# trying to add a cell phone to our plan **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [December 28, 2004, 12:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trying-to-add-a-cell-phone-to-our-plan/281848 "2004-12-28T00:56:36Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Lillith\_Fair](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/bb73d2/32.png) [@Lillith\_Fair](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lillith_Fair)\ **Post date:** [December 28, 2004, 12:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trying-to-add-a-cell-phone-to-our-plan/281848/1 "2004-12-28T00:56:36Z")
We want to get our daughter a cell phone and add it to our plan. We have two phones. What we can figure out on the website is that we’ll have to upgrade from 300 minutes to 500 minutes. How many minutes have we used in the current billing cycle? 14 :smack: How stupid is this? I’ll have to go to the Sprint store and see what I can work out. ---
**Author:** ![Garfield226](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/9e8a1a/32.png) [@Garfield226](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Garfield226)\ **Post date:** [December 28, 2004, 1:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trying-to-add-a-cell-phone-to-our-plan/281848/2 "2004-12-28T01:47:00Z")
How old’s your daughter? I’ve found that many teenage girls’ cellphone usage expands to fit the minutes allotted (and sometimes even more). ---
**Author:** ![crazyjoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f14d63/32.png) [@crazyjoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/crazyjoe)\ **Post date:** [December 28, 2004, 2:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trying-to-add-a-cell-phone-to-our-plan/281848/3 "2004-12-28T14:57:06Z")
two words: PRE PAID Get the pre-paid plan. IU suggest Virgin wireless. They operate on the Sprint network, their minutes don’t expire 10 days after you buy them, and it will teach her responsibility. And for crying out loud, start making better use of your minutes. Use your cell phone to make long distance calls instead of your land line, etc. ---
**Author:** ![TellMeI\_mNotCrazy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tellmei_mnotcrazy/32/3419_2.png) [@TellMeI\_mNotCrazy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TellMeI_mNotCrazy)\ **Post date:** [December 28, 2004, 3:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trying-to-add-a-cell-phone-to-our-plan/281848/4 "2004-12-28T15:35:14Z")
I disagree that prepaid teaches responsibility - it effectively removes the onus of being responsible IMHO, and can be far more expensive than a contract phone in the long run. I’ll assume the OP knows her daughter well enough to know whether she’s reliable enough to handle one. I also agree that the phone habits of a teenager will very likely make it highly unlikely that you’ll be wasting minutes. Tell her how many minutes she’s allowed to use; if she repeatedly disregards it, you have her phone shut off - at least even with a no-service cell phone, she can still dial 911. ---
**Author:** ![Lillith\_Fair](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/bb73d2/32.png) [@Lillith\_Fair](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lillith_Fair)\ **Post date:** [December 28, 2004, 8:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trying-to-add-a-cell-phone-to-our-plan/281848/5 "2004-12-28T20:51:10Z")
Got it today…now we have 800 minutes. So I guess that 7 for me, 7 for Mr. Lillith, and 786 for the darling daughter. I know I should make my long distance calls on the cell phone, but 1. I hardly every call long distance because I come from CRAZY and would prefer not to talk to my relatives who live far, far away; and 2. You still can’t really get a good connection. When cell phones actually start sounding as good as land lines I’ll start considering getting rid of the regular phone. Until then, oh well. Don’t you find it disconcerting when you are talking to someone and then you hear yourself? Is that when they hear you, or when you said it the first time? It’s kind of like talking to someone overseas, which I really hate. ---
**Author:** ![Dag\_Otto](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/439d5e/32.png) [@Dag\_Otto](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dag_Otto)\ **Post date:** [December 28, 2004, 9:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trying-to-add-a-cell-phone-to-our-plan/281848/6 "2004-12-28T21:47:45Z")
> [@TellMeI'mNotCrazy](#): > > I disagree that prepaid teaches responsibility - it effectively removes the onus of being responsible IMHO, and can be far more expensive than a contract phone in the long run. Huh? I guess it depends on who is paying the bill. It doesn’t matter now, because **Lillith Fair** has made a decision, but for someone using 7 minutes a month I think pre-paid is the way to go. Until recently I was paying for 150 minutes a month and using, on average, about 70 minutes. I switched to pre-paid and am now saving $25 per month. I’d be a bit more upset with Sprint for making me upgrade from 300 minutes to 500 minutes when all I wanted to do was add a phone, not increase my minutes. Lillith Fair seems to have more than enough spare minutes for the daughter to use. Lillith Fair, you ended up with 800 minutes, not 500. What happened? ---
**Author:** ![TellMeI\_mNotCrazy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tellmei_mnotcrazy/32/3419_2.png) [@TellMeI\_mNotCrazy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TellMeI_mNotCrazy)\ **Post date:** [December 29, 2004, 1:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trying-to-add-a-cell-phone-to-our-plan/281848/7 "2004-12-29T01:29:35Z")
> [@Dag Otto](#): > > Huh? > > I guess it depends on who is paying the bill. > > It doesn’t matter now, because **Lillith Fair** has made a decision, but for someone using 7 minutes a month I think pre-paid is the way to go. Until recently I was paying for 150 minutes a month and using, on average, about 70 minutes. I switched to pre-paid and am now saving $25 per month. Well, prepaid _is_ great if you only plan on using the phone for 5 minutes a month. But a teenager is usually not going to limit their usage for 5 minutes a month. It doesn’t take all that long to have the fact that there are few pre-paid options that offer free nights-and-weekends (prime calling time for a teenager) make a contract a more affordable option. I just switched off of prepaid onto a contract phone because I was spending twice as much for half as much airtime, because I had to pay for nights and weekends as well.