This tax season, nearly two-thirds of Americans report paying bills as the highest priority for spending their refunds, according to a recent Cricket Wireless survey¹, a sharp increase from 2012 (50 percent). In fact, in every region of the country, more than half will spend their tax refund to pay bills – Northeast (65 percent), South (65 percent), Midwest (60 percent) and West (59 percent). Of these, younger people are feeling the highest pressure on their basic necessities, with 69 percent of 18-29 year-olds reporting bills as their main concern.

With nearly three-quarters of Americans considering a wireless phone (72 percent) to be a household necessity, just slightly behind computers (78 percent) and well ahead of other items like cable/DVR (48 percent), books (39 percent), tablets (17 percent), it is no surprise that 47 percent of consumers feel like they have no control over what they spend every month on their wireless plan.

Additionally, Cricket’s recent consumer poll finds 47 percent of consumers feel they are overpaying for their wireless phone. This consumer sentiment can be directly correlated to the nearly 50 percent of Americans who report that worrying about penalty charges causes them to buy a plan with more wireless minutes and data bucket allowances than they actually need. This is especially true among smartphone users (52 percent) compared to all other wireless phone users (34 percent).

“While the growing number of smartphone users is evident, we are also seeing a shift in consumer attitudes about the importance of reevaluating their wireless phone spending,” said Nathan South, vice president, customer experience and forecast analytics for Cricket Communications, Inc. “Based on our recent survey findings, we see that consumers no longer want to be told what they want; but rather, want to decide what they need for themselves and are more frequently considering prepaid options. It now comes down to education.”

Recognizing that wireless phone plans (47 percent), along with cable (58 percent) and electricity (51 percent), are considered the top three most overpaid bills by consumers, Cricket is providing solutions to cut costs and avoid common wireless phone money mistakes.