Prepay cell phones...advise on how they work

[Red Rock]

I am looking at adjusting our cell phone configuration once our 2 years are up. I went into Walmart to look at what they had to offer in this area and was blown away. There are so many to choose from.

Each of the big companies have something but it seems to me the catch is what company you use. When buying minutes they either have to be renewed monthly or every 60-90 days depending on the company that you go with. Not only that it seems to me like they have "other" plans that are steps up from the prepay. It is that part that I do not understand.

Thank you for your help.

Red Rock

[Eden]

My cell phone use is pretty minimal so I went with a pre-pay (tracfone). They allow you to get a years worth of service rather than having to renew every month or 90 days. I think it's about $99 to get a year and around 1,000 minutes (my phone came with a double min for life special).

For me this is more than enough. In fact if your use is small like me, you usually end up having to put on more service time and more min before you run out of min.... That's the only thing that I don't care for about the system. Minutes and time can't be purchased separately, but it still is a whole lot less than getting a phone with a monthly plan.

[VeloVT]

My parents have a set-up similar to Eden's. It seems to work very well for them -- a monthly plan was overkill.

[tangentgirl]

My bf does this, and it has worked out great for him for a long time. He usually spends very few minutes each month and goes a few months before having to renew them.

He is using the phone for work more lately and is considering getting a traditional plan, but otherwise, he's been happy with this setup for years. We even considered getting a family plan with my regular company, and the math just didn't work out to it benefiting him.

Also, he is on Net10, and they use the exact same network as AT&T, so he has service everywhere pretty much. We don't use a land line, so this is his main phone and it still works out.

It kinda seems like the big company "pay as you go" plans are kind of sketchy. Last time I looked into them, they wanted you to pay ~$20 a month PLUS the pay as you go costs. Not sure what that extra $20 gets you - maybe ability to use their fancier phones. It sounds just as expensive as the base plans that they have, at the end of the day.

[Zen]

My experience is the same as Eden's with the TracFone. If you buy on-line you have a wider selection of phones.

[Red Rock]

Thank you for all of your input here.

Unfortunately I have become a Blackberry (BB) addict. So I love my blackberry along witheveryone else who ones one. Are there other phones that do everything else a BB does without the extra cost?

I have a sperate phone that I use for going on rides and everything else since I do not want to take my BB with me. We are helping an older man with his cell service too. He was on the tractphone before we put him on the reguar cell service. We are looking at other options. Perhaps the older man going back to his tractphone or something similar. I would drop the other line that I have and go with a prepay phone. This way I can at least have some communication while out on bike rides but it is not costing a whole lot of money.

Any ideas and help are appreciated.

Red Rock

[Zen]

I don't know what other services a Blackberry comes with. Cricket sounds like a good possibility.

[BleeckerSt_Girl]

My husband and I use Tracphones too.
$99 gives a whole year service plus hundreds of minutes. That's about $9/month each.
We don't blab on our phones so we never really need hours and hours of minutes. No monthy fees or anything, plus since they lease piggybacked reception from other towers, we get reception just about anywhere we go, and no roaming fees. Whatever minutes you dont use up when you renew just get added and carried over to the next year, you dont lose them.

And yes, you get a better selection of phones to choose from if you order it from tracphone online.

I LOVE my tracphone.

[smilingcat]

I too have a pre-paid plan that I love. It used to be tracphone but now its with T-mobile.

For the same $100, I too get the full year plus 1000 minutes of use. It's enough for me to last the whole year. And no I don't have regular old fashioned phone. For that I use Ooma, thing called voice over IP, one time payment of buying the machine and no monthly charge Long distance call in the middle of the day FREE!!! Got to love that. Been using to talk to my sister and my mother...

Something similar to Ooma is magic jack but there is a monthly service fee of $20. The added feature is that where ever there is a computer with internet connection, mic and USB, you can make a call. Ooma can only make calls from your house.

Really love Ooma and my pay as you go cell phone. My Ooma has paid for itself over a year ago. no phone bill, no expired minutes... This is a good thing.

I do not have implanted bluetooth headset. Besides, I think they are bad for your brain.

[Red Rock]

Thank you for your input here. I think I spent two hours on the computer today looking at different sites and phone plans. There is a lot to digest. I am still months away from the end of my contract, but looking now will help with the forthcoming decision.

smilingcat-thank you for your experience too. I had never heard of Ooma or Magic Jack. I will have to check them out as well.

Red Rock

[Zen]

Thank for the heads up on that one. Wow!

[RolliePollie]

I have an AT&T prepaid phone (from WalMart) and it's working out great for me. I got one of the cheaper phones and as I recall it was like $29. I add $25 every 90 days and any unused minutes carry over. I have never run out of minutes, but I hardly ever use my phone.

For long distance at home, I bought a prepaid long distance card at CostCo. For $20 you get 700 minutes, so about 2.9 cents/minute. You call in using an 800 number, so you don't have to pay the all the access fees and taxes my phone company charges for long distance. And you can set up several numbers for PIN-less dialing so you don't have to dial a million numbers to make a call.

I'm all about saving money wherever possible (hence dial-up internet as well), so I love cheap phone options!

[StressFree]

I would definitely check out Cricket, I believe they have blackberrys and their plans are really cheap and it works well as long as there is coverage in your area.

[eofelis]

I'm all about saving money wherever possible (hence dial-up internet as well), so I love cheap phone options!

I have a very cheap Tracfone that gets minimal use. My phone is a $10 older model, a Motorola V170. It's extremely basic, and not highly regarded in the TF community, but I like it. It is one of the few TFs with free incoming texts. I like it so much that I just got 4 more of them as backups from guy on a TF forum for $10 total. (Some people activate multiple phones and then harvest minutes from them.)

Every three months I get a $20 phone card (3 months/60 minutes) and add it. I look online for bonus codes to get free minutes when I add a card. Last time I got a code for 60 free minutes. So I pay ~$6/mo for this phone. I tell most people to text me instead of call me since my incoming texts are free.

FWIW, I also found out that if someone sends me a text while my phone is turned off or out of a service zone (I live in a mountainous area), when I have service again eventually the text will come on through. If someone simply calls it won't do that, I just miss the call and get no notification. Texts will also go through if there is only a couple bars of service, not enough bars for a phone call.

I'd love love love to have high speed internet, but my dial-up is FREE! I just can't stomach a $40 bill each month right now. My dial-up is free from the college I just graduated from. The college IT dept will probably purge me from their system eventually, but until then I will keep dialing in.

[indigoiis]

I am also a tracfone user, as is my DH. Last year I bought the Year + Double minutes card, so every time I re-up it doubles whatever I purchase. I like that!