How We Cut Our Phone Bill by 8,000 Yen a Month and Put the Savings into the New NISA

Good morning. It’s まさきん.

I’ll start with the bottom line. We’re a family of six, but only four of us have phone lines.

We cut the bill for those four lines by 8,000 yen a month. Then I set things up so the difference goes straight into our New NISA monthly investment. That alone made me a lot less anxious about our household finances.

Today I’ll explain why I decided to review our phone costs. I’ll also share how we’re putting the money we freed up toward building wealth.

Our Household Budget Worries Before Switching

I work as a digital marketer at the Rakuten Group. I’m a salaried employee in my early 40s. My wife works too, so we’re a dual-income household. We have four kids, which makes us a family of six.

Our two oldest are in elementary school and have their own smartphones. The younger ones haven’t started school yet, so they don’t have phones.

As kids grow, education and food costs creep up little by little. My salary, though, hasn’t gone up as much as I’d hoped.

Then the New NISA launched. I decided it was time to start investing monthly for the future. But honestly, my real feeling was: “We don’t have room in the budget to invest every month.”

So the first thing I looked at was our phone bill. The reason was simple. Phone and data costs are a “fixed cost.” Review them once, and the savings keep coming.

Cutting back on food or social spending takes willpower every single time. With phone costs, all you have to do is change your contract. After that, the savings continue automatically.

I’ve always believed that “reviewing your fixed costs is the best investment strategy there is.” So I felt this was the place to start.

Back then, we were on a family discount plan with one of the big carriers. I went back through our monthly bills. To be honest, I’d never really thought hard about why we were paying so much.

We were on an unlimited data plan. But when I checked our actual usage, it was a different story. Nobody in the family was using anywhere near that much data.

How Much Our Phone Bill Went Down

So we took the plunge and switched to Rakuten Mobile. That meant four lines in total: the two adults with phone lines and our two older kids. We moved them all over together.

The table below compares how much cheaper it actually got. Keep in mind this is just our family’s case. The amounts may vary depending on your usage and plan details. Please treat it as one example.

Looking at the numbers alone, some of you might think, “That’s not as big a drop as I expected.” But for our family, it worked out to a cut of roughly 8,000 yen a month.

Our two kids use very little data, so their lines fit into a cheaper tier. That made a big difference.

We also took advantage of sign-up campaigns and point rewards. So in the first year, the real benefit was a bit bigger than that.

(Campaign details change over time. If you’re thinking about switching, please check the latest information yourself.)

Personally, I’m glad we switched. I’m sure some of you want to review your fixed costs too. If you’re curious, it might be worth trying a price simulation.

Where the Savings Go

This is the part I most want to get across. I didn’t let the money we saved just “drift away” into everyday spending. From the start, I built it into our New NISA monthly investment settings.

When people have money on hand, they tend to spend it on something else. So I acted right when our phone bill dropped. I raised the monthly investment amount in our brokerage account by exactly 8,000 yen.

Over a year, saving 8,000 yen a month comes to 96,000 yen. I planned to invest this through the New NISA Tsumitate (monthly investment) allowance. The target is an all-world stock index fund.

I ran a quick rough simulation.

*The figures above are a rough simulation assuming 3% annual compound returns. They do not guarantee future returns. Invest at your own risk.

Depending on the market, you could also lose part of your principal. Actual results can swing a lot with market conditions. Please don’t take these numbers at face value. Treat them as a rough guide only.

Seeing it in numbers like this made it feel real. 8,000 yen a month looks like a small amount at first glance. But with time on your side, it becomes something your household can’t ignore.

Of course, this is just an example of things going smoothly. There may be years when it drops, or years when it doesn’t grow at all. Even so, I think there’s real value in “putting money you’d never miss into an automatic system.”

How Reviewing Fixed Costs Helps Build Wealth

This experience reminded me of something. The most important thing in building wealth is “creating a system you can keep up.”

Working to increase your income matters too, of course. But as a working parent in a dual-income household, I only have so much time to spare.

Reviewing fixed costs, on the other hand, only takes one round of paperwork. After that, the savings keep going without any special effort.

On top of that, I set the difference to be “automatically invested in our brokerage account.” That way, I don’t have to rely on willpower. That’s another big plus.

Everyone has moments when their willpower runs low. But once you automate things, your wealth keeps growing without you having to push.

As a digital marketer, I’m used to automation through my work. I just brought the same mindset into our household budget.

Of course, there are plenty of other fixed costs besides phone bills you could review. Subscription services and insurance premiums are two examples.

Still, phone bills have a big impact for most households. And the switching process itself isn’t that difficult. So I think it’s an easy place to take the first step.

Summary

In this post, I shared how we cut our phone bill by 8,000 yen a month. We put that difference into our New NISA monthly investment.

The numbers are just from our family’s case. Every household has different usage and a different best-fit plan. They won’t apply to everyone as-is.

Even so, I hope the idea of “a system that moves your savings into investments without you even thinking about it” is useful.

Just to repeat: investing carries the risk of losing principal. If you start, please decide based on your own situation.

To begin, try going back through your household budget or your bills. Why not check whether your current phone costs really suit your family?

As for us, we chose Rakuten Mobile as our new carrier. We’re happy with both the pricing and how it works with Rakuten Points. It might be worth considering as an option when you review your plan.

If you’re curious, try a price simulation on the official website.

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