Cell Phone for Young Teen

[momtosam]

My husband and I have plans with Verizon. My son is getting a phone for his birthday. I'm debating on adding him to our plan or getting some kind of pre paid phone. Any input? (I'll get him a smartphone, but it doesn't necessarily have to be the latest iPhone or Galaxy)

 

[MillauFr]

I would just get him a cheaper phone. I just signed up with Virgin Mobile. They were selling IPhones for $179 and the service is $30 per month for unlimited data, texting, and talk. I believe they reduce the speed after you use 5GB in a month.

 

[JenBush]

I know T-Mobile and Sprint both have really good deals and contrary to popular belief they have pretty good coverage(at least where I live they do). I would shop around and just find the best deal and since most places have wifi he might not need a big expensive data plan.

 

[MillauFr]

Yes in big cities it is a myth that Verizon has better service. I have Verizon on my work phone and I don't notice the service is any better than my Virgin Mobile phone.

 

[Branflakes]

I would think it would be more beneficial and economical to add him to your plan. If data usage is a concern, you can certainly limit and even shut off data if it's being abused or overused unintentionally.

 

[Hikergirl]

I would price up what it would cost to add him on to your plan vs. how much it would cost to do pre-paid and go with whatever is cheaper. If you know Verizon works for you I would stick with it even if you go to pre-paid. You have options for MVNO's that work on their network. If you know for sure another carrier works then go with what is cheaper.

 

[Hikergirl]

Yes in big cities it is a myth that Verizon has better service. I have Verizon on my work phone and I don't notice the service is any better than my Virgin Mobile phone.

I think its more that Verizon has better coverage in places that aren't big cities, not so much that they have better coverage in big cities. Where I live it is the best, and in some areas, like my sub-division its the only carrier that gets a signal. I don't live in the middle of nowhere either.

 

[fdefulvio]

My family all have iPhones on AT&T. I'm an Apple person. We've been handing down our phones to the kids as my wife and I get replacements. I'd rather have my kids carrying a phone that's only worth a couple of hundred dollars, than trusting them with a new $800 phone.

The battery on my son's 5c has finally given out, and it only had 16GB, which is not enough if you plan on installing more than a few apps. I just picked up a new 64GB iPhone SE from Best Buy for $9.99 a month for 30 months on Next plan. 24 months is $12.50. It's cheap enough that I can pay off the balance if I don't want to pay monthly. The 16GB was even cheaper, but I would hesitate to get that unless it was only going to be used as a phone.

They were also available for Verizon.

 

[wenrob]

I would think it would be more beneficial and economical to add him to your plan. If data usage is a concern, you can certainly limit and even shut off data if it's being abused or overused unintentionally.

This. If you can purchase a used phone or pass down an older one adding him to your plan is going to be the best bang for your buck.

 

[QueenIsabella]

I have 4 kids--my youngest starts middle school this fall, and with middle school comes a phone. He's jazzed! Here's what we do: he'll get a burner cell with purchased minutes. If he can go 6 months with this phone, and not lose it, forget it, and so forth, we will then add him to our plan, upgrading to a nicer phone. I want to spend as little as possible during the trial period. This might not be the absolutely cheapest way to go, but it's worked for us with all 4 kids. Only kid #2 ever had a problem with losing track of his phone.

 

[mi*vida*loca]

I added my DS onto my Verizon plan. It costs me an extra $15 a month I think. When we started it was $40 but since we did a monthly payment plan on his last phone we get $25 off that $40 and it continued even after the phone was paid off.

When we started out I got him whatever free phone Verizon was offering. After 2 years he asked for an iPhone for Christmas so he got the 5C at the time. Every two years when it's upgrade time he asks for the new iPhone as a Christmas gift. It makes life easier on me.

 

[platamama]

My middle schooler got not-so-smart Tracfone in upper elementary school, it cost about $80 for the phone at the time and came with lifetime triple minutes (i.e. if I bought a $20 60min card, she would get 180 minutes). She almost never used the phone because it wasn't the cool iPhone that some of her friends had. Fast forward to beginning of middle school, and she inherited my iPhone 5s when I bought a 6s, and DH switched out the SIM card to a Tracfone BYOP SIM card, and ported her old number over. So now she has a iPhone 5s, we still buy the $20 60-min Tracfone cards so she gets 180 minutes talk, 180 text and 180 MG data which in our area somehow operates on the Verizon network (or maybe that's because my 5s was a Verizon phone, don't know). As long as we add minutes every 3 months, we keep the triple minute benefits and balances on talk/text/data roll over. So basically she has a cell phone that costs less than $7/month. She's very aware of where there is WIFI so that she doesn't use up all her data!!

 

[ceecee]

HSN had a smart phone bundle for around $120 includes case, phone, 1year service and 1200 min (triple min for life) and a car charger, it was a little more than the one year card. DH and I both have been using Tracfone for years. DD has the Virgin Mobile with iPhone and has more issues with service than we ever have. We travel quite frequently and have never had issues with signals or anything.

 

[Grumpy's Gal]

Just keep in mind, the nicer the phone, the more likely it is to be stolen.

 

[1911]

I signed my daughter up with cricket wireless,they are actually a subdivision of ATT.I pay 35 a month for unlimited talk text and 3 gigs of data.they have smart phones for under a hundred bucks and some come free if you transfer an existing number not from att.I went out and got a 20 dollar trac fone and activated it to turn in for the phone offer.
Im not sure what the current deals are now but it was cheaper than adding her to my plan.

 

[DLgal]

We added our son to our plan for $15/month. I gave him my old Galaxy S4 and upgraded to the S7. I like havinv him on our plan because I can use the family map feature to see where he is at all times.

 

[mi*vida*loca]

We added our son to our plan for $15/month. I gave him my old Galaxy S4 and upgraded to the S7. I like havinv him on our plan because I can use the family map feature to see where he is at all times.

I track my kids all the time. It is a nice luxury.

I also pay the extra $5 a month with Verizon for the family base plan (I think that's the name) and cap my son's data usage. You can also limit their phone usage with this...no calls after 9 pm, etc. We share data and he has used all of it himself by mid month. Now he's capped and once he uses his allotted time he can only get on the internet while on Wifi. And he can't send iMessages unless on wifi.

 

[scrapquitler]

My husband and I have plans with Verizon. My son is getting a phone for his birthday. I'm debating on adding him to our plan or getting some kind of pre paid phone. Any input? (I'll get him a smartphone, but it doesn't necessarily have to be the latest iPhone or Galaxy)

We put our daughter on Straight Talk because we didn't want her using up all our data. She paid for the phone herself because she wanted an expensive one that we were unwilling to provide. We pay the $45/month for the monthly plan.

We are about to add our son to our Verizon plan for $20/month and let him share our data because he is unlikely to use much data.

 

[clori]

For me I added my oldest to my family plan and she got whatever the free phone was at the time (it had a pullout keyboard and all the letters). For my youngest I got her a triple minute for life tracfone for $5 off of ebay along with a card that gave her 180 minutes total for 3 months. She wasn't going to use it that often. At one point my cell phone plan (tmobile) had a free add a line deal so I added her to my plan. At that point there were no longer doing contracts so I paid under $100 for a galaxy avant which she has been using over 2.5 years. On our plan each person has there own data and with a promotion we are under we are getting unlimited data until 2019 and will reevaluate then.