Advice needed - cell phone for our kid

[Karel]

My son wants a cell phone for Christmas. It's the only thing on his list. We use Verizon for two phones already but we'll have to redo the whole contract and spend another $30 a month to add him. That seems like a lot. I thought the family talk deal was adding another phone for only $10, maybe $20.

Does anyone have any advice - what does your teen use? Should we look at one of these buy a phone and a phone card deals?

I hope someone can give us some useful insight. TIA

 

[Mad4Mickey]

Both of my teenagers have to carry their cell phones in order to leave the house . It makes me feel better to be able to reach them .
My DD had 4 months of phone bills just over $200.00 by herself so we took her off our plan and bought her a pre- paid phone.
Now they both have pre paid . We buy them $25.00 each every month and they have to pay if they use it all up . They both have it under control now , no more $200.00 cell phone bills for me !
Good luck

Mishell

 

[Karel]

Originally posted by Mad4Mickey
.
Now they both have pre paid . We buy them $25.00 each every month and they have to pay if they use it all up . They both have it under control now , no more $200.00 cell phone bills for me !
Good luck Mishell

Yes, we've heard stories from friends about huge bills. Where did you get the phones and where do you buy the phone cards? There seems to be a million different companies/offers. There must be something teenager friendly.

 

[SoonerKate]

As someone who racked up ginormous cell phone bills as a teenager, believe me when I tell you to get prepaid!

Virgin Mobile has reasonable rates and pretty cool phones. They also offer a lot of cool wireless content through their partnership with MTV (contests, voice mail messages, pictures..lots of good stuff.)

My boyfriend's little sister (I say little, but she's almost 17!) has a Virgin phone and she absolutely loves it.

 

[Mad4Mickey]

We also bought the Virgin phones . I bought the little ones that flip and they seem to like them . They have graphics and stuff on them . They have ring tones that are songs they like
We buy the cards at Target and now the grocery store I shop at Tom Thumb has them so I just get them when I go to the store.
My favorite place is 7-11 though cause they put them on sale all the time . I bought a $50.00 phone card for $30.00 there and they told me they do that one time a month.

Wishing you a Tagged night
Mishell

 

[Karel]

Cool. Thanks for your help. I'll look through the Sunday ads and look at the Virgins. (phones, that is....)

This is as bad as standing outside the CVS at 6 am waiting for Power Rangers. Kids - they know how to make us jump through hoops! Why can't he just want a video game?

 

[Dan Murphy]

This may be of help also.

http://myrateplan.com/

 

[Disneyland_emily]

I also have a Virgin phone and absolutly love it.I use mine very infrequently and so I love the only have the recharge 20 bucks every 90 days bit instead of the 40 or so a month and not use it all. I bought mine at Walmart (cause I get my employee discount) but I have seen them at Target also.

Ill be taking it on my DL vacation this month so we'll see how well it works outside my home state (not anticipating any problems though)

-em

-

 

[Toby'sFriend]

My son has the AT&T prepaid. He's only 13yo and doesn't go out much - he only gets $10 a month and he's only allowed to call us on the phone. I have the $10 set up as an automatic deduction out of our checking account, so I don't have to go and buy the cards.

He never uses his full allotment of minutes and with AT&T the rollover to the next month. I don't know if Virgin offers that deal or not.

 

[Karel]

Dan Murphy - thanks for the link. My husband will have fun playing with that. (He always wants a new cell phone.)

Toby's friend - that's exactly where we are. He starting to go out more on his own and I feel better if he has phone with him but I don't want him to think he can call everyone all the time with it. I want to start with a roll over to see how much time he actually uses. I think once the initial excitement is over, he'll use it very little.

 

[4greatboys]

At&T and Cingular have family share lines for $9 monthly. You can normally share on plans $39 and up. Im getting cell phones for my 2 oldest sons for Christmas--they want them and Im tired of playing musical phones. Even if you go with one of the lowest plans it would be $59 monthly for 3 phones--plus tax. They will have to share minutes with dh. Mom is not sharing minutes with anyone--I need all I can get

Edited to add: Be sure to ask about the minutes you buy with the prepaid. I was going to get a prepaid last year for my oldest but the csr said those unused minutes expire in a month.

 

[mad4themouse]

My DD13 has an AT&T prepaid phone. It's a Nokia. Not a flip-phone, but nice and compact. She has it to call us when she needs a ride home from the mall or movies. She also uses it to call from the team bus when they are on their way home from a game...no more waiting in the parking lot for me!

I bought it at HSN last April. The deal was too good to pass up. I think I got $25 worth of minutes pre-loaded on the phone, another $25 refill card in the mail and a $50 rebate. The phone cost less than $100, so it was basically free.

We load $10 every 45 days on the phone and it is usually enough. She knows that if she wants to chat on the telephone with her friends, she can use the "land line" at home. Mostly, she IM's them anyway.

 

[DiveLeader]

Well given the different countries this won't help - but might be interesting to compare PAYG schemes in the UK.

We gave my DD 10 a phone - DW got a new Nokia 3410, so handed down the Philips Savvy. It's on Virgin Mobile, and had just been converted from PAYG to Direct Debit. No change to T&C's, so 15p a minute for the first 5 minutes a day, then 5p a minute thereafter. Also no need to top up to keep the credit valid - they stopped that in the UK a couple of years ago.

We were given another phone on T-Mobile, so had it unlocked, and through an offer (in a national newspaper) got a Virgin Mobile SIM card for the cost of 7 papers, with £10 of call credit. We've given this to DS 8. It's a pretty big Motorola. being only 8, he doesn't really take it anywhere.

Generally both phones are used for testing (SMS), rather than voice calls.

 

[Mom-to-3]

DD#1 is 14. DH, she, and I share a monthly plan of 500 daytime minutes. We also have unlimited night and weekend minutes plus unlimited cell-to-cell minutes. It is with Sprint. They opened a new store here and had a bunch of coupons. Our phones were free. The total runs ~$80/month.

Each of us has a different phone number and our own phone.

Our school district policy forbids cell phones anywhere on school property, but DD still carries hers in her backpack. She has called me a few times when I've been late to pick her up. She does not use it for routine chatting.

My biggest worry about prepaid plans -- what if the minutes run out just as an emergency occurs?

 

[Toby'sFriend]

Edited to add: Be sure to ask about the minutes you buy with the prepaid. I was going to get a prepaid last year for my oldest but the csr said those unused minutes expire in a month.

I'm not sure about the Virgin plan but with AT&T the minutes rollover as long as you make a purchase at least every 45 days.
Like I said, I have an automatic debit on DS's phone for $10 a month. I'm saving all those minutes for when he's 16. :lol: Check your service areas also.

My biggest worry about prepaid plans -- what if the minutes run out just as an emergency occurs?

We've never had to test it with DS but I was told 911 would always work.

One thing I forgot to mention about the phone. Make sure you get one that the keypad will lock and can't accidently dial. DS's first phone didn't do this and the first night he carried it in his pocket the pad got accidently bumped and dialed our house without him realizing it. It took a good 10 minutes of me screaming into my phone before he realized that his "pocket" was screaming his name.

 

[SoonerKate]

One thing I forgot to mention about the phone. Make sure you get one that the keypad will lock and can't accidently dial.

...which is why I love flip phones! I swear my bill went down after I got one, since it finally quit dialing people from my pocket or purse or backpack.

Circuit City right now is running a $20 off plus no shipping deal on Virgin Mobile phones. If you want to get an idea of their coverage in your area, according to Amazon they run on the same system as Sprint.

Also, instead of topping off your minutes every month, Virgin requires you to do it at least every 90 days, for at least $20.

 

[jsmith]

I got a deal with AT&T through my work when my oldest DS was a HS freshman-I have two phones that I pay $4.99/month for basic service and buy the minutes in 100 minute buckets for $2.99-I buy 100 minutes per phone. This is plenty for things like calling home for rides from the movies or team bus. Its not prepaid but we rarely go over it-and If I go over on my phone I just pay the per minute rate. The only time the bill for both is usually more that $20.00 is if I travel out of town and am calling home from outside the 9 state area that is on the plan. We have kept this plan for years and it has now been handed down to DS #2 who is a freshman this year. DS#1 has replaced it with a verizon america's choice plan in the area code where he attends college. We are also very satisfied with that-his GF goes to school a couple of thousand miles from where he does and they talk daily-but as long as he phones her after 900 pm his time or mobile to mobile it is with in his plan-bill is consistently under $50.00 so I can not complain.

 

[Lanshark]

My best friends DD ran up a bill for $1600 dollars one month. The kid was told nights and weekends were free by her parents. The plan had 3200 minutes free for nights and weekends. To an adult that is free. The girl made sure all of her calls were nights and weekends. She ended up using over 7000 minutes and received a $1600 bill. I would recommend a prepaid plan.

 

[jsmith]

7000 minutes-she spent nearly a week of that month on the phone!!!!!!! unreal. I think this is a girl problem-I have had lots of friends who complained about the bill their DD ran up, but have never had an issue with boys doing it-of course they have to pay their own bill so that keeps it under control!

 

[BrerMom]

Originally posted by Mom-to-3
Our school district policy forbids cell phones anywhere on school property, but DD still carries hers in her backpack. She has called me a few times when I've been late to pick her up. She does not use it for routine chatting.

Check your state's laws. Our district had to change it's policy recently because the state law changed. Now the kids can have the phones with them at school, but they are only to be turned on before or after school.