pre-paid cell phone???

[ellenec]

My nephew for his birthday would like a pre-paid cell phone for his birtday. He had one with my sister-in-law and went way over his minutes. He saw one he liked at cingular- Anyone have one or know about them??? Thanks

 

[rsschneck]

We purchased DH a pre=paid last summer. We went with T-mobile. This was the least expensive and had coverage in the large metropolitan areas that we were interested in.

He uses the phone VERY infrequently. I think he has used 400-500 minutes in the last year. Great deal for us! If you actually use a cell phone daily then a pre-paid might not be what your nephew needs.

DH has it for emergencies and when we travel.

 

[kfeuer]

We have Virgin Mobile phones that we've been very happy with. The rate is .25/minute for the first 10 minutes a day, .10/minute thereafter, no roaming charges. It doesn't have good coverage in rural areas, but that doesn't affect us very often. They only require $20 top-ups every 3 months, but what's even nicer is if you prepay for the year you only have to put $60 on. We only use our phones for emergencies and quick calls, so this is a great deal for us. The cost breaks down to $10/mth for 2 cell phones, you can't get much cheaper then that.

 

[powellrj]

I use trac phones for my kids. We have one now that they share, but Target had them on clearance a couple of days ago and was able to get 2 more. One was $7.xx and the other was $9.xx. They were marked down 75%. We have always had good luck with our trac phones. I fill them every 60 days and the minutes left always rollover.

 

[granmanh603]

I have a tracfone and love it but do not use it alot. As someone else said it is for people who don't need to use it alot.....you only pay for what you use and minutes never expire as long as you keep adding a card every two months or year card or when you need them. If you get a referal you can get 100 free minutes and they have deals all the time. right now online you can get a reconditioned phone(which is what I did) for19.99 with 40 free minutes.....If you want more info PM me. Carol

 

[EthansMom]

I have a pre-paid phone through Cingular. Cingular has a few different plans. I have the traditional pre-paid plan that charges me $0.25/minute. I buy $25 cards from the Cingular store that expire 3 months after my first use. The pre-paid phones work well for me.

 

[Callie]

I have a t-mobile phone. You get a 15.00 card to start out with that gives you 60 minutes but I bought the 100 dollar card which gives you a thousand minutes but converts teh 15.00 to 150 minutes. And it lasts a year and then whichever amound card you add on later lasts a whole year and your minutes cost 10 cents a minute for hte rest of the phones life

 

[MemoryMakers2669]

I have Boost and it is .20 a minute during the day and only .10 at night and weekends. For me this is the cheapest, as I only use it in the evenings and weekends....so only pay .10 per minute when using it. It has no roaming or long distance charges at all above the normal per minute charge and worked great when we were in Disney in June!

 

[Bama mom to 3]

I also have a T-Mobile prepaid. I got it so I could be reached while running errands, in case one of my children got sick at school. I have loved the T-mobile service Ive had. this past year.

 

[Letsbgoofy]

I was on the AT&T plan, but switched to Virgin Mobile. Here is what I like about their plan: only $20/3 months, .25/min. for the first ten minutes of the day, then down to .10/min., and that Target will often sell the $20 cards for 2 for $30.

AT&T didn't have a good plan, I don't know if it's changed since they became Cingular.

 

[kellyg403]

I am trying to teach them about budgeting. They had been wanting a cell phone forever...but I just couldn't bring myself to get them one. So I decided to do the prepay one. I got them both the phone with minutes and the extra minutes card to start with. They both had jobs and so when the ones I gave them ran out, they had to budget a certain amount of their money to refresh them. Believe me, it was an eyeopening experience for my one DD who has the WORST time with her money. She would get paid, give me the 50% for her savings account and within 45 minutes at the mall she was broke again. She bought 5 pairs of shoes one time.... So for a teenager I think it is a great idea, they get want they want with a little life experience thrown in!

Kelly

 

[summerrluvv]

I have Cingular. The service is great, I never lose service in the store, etc. like I used to with Virgin. Adding money and talking to customer service is a different story though. I always have a problem with that.

 

[Dznypal]

they went from a prepaid account that you only needed to add minutes when you needed them (for us a $20 card lasted 6 months!!!!)

to where a $20 card only lasted I think it was 2 months and you had to add minutes and youd lose what minutes were left after the 2 months

When I went to complaine they told me I had to talk more!!!!!

How stupid!!!

I told her thats not why we have cell phone just to use it so we dont lose minutes--I said since we pay for the minutes we should be able to use them the way we want to--unfortunetly they didnt see things my way so I nicley told them I was going elsewhere!!!

Thanks to DD we got the perfect plan with Sprint--we have family talk so we have 4 phones DH myself, DD and DDBF they cost $120 (DD and DDBF pay $40 each since they have things like text messaging and something else) we also pay $5 extra one the account for no roaming and free long distance.

and our local phone company has all these extra fees whether you use LD or not its an extra $3 per month just in fees so with the free LD I could cancel that and save the $

all in all this was perfect for us

 

[luvsgrumpy]

I got a trac phone -- a great decision for me. I've only had it since August and rarely use it for more than emergencies. It cost me 19.99 and I got 40 free minutes with it plus 100 for a referral from someone on DIS and I think 10 more for activating online. It has given me NO problems and had been very cost effective. It can be tempting looking at it and seeing how many minutes you can talk (the phone always lets you know how many minutes you have left) but it could be a good budgeting lesson for kids. Maybe get them more minutes for b-days and christmas, etc. and any others are their responsibility.

The referral option is great, the person referring gets 100 minutes as well as the new customer gets 100 minutes too. I'd be happy to send you (or anyone) one, if you would like.

 

[ElaineHN]

I just wanted to chime in with my own praises for Tracfone!!! I've had mine for two years (or will it be three in November?) And my hubby and 14 yr old son each also have Tracfones and we are all more than happy with them!

My hubby and son got the $19.99 on-line special which is a reconditioned Nokia phone with 40 minutes ... and got another 100 minutes free when they activated through a referral and their refer-er (me) also got 100 free minutes ... so it has worked out great for us.

I'd say all total we average less than $10 per month (for all three of us, not each) on minutes. I bought hubby a year of service and something like 240 mintues when their was a special deal available for about $40 (I think) ... and we always try to use coupon codes to get extra minutes if possible.

My son would like a 'cooler' tiny flip phone or camera phone. But I've told him unless he wants to save his money and pay for it himself he can stick with the Nokia ... it's not huge and outdated ... it just isn't the tiniest, most cutting edge model.

Feel free to e-mail me if I can help answer any questions or provide any additional info ... elainehn2002@yahoo.com.

Elaine

 

[Kaybee]

I too have a tracfone and love it. I got the tracfone because of the range of areas it covers. We travel frequently to our summer home in the upper *****ula of mich and the phone works great there. I went to Las Vegas and had no problems call home to mich. It is very cost effective if you limit your use to emergencies only or calling to say you are on your way home, etc.

 

[Disneyrsh]

I used the Virgin Mobile phone for about 2 years, my hubby now works for bellsouth so we just changed, but I really liked the virgin phone-you can buy the prepaid cards (and the phone) at Target.

and most importantly, it worked great in Disney, up in Boston, and down here in Atlanta. Never had a problem with reception.

Plus you could download really fun ringtones from the Virgin Mobile website, very 'teenager' oriented (I know, I'm a bit old for that but it was still fun)

 

[tmt martins]

I have Boost and it is .20 a minute during the day and only .10 at night and weekends. For me this is the cheapest, as I only use it in the evenings and weekends....so only pay .10 per minute when using it. It has no roaming or long distance charges at all above the normal per minute charge and worked great when we were in Disney in June!

The BOOST / NEXTEL will only get better at WDW now that they went to start using it.
As sprint starts getting info on WDW dead zones they will make adjustments for such a large contract.
The boost is also nice if they know others the DC is a great park tool to locate people easier then a call.

 

[Free4Life11]

We travel frequently to our summer home in the upper *****ula of mich and the phone works great there.

Sorry this made me laugh! You've got to love the DIS censors hehe.

 

[Kaybee]

I saw that too and wondered what the heck is wrong with upper peninsula of mich??? guess I should have said U.P.??? guess it is too close to the P word???