Tonight, I did some smart phone shopping with my husband. We were down to two carriers, though I will not mention names. I wanted to see the comparison of paying for a device upfront with a lower monthly bill- and a subsidized phone and a limited data plan. (Yes, some of you may be able to figure out the contenders.)
My husband opened up trusty Excel. In the first cell, he put the price of the phone (one column full price, the other subsidized.) Then, we played around with different data plans. The information was fun to watch adjust. At the highest dependable data plan, the two would equal out after two years with both phones. At that point, I was ready to go with the subsided phone and not have to put down money at this time. Yet, we played with the prices a bit. With a lower data plan, the two equaled out after a year. With a higher power phone, months were added before the two evened out.
This post, though, isn’t about the cell phone. It’s about the ease of formulas in Excel to adjust the different variables to see how the two companies compared. While I may have been very vague in this post, I am thankful for the computation power in a few Excel cells.