Posted on 09/26/2006 12:43:41 PM PDT by agooga
My wife and I are infrequent cell-phone gabbers, but we have them just in case. Our current plan with T-Mobile is about $60 per month.
We're trying to cut out all of our budgetary waste-- and one way of saving money might be to switch to prepaid phones. Tracfone has a deal where you get a phone and 450 minutes that are good for one year for $99.
This would save us about $520 a year on our cell-phone bill.
Anybody here use Tracfone? Does it suck? Is it great?
I've been wondering about this, too. On occasion I would like my kid to have a cellphone, but don't want to get him (and he doesn't need) a full-time line.
I thought Tracfone might work in this situation, but frankly haven't been able to figure out how it works, if it works, etc.
My husband either uses it, or another one that's cheaper. I remember he switched to another pre-paid cell, but I can't recall if it was to or from Tracphone.
I don't know about a yearly plan though, he pays by the month.
I have one, for "emergency" use - and once I have it, I use it a little because they require you to buy minutes every couple of months anyway (unless you go for the yearly deal). So I guess I use it very little, but it has worked when I have tried to use it. Tho no cell phone seems to work well inside my house, Tracfone or not.
TF has an offer on their website that gives you 450 minutes that last for a year plus a phone for $99. They have other plans where you pay by the months, but I like the idea of not having to deal with it for a year.
We got a V170 refurbished plus the 1-year card for around $100, maybe the same deal you are talking about. I think it's great. As long as you don't use very many minutes, it's a much better deal compared to regular cell plans. No service problems, and no roaming (on this model phone). You get more bonus minutes by activating cards online, using coupons, etc.
We've had a TracFone for a couple of years. As long as you keep the 'subscription' up-to-date, the minutes roll over and you get to keep your telephone number; or you can let it lapse, then re-activate later, with new minutes and a new phone number. Works great for us, and it seems to have a fairly good roaming network for out-of-state calls.
I'm an infrequent user myself & use Virgin Mobile. $20 every 90 days. I've never needed more than that. It's .25 for the first 10 minutes of each day then .10 a minute for the rest of the day. They also have other offers even cheaper I believe. Never had a problem & customer service is great if you have any questions.
I like Tracfone too. I have been using it over a year and had no problems. The only drawback is that the minutes expire if you don't buy a new card every couple of months. No big deal though as a 60 minute card is only $20. I have had no technical issues.
I got tired of paying $35 a month with Sprint when I rarely use the phone. I don't have that many friends. ;-) So this works out better and I like not having a monthly bill.
I will get in a plug for Vonage too. For their 500 minute a month plan I pay only $18 a month, nearly $20 less than I had to pay with SBC for basic service.
If you are such infrequent users (as we are), the amount you save will be substantial.
The 3 of us in this house each have one. We use them for important calls only not for long conversations. IMO, well worth it.
We use the T-Mobile To Go (pre-paid) phone. We spend $100 for 1000 minutes which are good for one year, but they roll-over whenever you buy new minutes, so in effect, they never expire. We, talk about 50 minutes a month. So now our cell phone cost is $5/month or $60 year. We're in S. California and haven't had any problems getting a signal. You can find more info at http://www.t-mobile.com/
Hey-- that sounds pretty good-- I'll look into it. Maybe we can keep our old phones and phone numbers???
Been using one about a year. Works fine, and adding minutes on the web is easy.
I only talk about 10 minutes a month.
They made us get a new number, but they offered me 4 choices of numbers that were available, and if I didn't like those they gave me 4 more to choose from. Hopefully you can get 224-6642 or something else that spells AGOOGA on the phone (246642)!
I have a Virgin Mobile phone that I got at Walmart...I pay $15 every 90 days or when my account drops down to five dollars. I rarely use my phone at all, but wanted it for occasional convenience and emergencies.
I ordered a phone off the virgin mobile website for $20 and it came with $20 worth of airtime, so I essentially got the phone for free. Free shipping too, if you order it from the website. I gave it to my husband. It's on the same plan as mine...after 90 days, it adds $15. The minutes roll over that you don't use.
http://www.virginmobileusa.com/
I was looking into Virgin as well-- thanks for your thoughts.
Don't you use this?
TBG
Yes, my darling daughter, I do use TracFone. It is fine for infrequent use--10 or 15 minutes per month--but if you use it a lot, it would be better to get a regular plan with Verizon or one of its competitors.
Note that the message units you buy are generally used at the rate of one message unit per minute, but if you are out of your local calling area, the cost is two units per minute.
The network itself is very good--very few lost signals or dropped calls. The phones are generally a year or two behind the curve, but if you pay a bit more, I think you can get some of the bells and whistles.
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