Too good to be true?

Last week, just on a whim, I decided to swing by the AT&T store and see how much it would cost me to switch over to the new iphone 4G. Now, you all will remember that it was not so long ago that I was super excited to buy my 3G iphone. And don't get me wrong, I love my phone. But I thought it couldn't hurt to ask and I wasn't really expecting much. Well, it turns out the worlds of Apple and AT&T are happy to encourage consumption, perhaps even over consumption. On 9/12, exactly 9 months after purchasing my last phone, I can get a discount on a newer fancier iphone - $200 bucks, an $18 upgrade fee, and renewing my two year contract will get me a new iphone 4G.

Hmmm.

Quickly I dismissed such grandiose notions. Who needs a new phone when you have a perfectly serviceable old phone that you love? That's just wasteful.

Then today, I started thinking ,what if someone wants to buy my old (new) phone and reuse it? Well, it turns out plenty of people would be happy to buy my old phone. First of all, let's talk details. When I bought my iphone I was very worried that I would drop and break it. I do that. So I bought a fancy case and a plastic screen cover jobby for the phone. So, even though I am not someone who takes care of possessions properly, my phone has been essentially shrink wrapped for 9 months. And is consequently in beautiful condition! In addition, I usually throw away packaging, BUT, the iphone box is so stinkin' cute, I kept it and all the paperwork. So, my phone is essentially new with all the wrapping.

And that means that not only do people want to buy my phone, they want to pay a bunch of money for it. First, I found a company called gazelle. They'll pay $147 for my phone and send me a box to ship it to them for free. Then I did some more looking, and it appears maybe, possibly, that Radio Shack will pay $196 for my phone!!!!! In case you're getting lost on the math that's $4 for the phone, $18 for the upgrade fee, and maybe some tax. Essentially a FREE PHONE!

And that my friends is what you call a win (for me), win (for radio shack), win (for the person who gets my cute little phone) situation! Yippee