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Also look into getting Google Voice number. You do not have to have physical phone for it, as you can link any phone to it, office or cell. You will have personal voicemail, and voicemails are transcripted and transcripts are forwarded to your email and texted to a cell number. When that number rings, you simply do not respond and let it go directly to voicemail.
Try Consumer Cellular: https://www.consumercellular.com They are great; I've been with them for nine years with no contract & very low rates. Plus they are consistently rated one of the highest in customer service and overall satisfaction.
I can vouch for Consumer Cellular also. I've been with them almost a year and have not had any issues with the phone or service. I like how I can go to my account online and change my plan without penalty. No contracts is a definite plus!
I have a cell phone but only for emergencies or a long distance business call. i never give the number out to anybody except immediate family and they know to call me at home. We have a landline for a;; pther calls and the fax machine and my husband has company smart phone.
Now I have $30 Verizon plan which is still to expensive for what little usage I need. Can you recommend a really cheap plan for me? I am in N.C.
Consumer Cellular - $10 per month, $.25 per minute.
I've got two spare phones on T-Mobile's pay as you go plan. With T-Mobile, once you put $100 in the account you get "Gold" status and the minutes don't expire for a year. Before they expire, even adding $10 will extend the expiration another year. The two spare lines have cost me just over $20 in the past two years to keep active (I don't burn a lot of minutes on them).
T-mobile prepaid is the way to go. I've been using it for years and never spend more than $20 a year, but I have an active phone in case I need one. I'm not paying a monthly charge like Consumer Cellular charges. I paid $100 initially to get to Gold and in subsequent years I've only added a $10 card a year. My balance is still at $78.
Take a look at Page Plus Cellular. The link is to the $12 plan, 250 talk/text and 10 meg data. I don't need the data as I use my wifi for data needs.
They also have a $10 for 100 min talk time card good for 120 days. They are a Verizon reseller and you 'should' be able to port your phone and number to that service.
DH is with PagePlus. The good thing about them for you is that you can keep your Verizon phone and just activate it on the PP network. With T-mobile you'd need to buy a new phone since it's a different system. They have some really cheap ones, just check their website or any place where prepaid cells are sold.
I have Boost Mobile. This is the prepaid/no contract side of Sprint Nextel, so it uses their network.
I buy $10 a quarter. The minutes are good until the end of the 3 months. However, if you add another $10 before the expiration date, then you keep the remaining balance and it is added to the new $10.
You buy a phone which is under $50. I have seen some for $29. It's 20 cents/minute. They used to be 10cents/minute..their rates when up last year.
It's the "pay as you go plan" . They also have monthly plans for non contract and they seem to try to steer customers to the monthly plans.
TracFone, if you buy a year at a time (a 1-year card is about $100, and includes 800 minutes assuming it's a "double minutes" phone), comes out to less than $10 per month. I think that's more minutes (and five more days) than 4 $20 90 day refills. Either way, TracFone is pretty well suited for low-usage customers.
I'd suggest the LG 221C (CDMA) flip phone, which uses the Verizon network. Amazon has it for $15. Many Walmarts also have it, but not in areas where TracFone favors selling phones that use AT&T or T-Mobile (which is apparently cheaper for TracFone).
Does T-Mobile or any other prepaid provider mandate that you use all of your minutes within a certain period of time, or can you roll over your unused minutes indefinitely without a penalty?
Also, which phone make & model do you folks have, since I'm also looking for something that is also very inexpensive?
I don't like to talk on the phone, but I text a lot, so this works for me. I have a $15 a month plan which includes unlimited texting and 60 minutes a month of talk time. They actually have a $5 a month plan but it is only ten minutes a month talk time and texts are $.10 each. We use Kajeet (Kajeet.com) and have this plan for 3 of us in the family. One family member who needs more talk time has a $20 a month plan which includes 150 minutes, they also have a $25 plan with 300 minutes (both included unlimited texting).
The phones are mostly refurbished and range from $35 for a basic basic phone up to $350 for some fancy stuff. You can also use an old Sprint phone with their service since they are Sprint owned or something.
The thing I like best is that I have a smart phone with this company but there is no mandatory "data plan". So my phone works when there is wi-fi access (which for me is pretty much everywhere I go) and I can still use it for Facebook and email and GPS locating and so forth without having to pay for data.
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I've been with them almost a year and have not had any issues with the phone or service. I like how I can go to my account online and change my plan without penalty. No contracts is a definite plus!
