With every passing year, smartphones become smarter and more prevalent, leading to increased data usage. While many cell phone companies promote expensive unlimited data plans, most individuals don't consume enough data to justify the extra cost.
A few years back, the average American consumed 5.1GB of mobile data monthly, a figure that has risen due to the surge in streaming and video content. However, the majority of people typically require only about 10 to 20GB cellular data per month – as other downloads are done over wi-fi.
To determine your data needs, monitor your usage over several months via your carrier's online account. If you have a family plan, do this for all users, as some plans aggregate data usage, while others track it per phone line. If your usage is less than 10GB per line on average, you might be able to find a more suitable deal.
If you frequently stream content at high resolutions using your data plan, you may need an unlimited plan, as streaming applications are heavy data consumers. But if your data usage only slightly exceeds the limit of your carrier's next best plan, you can potentially reduce this by turning off background app refresh, setting lesser-used apps to wi-fi only, and using default viewing and listening quality to save data.