Verizon no more contracts help

So, the only reason I have verizon is because all other cell carriers in my area have spotty connection. but anyway, I was just told of the new no more contracts thing and that you have to buy your phone full price. WTF. I saw this because my next upgrade it September 22nd and I don't really wanna drop 500$ on a new smartphone. Are there still free upgrades at the end of my contract or how does this work. If I need to start putting away a little cash for this it would be better to start now. Thanks for the help.

I'm not a Verizon customer, but I think that if you want a new phone you can just pay for it with monthly installments on your bill. The difference now is that the wireless service fee and the phone payment will be explicitly separate, whereas before the payments were all combined into a less transparent monthly fee.

You could also just keep your old phone and save money.

On Verizon here. Just went from a contract plan to the new Edge plan when I upgraded in July.

All plans are now Edge based which is pretty much how AT&T, Sprint and TMobile all operate. Essentially what happens is you pay in installments for the phone added to your monthly bill (it doesn't seem to work out to full price) then you get a discount on your line access it goes from $40 to like $20 plus your data plan. In the end, you are paying about the same.