Want to upgrade to the iPhone 3G S but don’t want to pay the early upgrade price? Wired and Cult of Mac have come up with some clever ways to help iPhone 3G owners afford AT&T’s Early Upgrade pricing for the iPhone 3G S ($400 16GB/$500 32GB).

Wired suggests the most hassle-free method: sell your 3G to a website like Gazelle.com, which buys used electronics. I was able to get a price of $192 for an 8GB iPhone 3G and $232 for a 16GB. And if you sell your iPhone this week, you can get an extra 10 percent by entering in the coupon code “iPhone.” Some similar sites are NextWorth, BuyMyTronics, and Cash for iPhones.

If you do sell your old iPhone, make sure you erase your data and do a full restore before sending it off to its new owner. To do a secure erase of your iPhone:

1. Tap the Settings icon on your iPhone
2. Tap General.
3. Scroll down and tap Reset.
4. Tap Erase All Content and Settings.
5. Tap Erase iPhone for the two warnings that pop up.

Note that it can take up to two hours to do a secure erase of your iPhone, but it’s very thorough.

Cancel Your AT&T Account, Then Resubscribe

Cult of Mac has some other interesting ideas, including canceling your current AT&T account and paying the pro-rated termination fee. You can then open a new AT&T account and get the subsidized price. It could save you a couple Andrew Jacksons. According to Cult of Mac:

AT&T permits its customers to terminate their contracts early for a fee of $175. This fee is pro-rated: Under your AT&T contract the termination fee is reduced by $5 per month of the contract completed. For example, for those of you who bought your iPhone and renewed your plan in July 2008 your termination is approximately $120 ($175-$55 = $120) since you probably have completed approximately eleven months of your contract.

So what do you say, lemme upgrade ya?

Links:

Wired.com: “How to Avoid Paying the iPhone 3GS Upgrade Tax”

Cult of Mac: “How To: Make a Profit Upgrading To The iPhone 3G S“