Surge of young Aussies clinging to family phone plans to survive cost crunch

As Aussies make urgent switches to make EOFY savings, Ella Le Pat has revealed how she’s saving hundreds of dollars on her phone bill.

Cost-crunched young Australians are saving more than $500 a year on their phone bills by pooling with their parents on plans.

Cost-crunched young Australians are saving more than $500 a year on their phone bills by pooling with their parents on plans.

The ‘bank of mum and dad’ is helping finance at least 1.2 million children aged between 18 and 30 – long after some of them have moved out of home.

But the new data, by phone carrier Vodafone, found the vast majority of parents (68 per cent) were happy paying their kids’ phone bills, as they completed their studies and tried to get a foothold in the housing market.

Other major telcos – Telstra and Optus – observed a similar trend, with a jump in the take-up of household phone plans.

The Vodafone study found families on joint plans were racking up cumulative annual savings of $600 million.

New data by Vodafone found the vast majority of parents were happy paying their kids’ phone bills, as they completed their studies and tried to get a foothold in the housing market. Picture: NewsWire/David Mariuz

“With Vodafone, families can reduce their monthly phone bill by as much as 20 per cent by bundling their phone plans together,” Vodafone head of external communications Mitchell Bingemann said.

One in 10 respondents said their parents had not even realised they were still on the family plan, despite 40 per cent being members for longer than five years.

Vodafone head of external communications Mitchell Bingemann. Picture: Renee Nowytarger

“Young Australians are savvy when it comes to finding good deals that help with the cost of living … this is a huge saving for many people including students and part-time workers,” Mr Bingemann said.

Telstra has seen a 10 per cent year-on-year jump in families opting for bundle plans.

“We’ve seen continued growth of interest in our Mobile Bundle Plan offering,” a Telstra spokesperson said.

“It’s a great way to provide more value to families, where they can share data, access greater rewards via Telstra Plus and have the convenience of all services being on one account.”

Optus customers have also increasingly remained on family and bundle plans as a result of difficult economic times.

“We’ve seen a growing trend of customers consolidating services to maximise value, including young people choosing to stay on family phone plans to save,” an Optus spokesperson said.

“By bundling services, families can simplify their plans and unlock more savings compared to taking out individual services separately.”

Ella Le Pat, 21, has stayed on her parent's phone plan to cope with rising costs – saving nearly $700 a year in the process.

Part-time university student Ella Le Pat, who works two jobs in health care to make ends meet, has been on her family’s phone plan for more than a decade.

“It saves me money, it’s easy and, yeah, just saves money,” she said.

Ms Le Pat saves around $684 per year, spending the savings on “petrol for the car, groceries, just making dinner for the family … and going out and meeting up with my friends”.

Ms Le Pat also uses the savings to cover the cost of her asthma medication.

“It comes with getting older, but there’s definitely more things that I have to pay for. And I’d say I probably don’t save as much as I used to …. the amount I put in my savings every payday is definitely going down,” she said.

She said her friends were all searching for ways to save.

“The amount of times in the group chat that we try to make plans and there’s one person or like a few people being like, oh, I’m broke this week … like I can’t come or can we go somewhere else that’s a little bit cheaper?

“It’s definitely an occurrence.”

Originally published as Surge of young Aussies clinging to family phone plans to survive cost crunch