Yesterday we progressed a step in our relationship and our commitment to each other. Since we live an hour apart, I in St. Cloud and Jess in Golden Valley, phone calls are the long-distance type. Until now, we had been doing the best we could to get around paying too much to call each other. I had a cell phone that gave me 120 minutes per month during the day and 1000 on the weekends and after 8:00 p.m. during the week. Jessica was on a plan that gave her 600 minutes during the day and unlimited talk time on weekends and after 9:00 p.m. With only 120 minutes per month during the day, I would rarely use my cell phone just to talk. Once we used up most of Jessica’s 600 minutes, we’d talk to each other on prepaid phone cards if we talked before 8:00, when I would call her. After 9:00 we’d play the phone-call shuffle and she would call me.
On June 11th, after pondering a move since November, I dropped AT&T as my provider and moved to T-Mobile. This put me on the same plan Jessica has had all along. It gave me more time to use to call her, but in two weeks, we found that we were still using our time up quickly. Yesterday we made a move that will forever change our communication methods. She moved her cell plan to my account, and we signed up for a family plan, where we will have both cell phones on the same account, share our minutes and our bill, and be able to talk to each other via cell with unlimited minutes to each other.
We see it as a big step. Not quite Phase 3 (engagement), but more committed than Phase 2 (Dating). We are locked into our plan for a year, getting out could be expensive. However, we’ll be able to talk to each other whenever we want, for as long as we want, without worrying about either of our phone bills going way up.