topaz | prepaid cell phone plans

prepaid cell phone plans

For some time,

keyne and I have wanted to find her an inexpensive cell phone plan so that she could carry around a cell for emergencies. A prepaid by-the-minute plan seemed like the best way -- she'd only pay for the minutes she uses and wouldn't pay a lot of overhead for minutes she doesn't need. So I bought a $30 Verizon FreeUP card for her and activated it on our phone last week.

It wasn't until I got the receipt that I learned this plan gives her "unlimited nighttime and weekend minutes, and unlimited calls to other Verizon Wireless customers" and costs $0.99 a day just to stay on it. So even if she doesn't make any calls she's still spending $30/mo just for the privilege to do so.

This is not what we were looking for. Do all the prepaid plans work this way? Can anyone suggest a plan that does sound like what we were looking for? Or some other clever way to a cheap cell phone plan (preferably on Verizon)?

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

AAA used to offer an inexpensive phone for emergency use.

Looks like TMobile's pay as you go plan starts at $10 a month.
http://www.tmobile.com/prepaid/rates.asp

Actually, the TMobile plan can be had for $8.33/month if you go with the $25/90 day card or the $100/1 year plan.

Still, though, I didn't know all that either, Tim. I always assumed the pay-as-you-go meant something closer to, well, just that. I had a similar annoyance with the calling cards I was buying for Japan -- just about all of them have, in addition to the per-minute cost, a weekly "maintenance fee" which meant you'd run it down even if you never made a call. Hrmph.

They just want your money. Bastids!

TMobile's plan will update the expire date of the minutes when you add more minutes, so it doesn't necessarily cost anything per month, if you're actually using the phone on any kind of regular basis. For instance, I had 45 minutes due to expire early next month but when I added more because I was getting low, the expire date became July for my total minute pool. Their minimum is $10 for 30 minutes that lasts 30 days; I prefer $25 for 130 minutes that lasts 90 days, plus pretty soon I roll over to gold status, which ups that to 150 minutes that last a year, allegedly, though that I can't confirm through usage the way I can the rest.

When I was looking into this a while back, the cheapest deal I found was from tracfone, which will give you a year of service (but only 150 minutes) for $95, which works to just under $8/month.

If you want, I've got a tracfone phone that you can have. (I got it as a present several years ago from my parents, who did not quite comprehend the depths of my cell phone hatred. I tried it for about a month, and haven't used it since.)

I got my parents tracfone. They have a deal where you can carry over your existing minutes for I think 10 bucks a month. And you don't have to sign up for any kind of plan. My parents use it. Initially they thought they had to keep on adding minutes every 3 months, but I think they put on 100 minutes and then they found out they can just carry those minutes over. They've been carrying those minutes over for about 8 months? now. This might be ideal, since you have the offer of a free tracfone, and knowing that they will only charge you 10 bucks a month after you've put minutes on it to get it started might be worth it. And my parents don't have any sort of plan that they signed up for. I don't think they can make long distance calls, but you probably won't be doing that if you're just using it for an emergency. They have no problem using the area codes that are different but local (there are a bunch of area codes here that used to be all one, and they got divvied up as the population grew).

True emergency use doesn't require a phone plan at all. Legally, all working cell phones must be able to call 911 without any service plan. However, if you want something that allows calls to people other than 911, your best bet is either to do tracfone or to get a family member or friend to add her phone to their plan as a second line for $10/month. Then you can just pay them for any non-night/weekend minutes you do use and the $10/month surcharge.

True emergency use doesn't require a phone plan at all. Legally, all working cell phones must be able to call 911 without any service plan.

No, we knew that. We're talking about "the kids and I are stuck in Nowhereville and can't get home for hours"-style emergencies.

However, if you want something that allows calls to people other than 911, your best bet is either to do tracfone or to get a family member or friend to add her phone to their plan as a second line for $10/month.

Er, we already have a primary plan (Tim's cell), and we've been asking Verizon for ages about adding on a second line, and they always want $30-35/month minimum. Who adds a line for only $10?

what are you paying now for tim's phone? it looks like Verizon's family plan is 60/month? (two lines)

Well, it was $30/month, at which a "family plan" didn't seem to be any kind of savings, but it's now a base price of $40/month -- not including additional services. Hmmm. Looks like we may bite the bullet and go for the Family thing after all.

Verizon does, actually. However, they've upped their first line prices a bit as well:
http://www.verizonwireless.com/b2c/store/controller?item=familyShare&action=viewFSPlanDetail&catId=323

How much are you paying for Tim's cell?

Yeah, I just noticed it had gone up from $30/month for our basic plan to $40. At those prices, $60 looks like a better deal. :/

Verizon has a deal where for $20/month, you can put an additional phone on your plan and it can share your minutes. That's cheaper than the pre-paid, at least?

When? Where?! We've been asking Verizon for years about adding a second phone on a "family plan", and the minimum figures we heard for a second number were in the $30-35/month range.

Do I need to give them a secret password?

Verizon quotes here (http://www.verizonwireless.com/b2c/store/controller?item=familyShare&action=viewFSPlanDetail&catId=323) a "family share" price of $60/month for two lines for 500 minutes/month, which is $20/month more than the comparable plan (http://www.verizonwireless.com/b2c/store/controller?item=planFirst&action=viewPlanDetail&sortOption=priceSort&catId=323&rp) on one line ($40/month for 450 minutes).

I used to have Virgin Mobile, and I liked it.

Every 90 days I'd have to put in $20 to keep it active, which meant that I had a cellphone good for about 30 minutes per month at a cost of $7/month. Actual cost of calls = 25 cents per minute for the first 10 minutes each day, only 10 cents per minute after that, which was nice when using far more minutes than usual... such as while calling for road service.

I bequeathed my "emergency cell phone" to my mom when I got a "real" cell phone (to serve as my only phone), but I liked the Virgin Mobile lack-of-plan for the year-and-a-half I used it.

I still use the Virgin Mobile prepay for my massage business phone, and I really enjoy not paying a monthly rate or hidden fees. Paul's numbers are all correct.

I still have Verizon prepaid, but that's because I'm grandfathered in to the old plan, which does not charge me .99/day. I think Virgin Mobile prepaid might be your best bet nowadays...

Verizon's web site seems to think they've got various family plans available in your area

www.verizonwireless.com

I use Virgin Mobile - minimum of $20/3mo to keep it active, and minutes cheap enough that I've never paid more than that. Their phones use one of the major networks, either Verizon or AT&T, I can't remember which. The cheap little Kyocera phone I bought has good voice quality, cost like $60, and the battery lasts almost a week without charging. My only customer service experiences, both human and automated, have been positive.

I'm pretty sure Virgin Mobile in the US uses the Sprint network, especially since the Sprint Store sells Virgin phones....

For all the bad rap that Sprint gets, we have two extra phones added onto our plan for $10/month each.

Both my husband and I use Tracpone. We have had no real problem with them like there plans quite well. You by the phone and add minutes.The best buy they have is buying the double minutes year card. You get a year activation and double minutes lets say you buy a 400 minute card you will get 800 minutes. For me 800 minutes has lasted me almost the half year already.
We have been looking into other plans but not found any that we like or that is comparable to Tracfone.
Rhonda

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prepaid cell phone plans

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Virgin Mobile

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prepaid