Can I find a cheap Cell Phone Plan?

Can I find a cheap Cell Phone Plan?

My wife and I live on Social Security and what she can make at a low pay job. She needs a cell phone for when she is in the car. Presently we use a pay-as-you-go plan and it comes to almost $30 a month. The phone is only needed for emergencies. But other people call her and drive up the minuets.

On the Internet there are sites that promise to help you find a cheap plan, but there is always something wrong. They will not show the real price until you make some commitment. What am I doing wrong?  Is there not a plan in northern California that will cost less that $1 per day?

Any help welcome.

[Moderator]

Try a BestBuy or WalMart...they have phones you reload with minutes...at pretty reasonable rates...

I use a Pay As You Go T-Mobile account.  If I buy 1,000 minutes for $100, that's 10 cents/min.  A 1,000 minutes may last me a year, so the average cost per month would be about $8.33. 

Thank you both.

Geek, Before you make a commitment (buy something) check out how the plan deals with carry forward issues. Our son decided that my wife and i needed to provide our family with more peace of mind and this past Christmas provided us with a "pay as you go" cellphone" . Personally i detest those things. It had an initial $20.00 worth of time on it. Upon investigation it was determined that if we did not add the minimum (in this case $10.00) by the 27th of the month we would lose any remaining amount from the previous month and if we did not do something by 6 months we would lose the service of the phone.truenoth

Geek, Before you make a commitment (buy something) check out how the plan deals with carry forward issues. Our son decided that my wife and i needed to provide our family with more peace of mind and this past Christmas provided us with a "pay as you go" cellphone" . Personally i detest those things. It had an initial $20.00 worth of time on it. Upon investigation it was determined that if we did not add the minimum (in this case $10.00) by the 27th of the month we would lose any remaining amount from the previous month and if we did not do something by 6 months we would lose the service of the phone.truenoth

T-Mobile's pay-as-you-go service is good.  If you run out of minutes, you don't lose the account, you simply can't make more calls until you pay for more minutes.  And, they allow long periods of time to use your purchased minutes and, if the time period has expired and you still have some unused minutes, they normally allow carryover of those unused minutes if you purchase more minutes within a short time frame.  That's been my experience; I usually purchase 460 or 1000 minutes at a time and, with those larger purchases, have up to a year to use the minutes.

Wow! I must say you folks in the US get a bad deal compared with us in the UK. I have a pay-as-you-go phone with Virgin Mobile - I pay 26 pence per minute to UK cell phones and landlines (about 40 US cents) and text messages cost 10 pence (about 15 cents). My minimum top-up is 5 pounds (about $7.77). Credit never expires as long as you make one chargeable call or send a message every 90 days. UK users do not pay for incoming calls or messages. Even with no credit you can still receive incoming calls. Since the cheapest cell phone costs about 5 pounds (you have to buy 10 pounds airtime with it) you see street people and beggars with them. I don't believe my deal is specially cheap but I can't be bothered to hunt around for a better one.

...
But other people call her and drive up the minuets.
...

I don't see anything yet mentioned that might address your real problem.
You need to know if any of these give you the option to block all incoming calls.

Perhaps someone will comment further.

soybean and ST, Oh to have plans like that. Here in Canada with very little competition i am not aware of anything available like what you have. What we have is Rogers but i think they are all the same. We do have a couple of pay as you go that we purchased when we were traveling in the U.S. a lot. However soon as you cross the border back into Canada they are NOT usable. truenorth
P.S. So we went the Magic-jack route and are satisfied with that but you must be within wi-fi range to make use of it.

[Malware Removal Specialist]

I'm pretty sure they have Cricket in your area. http://www.mycricket.com/

Flat monthly rates with no contract.

evil,If your suggestion was being made to me. Then="You can count on Cricket Wireless. We have a wide variety of cell phone plans to choose from with coverage available all over the U.S. on our affordable, all-digital network. Check individual plans and cell phone coverage maps for specific details and see why Cricket gives you the best cell phone service for the money." from their web page. truenorth

[Malware Removal Specialist]

Was talking to Geek-9pm.

K,truenorth

Cricket either has coverage here or "piggy-backs" on other companies towers. So I will look it over.They have a store here in town.

[Malware Removal Specialist]

I had Cricket twice when I was younger. Back when a monthly plan was $19.99 a month with no limit on calls. Never really had any issues with them and they have come a long way in coverage areas and phones since.

[Moderator]

Cricket either has coverage here or "piggy-backs" on other companies towers. So I will look it over.They have a store here in town.

Any Family Members that have AT$T as their cell carrier ? ?
If so let me know...if 10 Bucks a month fits your budget...

I hate phones. If I was American, I'd buy a lot of ammo instead.

I hate phones. If I was American, I'd buy a lot of ammo instead.

Not need to be radical. If you wish to be an anarchist, there are other things you can get into. Instead of buying a phone, you can be VHF and UHF walkies-talkies with a piratical range of unto 14 miles over flat terrain. Good enough to organize a small rebellion.

When we lived  were  overseas we had  walkies-talkies for short range contact. No need to use the cell phone and waste minuets for a near by rendezvous.

Back to topic. Can't get family to work together. We will likely go for the 1000 minuets thing and cut down on the usage.

Almost each one of us already has our own mobile phone. But still, we are looking forward to avail the cheaper offers. A cell phone is an investment, with the minimum cost of a smartphone plan in the United States clocking in at well over $70. In France, however, one cellular phone provider is hoping to put downward pressure on costs with plans that top out at $26. Resource for this article: French mobile provider offers ultra-low-cost plans

Something wrong with the link. Here is an alternative source:
http://news.cnet.com/8301-30685_3-57359604-264/frees-low-cost-plans-shake-up-french-mobile-business/
Free's low-cost plans shake up French mobile business

The basic cost of the actual  hardware is not expensive. It is everything else that makes it pricy. What the wold needs is a co-op mobile phone company where the cell phone owners own the company. Here is how to do it: sell shares in the company for $1500 a pop; each owner gets unlimited service for $7 a month for life.  Get at least 4000 users in a major metro market and it will fly. After first year, latecomers get in for $9 month, which becomes the standard flat rate. If the company makes money, it goes into expansion.
Sorry, I am too old to be the CEO.

[Malware Removal Specialist]

Something wrong with the link.

They messed up the BBCoding of the URL. Probably just tried to make a link out of the title of the text instead of the actual URL.

Code: [Select]

http://French mobile provider offers ultra-low-cost plans

Canada has an extremely un-competitive "triopoly" (as apposed to a monopoly) of cell phone companies. All the big companies have the same basic plans starting at $25 per month, and minimum $20 pay as you go now. Make sure to get caller-id on your cellphone though. Not all companies offer it as a free upgrade, but considering what you've said, that would be a necessity.

Make sure to get caller-id on your cellphone though. Not all companies offer it as a free upgrade, but considering what you've said, that would be a necessity.

Really? I thought caller id was pretty much standard for any cell phone plan, even the pre-paid phones have caller id.

Really? I thought caller id was pretty much standard for any cell phone plan, even the pre-paid phones have caller id.

Some of the smaller cell phone companies, like Koodo, offer it as a small monthly fee. On my original phone bill it showed up as a charge which got cancelled out just because of the plan.

Really? I thought caller id was pretty much standard for any cell phone plan, even the pre-paid phones have caller id.

Depends what you mean by "caller ID": any cell phone will tell you the number of an incoming call, and even basic models will show the associated name that you put for it in your contact list but...

CNNMoney July 13 2011

It's a ubiquitous feature on landlines that's basically non-existent on mobile phones: Caller ID.

Sure, your smartphone will rummage around in your contacts list and attach names to any incoming phone numbers it can find there, but what we think of as true Caller ID -- the service that displays an incoming caller's name, city and state -- hasn't been available, thanks to a bunch of complicated technical issues.

Until now. On Wednesday [July 18 2011 - ST], T-Mobile is launching a Caller ID feature that will be a first among the four major carriers in the U.S.

As with landlines, this feature doesn't come free. T-Mobile's optional "Name ID" service will cost customers an extra $3.99 per month.

Once a caller's name and location data is displayed on screen, users can add that information to their contact lists with one click. The system is powered by Cequint, which specializes in caller ID technology and partnered with T-Mobile for its offering.

Endgadget (same date)

So looks like T-Mo was not first out the box with wireless caller ID here in the US: MetroPCS has offered it for some time and Sprint partnered with Privus Mobile back in March to offer similar features.