So, we use our cell phone very seldom. Unfortunately for a year or so, we’ve been locked into some plan.
Now that the time is up, we’re looking for one of those “pay per use” or pre-paid or whatever it is. I’ve heard that you can just buy a phone with, say, 100 minutes on it, and you can re-up the minutes when you’re low.
Am I way off?
Basically, we almost never use our phone. My wife’s business takes her out of town about 12 weekends per year, so we use it on those days to stay in touch.
Also, we use it for the occasional time that I’m going somewhere after work, or we have to get in touch for some reason, but it typically stays OFF for weeks at a time. We spend $40 on it some months WITHOUT USING IT ONCE.
Any of you know what kind of plan we should look into?
I guess we want to keep our number, but no one really knows it anyway.
I was given a Virgin Mobile phone for Christmas, and I like it. Here’s their website. Basically, in addition to the cost of the phone, you’re required to add at least $30.00 to your account every 3 months, but you don’t have to use it. You can add money to your account using your phone itself or you can buy cards at Target, K-Mart, etc. Rates are 25 cents a minute for the first 10 minutes of the day, 10 cents a minute for each additional minute. It’s not a bad little phone. While I don’t use it strictly for emergency, it does come in handy while travelling. I’d recommend it.
I use TrakFone, because I use the phone totally infrequently. (Usually to call someone when we’re meeting and there’s a snag; I did once need it to call roadside assistance, when I was glad I had it with me, since I don’t always.)
It’s an okay plan – I buy a year’s worth of time so I don’t have to worry about expirations, it’s a slew of minutes for about $100.
A lot of people prefer Virgin – I’m sure they’ll be along.
I have TracFone. I bought it for emergencies and the only time I use it is if I want to talk during a thunderstorm or when I call my sister long-distance. I’m happy with it. I buy 40 minutes every two months for $19.95. The unused minutes roll over so I actually have several hours built up.
AT&T and Verizon also have pay-as-you-go plans. I’ve been on both. Verizon had a great deal a while back: $0.35 days, $0.10 nights, and 2000 free monthly weekend minutes. You had to buy $30 worth of minutes every 90 days (which then shrunk to 60, then 45, which is when I dropped them), but the minutes rolled over, so I typically had 300+ minutes sitting unused on my phone. I would call my mother on the weekends, and take the phone in my car if I was going on a road trip, but that was it.
Some things to check:
minimum $ you can re-up with. AT&T now offers $15 re-ups (I think)
time that you can go between re-ups
roaming charges. Being a prepaid customer got me less access to the cell networks, and anytime I was roaming I’d have to enter my phone# into a voice system just to make an outgoing call. I also would often miss incoming calls entirely.
I have a Virgin Mobile pay-as-you go (minute2minute). I need to give them $20 every 90 days to keep the phone active. All minutes roll over so you never lose them. The coverage area leaves a bit to be desired, but I’ve not really needed the phone before in an area with no signal. You can check the areas you’d be using it before you buy.
I’m happy enough with it. I didn’t want to end up paying $20/month for something I only use for emergencies.
I use Verizon, for a minimum of $15/month. Virgin only uses digital signals, so it doesn’t cover as much area as Verizon. I think it’s good to have the analog option in case you’re out of a metropolitan area and you have an emergency. Not all their phones can use the analog system, though. I use their $100 Kyocera tri-mode phone.
Mr. S and I used to have CenturyTel – $50-some a month for way more minutes than we ever used. We ditched that, paid $50 each for two Tracfones, bought yearlong plans* for each one, and we’re already ahead. The quality of the signal is even better.
*300 minutes/$140, one year of service, plus double minutes on future cards
We also got coupons for extra minutes on new cards when we bought the phones, and we each got 100 extra minutes because I “referred” him before we activated his phone. They run similar periodic deals.
He carries his phone with him at work (he’s a school custodian), so I can reach him if I need to and he often calls me for a few minutes on his break. I carry my phone in my purse and use it for necessities only. Neither of us is a phone yakker. So this plan works great for us and is much less of a waste.
I really can’t tell you how excited I am to actually be getting rid of one of our MONTHLY bills. It looks like we’re going to pay for a year what we normally pay for two months. That’s sweet. That’s hundreds of dollars per year. Hundreds.
Another Virgin user here - I’m happy with it. Don’t love so much the idea that I’ve got to keep putting money on it (like someone else said, it’s $20 every three months), meaning that I’ve now got $48 on it, and have to re-up at the end of October, but it’s been excellent for what I’ve been using it for. If TracFone had had better phones when I was shopping around, I might have gone for their yearly plan thingie.
I’d stay away from those offered by companies that also offer regular cellphone service (AT&T, T Mobile, Verizon, and the like). When I was looking, all their plans were monthly plans that charged me automatically - I couldn’t see how these plans really differed from a regular cell phone plan. Yeah, the Virgin phone I have to keep putting money on, but I get to choose when I do it. Things may have changed now, however; I’m not sure.
One other bonus is actually something that bit my mom this past summer. She is an infrequent cellphone user, and was on a cheap, low minute, monthly plan. Lo and behold, my dad gets sick (he’s better now) and she was on the phone constantly keeping everyone up to date. She went way over her minutes and had an outrageous bill to pay when it was all done.
She switched to a tracfone, so that if something similar happens in the future, she just has to buy more minutes at the normal price. Perfect for the infrequent user.
I am buying a tracfone this weekend…well, 1 for me and 1 for husband. My mom gets the referral credit so 200 minutes for her, 100 for each of us.
Our Cingular bill was $176 last month for using 139 minutes total. That’s pretty spendy! We are both out of the contract so we can cancel with no fees…
My next huge step will be cancelling my home phone…we have a VOIP line, but I just can’t seem to step away from the landline yet. It will save me another 40 bucks a month.
You can buy a phone for about $40 at Target, Staples and some other retailers. Then buy a $100 refill card good for 1000 minutes. At that point your minutes are good for a full year. And ANY subsequent refill card (even the $10 card) moves the expiration date to one year from the refill date.
This means that all minutes can be 10 cents each. And for really little use, say if used as a glovebox emergency phone, you can keep it active for $10 a year until that initial 1000 minutes runs out. You can also port your old phone number to TMO prepaid.
Only downside with TMO is that coverage isn’t the best if you tend to live or travel in remote areas. If so, you may find no service in the area. Verizon and Tracfone tend to be best for widest coverage area. However, both are more expensive, sometimes much more so.