Deals with out loosing UDP

Until they shut foxfi off. Which happened for me...so i pay em.30$ for unlimited wifi hotspot....you might think of doing that..foxfi stopped on my Samsung edge....

So if you now pay vzw 30$ plus tax (according to your state, mine is confusion) you will have unlimited wifi hotspot capabilities.. They can't complain until you get reach a terabyte...

 

To add to what these guys have said, it may benefit you to keep your plan exactly the same, but add the unlimited tethering like @94lt1 said. That'll cost you more a month initially, but like @sajokaz said, it's likely a good idea for you to put everyone else on the new VZW plans with unlimited talk and text and a shared pool of data. They're running a deal right now where if you go with their XL or XXL data plans, you get 2GB of free data per month, so if you're going to have 3-4 folks on that plan, that might help you.

A big thing to keep in mind, if you're trying your hardest to save money and keep everyone happy is how much data your husband and kids do/will use. You can go with a smaller data plan to start and increase it as you see fit. Obviously, you're not going to know right away how much data anyone that currently doesn't have smartphone might actually use, so the first month or so is a guessing game.

Another thing to keep in mind is wifi. I use about 4-5GB/mo of mobile data, but I use over 20GB/mo on my home wifi network with my phone. If you can get the husband and kids to use wifi while at home, it'll save on mobile data immensely. And, if you go with the extra $30/mo to get the unlimited mobile hotspot on your line, they can continue to do that through your phone when the home internet doesn't cut it for you. (Just be careful and make sure you know if there's a data cap on your home internet.)

So, to sum all of that up, without knowing more specifics, if it were me in your shoes, I'd keep my unlimited plan the way it is and add the unlimited tethering option. I'd then get the rest of the family on the new VZW plans with a shared pool of data. I'd then monitor their usage for a few month and adjust the amount of data they get each month as needed.

While monitoring that, be sure to set up alerts and/or set each phone to shut mobile data off once they've reached a cap. This can be done in the usage screen. You can set it to alert them when they reach a certain amount, then turn mobile data off when they reach another amount. You can also setup your VZW account so that you receive texts or emails when certain percentages of the allotted data have been used.

Hope that's not too confusing. Feel free to ask questions to clarify!

 

Yet another thing to keep in mind is also..the availability to get a good home WiFi connection. Like down here where I am..time warner sucks, Hughes sucks...at&t also is terrible..buy most people have more options than those few...

If I could get a good WiFi provider.. I'd drop my UDP in a heart beat..except for those times in road trips..

 

That's my understanding as well. Since they're separate plans, they'd technically be separate accounts, but you could get the same billing date if you wanted, or split them up so you've only got one a paycheck.

IDK if they'd send the bills in the same envelope, even if you have all the same info on the account and same billing date.

But, that's the only way to keep the unlimited and shuffle the others to the cheaper plan that I'm aware of. Otherwise, like you illustrated, they're going to be paying more, probably for less data.