback about customer service. And you also do need to think about the contract and whether things might change for you in terms of using more or less. And so therefore you might not want to lock yourself in. You might want to go from month to month plan and pay a little bit more rather than locking yourself into a contract or whether things are probably going to stay pretty much the same. So you're really happy to stick with something for 12 months. So locking into a contract is no big deal for you.
00:10:39
Speaker
Most of the contracts are two years. It's either month to month or two years. That seems to be the only variables there. And then I do think you need to decide how important money is to you. Do you want to go through the hassle of switching if you're only going to save $5 a month? For some people, that's a definite year. They definitely want that $60 a year. But for others, their time is not worth it. So they might have a quick look, realize that actually the deal they're getting is not too bad, and decide it's not worth investing any more time.
00:11:09
Speaker
Yeah, ease of activation is a good criteria. Sometimes it takes weeks for them to provision the new
00:11:16
Speaker
service and for the modem to come and if you don't want to be waiting weeks. And as you say with the customer service, when things go wrong with the internet, you want to be talking to somebody immediately and have it fixed very quickly because life does come to its test. And I do know that that's a big reason why a lot of people have left Telstra is that the quality of customer services has been problematic.
00:11:40
Speaker
Yeah, okay, so a few decisions to make around what kind of speed you might need, whether you want to go for a two-year contract or a month to month, whether the new internet service provider is going to chuck in a new Wi-Fi modem, if there's any kind of activation fee.
00:11:57
Speaker
I did consider whether I'd keep my old modem, but then I looked at it and the manufacturing date was like 2008. And I thought, oh, I think technology's probably moved on since then. But if you have a more current modem, you might just want to check that it's not locked into your current provider.
00:12:16
Speaker
that it's actually capable of connection speeds that you might be moving to, and that it's compatible with any add-on products you might get, like if you get a set top box like Fetch or something. But most of them seem to be providing you new modems as part of a contract lease, or you can pay a minimal amount for a new one.
00:12:35
Speaker
You also need to think about whether
Switching to Internode for Better Service
00:12:37
Speaker
you want a kind of a bundled approach. So I guess that is my current situation is that my Internet is bundled with my mobile phones. And for us, that's also kind of integrated with the Internet security that we've put in place. If you've got that, you kind of it's harder to think about the Internet just on its own.
00:12:58
Speaker
you really need to consider all of those things at one time to understand whether in the round you're better off switching or not. I think that it's a much easier decision to switch when you've only got your internet on its own. Definitely.
00:13:12
Speaker
And bundles, I don't know, the convenience of a bundle, you'd hope you'd be getting a pretty good discount, but it's probably worthwhile researching them separately and then understanding if you do bundle, what are you actually saving? Often the providers give you that bundled discount at the beginning because they know that it makes it harder for you to switch. You become a much stickier customer once you've got more than one service with a provider. It's worth really questioning whether the saving is worth it because it does make it much more complicated to switch.
00:13:43
Speaker
Yeah, I agree. Okay. So shall I walk you through the process I went through? Yeah, that'd be great. Let's hear it. As I said before, I was with Optus. I feel like people are going to laugh at me if I tell them how much I was paying for my crappy internet. I was paying $67 a month for like using about a hundred gig. And as I mentioned, there was the peak off peak thing going on, which was annoying. So I called Optus. I always like to call my current provider first. And because as you said, switching can be a pain if they can just
00:14:12
Speaker
give me a better deal, then half the time I'm going to be happy. In order to compare, you really do need to understand your current usage and your costs. I think that has to be the first step in any of these comparisons. That's right. So I did want to confirm my usage history and whether I was hovering around that hundred gig each month and what were my maximum, you know, how much was I maxing out on data each month. So they confirmed that, yeah, it was a hundred gig a month that I was using and I was on an old product that's not currently offered in the market.
00:14:42
Speaker
There was only cable available to me and there was only one product that they could offer to me as a current customer. And this is also another thing we're starting to bump up against as we do these comparison shopping exercises. Often organizations, you know, they have these great promotions out in the market for new customers, but current customers can get a bit of a raw deal. Another reason to shop around regularly. So they only had one naked broadband plan that could
00:15:10
Speaker
be eligible that I was eligible for. If I wanted to go to a bundled plan with a phone line, it would actually cost less, but it wasn't actually available to me as a current customer.
00:15:22
Speaker
And they wanted me to move to an unlimited plan. That was the only thing that I had and it cost me $80 a month. But I just feel like an unlimited plan is complete overkill for me, given that we're using about a hundred gig and, you know, there's no console gaming going on. We're not about to change our usage habits anytime soon. So I didn't want to pay for something that I really wasn't going to use. So that chat was short. That was all over in about five minutes. It's frustrating when they won't offer you the same deals as new customers, isn't it?
00:15:52
Speaker
I know it's, I know there's obviously business reasons, but it seems very short-sighted. I've been with Optus for, I don't know, since like 2009, 2010. So they're losing a long-term customer.
00:16:06
Speaker
Then I research into Node and IINet and I chose those two because both Canstar Blue and Choice and WhistleOut, which is another ISP comparison site, which is also commercial. They make their money via referrals. They all listed those providers in the top three and they get great feedback in terms of customer service and network performance.
00:16:32
Speaker
So I jumped online at Internode. Again, once you put in your address, they say this is the kind of plan that you're eligible for. I could get a $60 a month plan for 500 gigs without a phone line. Five times as much and save $7 a month.
00:16:49
Speaker
Yes. Right. Thank you. You know, this is literally 10 minutes work. They also ship you out a free modem router, which was going to replace my superseded modem. And this modem would also be NBN ready. So when NBN does come to my area, I can use the same technology. There's no peak or off peak restrictions. I did have to sign up to a contract for two years, but I'm happy because, you know, we're not going anywhere. And if I am, I can switch it to the new address.
00:17:19
Speaker
So yeah, I'm saving $84 a year for five times as much data and a potentially faster connection. I also looked at iInet. They had an ADSL2 plus plan available, the same as Internode, but it was going to be more expensive than both of the other options. 70 bucks a month for around a hundred gig and they would send me a new modem, but it wouldn't be NBN ready. It was pretty.
00:17:45
Speaker
evident who I should go with. I called up into node, double checked, but I interpreted all the information correctly and gave them my credit card and then initiate the switch and the whole exercise took about an hour. And I'm hoping you also signed up for direct debits and online billing, Mia.
00:18:04
Speaker
Yes, I did, Diana, but I haven't got one piece of paper. I've got a couple of text messages and an email. Everything is going to my admin email address. My husband has noticed it. Uh, it's yeah, I have to be here for the actual provisioning. So when they come in and I don't know what they do, flick a switch probably, but apart from that, it's been seamless and easy. How about
Evaluating Telstra's Bundled System
00:18:27
Speaker
you, Diane? What have you, what are your investigations reveal?
00:18:29
Speaker
Mine's a little bit more complicated because we have this bundled system. But I did think, okay, well, first of all, I just want to understand my current usage and costs because you had mentioned really if I was paying more than $60 a month, I was paying too much.
00:18:44
Speaker
But the first thing that I uncovered was we're not using 80 gigabytes a month. We're using like 300 or 400 gigabytes a month. So I think that's probably my kids who are a bit older than yours. And so the online gaming, I suspect.
00:19:00
Speaker
is probably a big user of that, but also the fact that they don't watch the same TV. So if they're watching, they're both watching on different televisions, both streaming. We have a Telstra bundle that's $90 a month for an unlimited plan. And I could access all of that information about my historical usage and how much I was paying both on the Telstra app, which I had on my phone, but also by quickly looking in the Google Drive where I save all my Telstra
00:19:28
Speaker
phone bills. I did quickly do a quick online chat with Telstra to see other options there might be. But the cheaper plan, which is $70 a month, is a bit like the Optus one you had, which is only 100 gigabytes. So, yeah, that wouldn't be enough for our families. I did kind of try and test whether they'd be willing to just offer me a discount because I was shopping around and they certainly weren't like up for it. So I really, they just like know those are the plans.
00:19:58
Speaker
Yeah, nothing to talk about here.
00:20:03
Speaker
I know that I get a bundled discount on the mobile phones because we have the two mobile phones with Telstra bundled with the internet. At the moment, because I've got the internet sort of parental controls set up through a really basic parental controls, but they sort of come ready with the Telstra internet service. I really need to do some more complicated analysis that takes into account the mobile phones, the internet service providers and the internet security.
00:20:29
Speaker
I'm definitely keen to look at it because my daughter's just got a mobile phone and I've put her on a pay as you go plan, but I really think I'm going to put her on a monthly plan. So I'm going to have three phones plus the internet service provider, but I know it's going to take more than an hour to look at. So I want to sort of wait till I've got the time that I can look at all of them at once and also make sure I'm looking at that internet security in a bit more detail. So definitely will do that over the coming months.
00:20:57
Speaker
It does kind of feel like I've got you by the balls. It does. And I guess it's making me think. In terms of obstacles to prevent you from switching, it's that much harder. Yeah. So all of those things, they're doing those deliberately to make customers more sticky. So good work, I guess, on that front. But it's not going to stop me. It just needs to come in a week where I've got a bit more time to dedicate to the process. Okay.
When to Switch Internet Providers
00:21:24
Speaker
So perhaps we'll do a further episode where we go into mobile plans and Diana, you can tell us about your whatever bundle or non-unbundling you move to. Yeah, definitely. And I think maybe another episode we could also look at internet security because I know there's more and more products out on the market that are trying to help families navigate this. And I do think that there's lots of different options. So I'd love to look at that in a bit more detail too.
00:21:52
Speaker
Yeah, great idea. At the moment, we've only had to deal with it on the iPads and I followed some blog to shut down this, that and the other. But as the kids move into computers and, you know, smartphone territory and
00:22:07
Speaker
online gaming, yeah, it feels more and more confusing to know what to do to handle it all. And I think that as they get older, the other thing is not only do they want to access more, but they have more freedom. Like often you start to leave them at home on their own, whereas when they're younger, even if you haven't put all the controls in place, you're kind of present. Whereas once you're not there, who knows what they're getting up to. So I definitely want to do a lot more research on that over the coming months.
00:22:38
Speaker
Okay. So when is a good time to switch? Pretty much any time. It's not seasonal with internet service providers and their broadband plans. I know when an NBN first rolled out, there was a lot of promotion about, you know, we've got an NBN now, come and change your plan.
00:22:55
Speaker
But really, any time is a good time to switch. If NBN has recently arrived in your area, then that might be a trigger for you. But yeah, as I said earlier, if you feel like you're hitting your data limit or you're paying over $60 a month and you're not using more than 500 gigs a month, you might want to reconsider.
00:23:16
Speaker
When your contract finishes is another really good time. So if you do roll over a two-year contract, it's a great time to reconsider. And the other one is when NBN did come to our area, there were lots of deals available. So I think that the providers all know that people will be switching. So usually you can take advantage of a special at that time to switch. Yeah, we've got stuff in the mailbox.
00:23:40
Speaker
Yep. Yep. So Mia, are we going to have some live admin hires
Transitioning to Google Calendar
00:23:45
Speaker
of the week? We do.
00:23:47
Speaker
I moved to Google Calendar. Goodbye Outlook. The Outlook integration between the PC and the Mac and my husband's work accounts and the home accounts was problematic. The syncing kept on failing essentially, which defeated the whole purpose. So we know both of us would add things individually, but we couldn't see each other's events. So we have moved to Google. It has been flawless, seamless.
00:24:13
Speaker
I have it on my phone, I've got it on my laptop, it integrates with the calendar on the Mac beautifully. I just, you know, I love that Google provides the answers to everything after time, but come on everyone else, lift your game. Anyway, so that's been real high because now it's humming better than ever and we've put all sorts of recurring fun events, aspirational events, all that inspirational, inevitable stuff that's all in there.
00:24:41
Speaker
And I feel super organized, especially now that I've got it on my computer properly, because it gives me that week view or that month view with the detail of what the actual event is. So it is really replicating the paper calendar, which is what I was freaking out about before moving to digital. Now I'm not freaking out at all. Good one. Not about that anyway. Good one.
00:25:04
Speaker
How about you?
Using Wunderlist for Family Scheduling
00:25:05
Speaker
Well, as I mentioned before, my daughter actually just got her first mobile phone and I set her up and, you know, she was mostly using it to message emojis to her friends. And suddenly I realized that actually this is what happens in year seven. She just moved to high school. Yeah. So just about to go to high school. So getting ready. So getting your phone ready. And but I just realized after watching the mindless messaging of emojis that
00:25:32
Speaker
I could use the phone for good. So I added the Wunderlist app and the Google calendar to her phone. So now I've sort of experiencing that joy of delegation and she's actually the dream. So she's starting to organize her own social life. So no longer do I have to text.
00:25:55
Speaker
you know, mothers to organize things so she can look in the calendar and see whether it's going to be possible or not. Suggest some dates to her friends. And then all they really need to do is we need to come in at the end to organize the picking up and dropping off. So that's really good. And I've also been giving her little jobs to do and adding them to her wonder list. And she's actually been doing them as really good and then she crosses them off. So reminding her she has to change her sheets once a week. And so putting that in there. Oh my God.
00:26:24
Speaker
Changing your own sheets. So those sorts of things, it just means that it's a really good reminder rather than me feeling like I have to nag her. So it's right there. I just feel like I'm winning. Brilliant. Oh my God, changing their own sheets. It's awesome. It's just their own laundry too. It's just the little things. Yes, it is. It just takes the edge off, doesn't it? So Mia, did you have a life admin loan?
00:26:53
Speaker
Life had been low, my son's passport has expired, and I'm not mentally ready to even go there, do I not? Is it just because it makes him feel too old, or why don't you want to go there? Oh no. I just, getting the photos, getting the form, getting the photos signed by people, sticking it together. I just, it's got three too many steps for me.
00:27:20
Speaker
but I will go there. I just have it in my calendar that it's expired and I have to deal with it. That's low. That's low enough. How about you?
00:27:34
Speaker
I think I mentioned actually in the digital photos episode that I was trying out Google Photos, and you just talked about how Google Calendar works so beautifully.
Finding Better Photo-Sharing Solutions
00:27:44
Speaker
Can I just tell you, Google Photos does not work. So I had thought that when you set it up and sort of intuitively what it looks like is you can share albums. So this was my idea was that my husband and I were going to share albums and we could both add photos to it. But the sharing thing just does not work.
00:28:04
Speaker
I've tried and troubleshooted. Some photos appear and some others don't appear. So the photos I shared with my husband appear on his phone, but I can't see the photos he added to the album. So I'm back to planning and I did a bit of research online because I hadn't actually researched before I downloaded it. I just had assumed that since Google had a photo app, it would be a good one. But in fact, it is not a good one.
00:28:31
Speaker
I need to do some research. I need a better app for photo sharing. And a few people have told me that I should use Apple native eye photo kind of apps are much better for photo sharing. So I need to look into that. OK, let us know how you go.
Enhancing Communication with WhatsApp
00:28:48
Speaker
We'll do a little power tool review this week. And my power tool isn't particularly new, but I'm just appreciating it on a whole new level. And that is WhatsApp.
00:29:00
Speaker
When someone suggested that I get it, I was initially annoyed to have another messaging app to deal with.
00:29:06
Speaker
So many of my friends are on it. And I kind of moved away from Facebook and Messenger anyway. But the functionality has won me over completely. I love the fact that you can create these short-term and long-term groups. I've got different groups for friends and my daughter's netball team and family and going away with some girlfriends. And we've created a group for that so we can fling details back and forward. So I'm loving that. And I'm loving leaving voice messages for people.
00:29:35
Speaker
And I'm in the habit now with a friend in Israel, another one in New Zealand, where we like to talk to each other, but the time zone sometimes doesn't work for us. So we leave these massive like 10 minute voicemail messages for each other. So nice to hear their voice instead of getting essay long text messages or emails. And we kind of joke that we've got our own personal podcasts going on where we just
00:30:02
Speaker
you know, have stream of consciousness conversations to us, you know, to ourselves, this monologue. But yeah, it's incredibly useful functionality. And what I also like is Siri on the iPhone will send a WhatsApp text message for you. So if I'm on the car or I just say, hey Siri, can you send a message to? She's trying to talk to me now. As you were, as you were.
00:30:31
Speaker
Yeah, so responsive, very useful. One of my children's classes is using WhatsApp to like send class updates. And it's so much better than email because you can easily find the trail of it. Whereas otherwise you'd like pouring through email trying to find it. I really am enjoying WhatsApp for that as well.
00:30:50
Speaker
That wraps us up for today. Remember, first look at your current internet service provider to understand your plan and its cost. Decide what's important to you before you even start to compare and agree how much time you're willing to dedicate to the process. Pick how many you're going to compare and then jump online, call up and make a switch. You could save money and improve the quality of your internet at home.
00:31:15
Speaker
If you'd like to join us on our life admin journey, please head to our Facebook page, life admin life hacks to follow us and share your thoughts on what we're doing and feel free to post any comments or certainly post suggestions that we might be able to use. We hope to see you there. Thanks for listening. Show notes for this episode are available at life admin life hacks dot com. If you're a fan, please subscribe and share the love and tell a friend or review us in your podcasting app.
00:31:48
Speaker
Algunos escuchamos música tropica. Elexus, toca música tropica. Otros, preferrimos música roc? No. Elexus, toca roc Latino. Pero, con un te atre vez a cambiar de ritmo? Elexus, toca música tropica. Tocadino. Oye, esto taueno. ¡Vas siempre un paso de lante. El completa mente nuevo y redicenado Lexus RX. Vive lo exa ordirario en tu concesionario Lexus. Dramatización confiños en retanimento.