Your Family Guide to the
Best Prepaid Cell Phone Plans
Are you looking for the best prepaid cell phone plans to help save a few hundred dollars a year that you can invest in your family instead?
You've come to the right place.
I've compared the various companies and plans, looked at what they cost and what they offer. So sit back, relax and take advantage of what I've found out.
Why should you choose a prepaid cell phone plan?
So you're wondering if it's really worth the hassle of switching?
Will you save enough?
Will you still be able to use your cell phone when you need to?
Yes, yes and yes. But first lets go over . . .
The Problem
A few months ago, we paid more that $50 a month for a standard monthly cell phone contract. We got a few hundred daytime minutes, no roaming charges, and nights (after 9 pm) and weekends free. Text messages cost a little extra. The plan was supposed to cost $40, but with the taxes, etc. it kept adding up.
It was nothing fancy, and still it cost more than $600 a year.
That was the yearly cost of my 5-year old daughter’s once a week ballet class.
Though we tried to save money by using our cell phone for long distance, we still needed to have a landline.
We live in Tarheel country, land of college basketball and freak storms. We’ve lived through hurricanes and ice-storms, and just plain heavy rains which have knocked out power for up to a week.
Only the landline seems to keep functioning. The landline (thanks Bell South) cost us at least $40 a month.
So the landline cost almost $500 a year.
The solution
We chose prepaid Tracfones and combined them with an unlimited calling plan for our landline.
This works really well if, like us, you really only have long talks on the phone during your free time at home. When you're with your friends, you can spend time with them and NOT on the phone.
What matters
You can still do all the things you need to do with a cell phone:
- check on the baby-sitter and make sure the kids are okay
- find each other in the shopping mall
- report back from that unexpected visit to the doctor
- juggle your errands
- call for directions when you get lost
And you have more money in your budget for:
- art and music classes
- daytrips
- going out friends
So check out my reviews of the best prepaid cell phone plans. I go over the basic features and the yearly costs of each so you can decide which one would be right for you.
We got Tracfones, for ourselves. Read on to find out if that's right for you, or maybe you'll want to try another company such as Alltel, GoPhone, Net10 or Virgin Mobile. There are many good plans out there from which to choose.
(In case you want useful advice on standard cellphones, you might try this site: The Cell Phone Advisor.com - Free cell phone advice and unbiased reviews of US carriers and their networks.)
|
