You see the cell phone plan deals and minutes offered in advertisements. Whether it may be television, newspaper, magazines, or radio we all by now have seen the minutes offered with family plans and so forth.

Of the most popular plans, the 1,000 minute plan is the most consumed by Americans today. It may seem like a lot of minutes however the reality is these minutes can easily be drained and cost you more in the long run.

Who and how many people on your plan are important to your decision on buying a plan. Do you have teenagers that will be using your minutes? Do you have a spouse who like to talk a lot? How often do you make calls?

A somewhat simple way to calculate how many minutes you are going to need or may be lacking is to basically make some rough estimates of all possible user’s monthly usage by rounding off into hours. Yes, hours not minutes.

In an Example:

Robert (Husband) 4 Hours

Jenny (Wife) 3 Hours

Chelsea (17 Years Old) 5 Hours

Issac (15 Years Old) 4 Hours

FAMILY TOTAL USAGE: 16 Hours

Now with this rough estimate of hour usage, which may be conservative, you just now need to convert them into minutes. All you have to do after you have you hour usage estimated is multiply your total monthly usage by 60:

16 hours x 60 = 960 Cellular minutes

After estimating 16 hours of total usage for the family, a fairly low figure, we were able to see exactly how many minutes there were to be used in total. This total in this case was 960 wireless minutes.

Luckily in this family scenario, the 1,000 minutes plan actually works out. Of course, the family may not stick to this calling pattern and it can spell disaster when trying to control family finances. Some plans can expect .45 cents per minute for any additional overtime which can add up and drain a family bank account in no time. Never underestimate the usage your family will use or you may pay for it later.

Just as in the same manner you can multiply the hours by 60 to get your amount of cell phone minutes, you can also divide cell phone minutes by 60 to get your average of hours as well. It is advisable to do this when browsing cell phone minutes to get a better idea of the hours that will be available monthly.

I have added some popular plans converted into hours for some easier deciphering. 3,000 Minutes/50 Hours 1,500 Minutes/25 Hours 1,000 Minutes/16.5 Hours 600 Minutes/10 Hours 300 Minutes/5 Hours