The cheapest way to have a cell phone

[mommyoffive]

What is the cheapest way to have a cell phone? 

We tried Freedom Pop, which they said was free.  But it never worked.  You could make calls, but not get them.  Or send texts.  

What do you use that is cheap? 

[Lanny]

Note: This only works if you have good WiFi available:   The magicApp works extremely well.  It is from the company that sells the magicJacks. We are in South America and have excellent WiFi in our house. The call quality is usually excellent. If you have a magicJack in your house, it is free if you use the same phone number on your cell phone. That's what I do.  If you don't have a magicJack, I believe it is about $10 USD per year, possibly a little more with taxes. They provide a regular ("Landline") phone number in the USA. You can choose from a Dropdown Menus of states and select the area code and prefix of your phone number.  You can make and receive calls and you can send and receive SMS messages to cell phones.   For other things,  I am sure others will clue you in on the many MVNO providers. Those are providers who do not own and run on their own cell network. They buy "excess" capacity from companies like Verizon and T-Mobile and Sprint.

[JustEm]

I pay $13 a month for calls and text through republic wireless. If I want to use data then I only get charged for what I use essentially.

[gardenmom5]

The boys did ting.com. they use sprint?  you have to bring a phone. 

Cheapest is only doing calls.  ?$6? A month.

Text & data are extra.

We have dueling on it for phone/ text only. 

He can use wifi where available. 

The rest of us switched to Xfinity during a deal.

[mamaraby]

We use Tracfone and pay ~$21/quarter, tax included. Originally, wegot the phones from them that gave you triple the minutes and then as long as we kerp the account current, any unused minutes roll over and accumulate. We've had them for awhile now so I think ds has over 1,000 minutes. Eventually we replaced the cheapie phones with old model smartphones. I have two Tracfone lines this way and it’s still way cheaper than adding them to the AT&T account dh and I have for our phones.

The $21/quarter is for text or data. The kids have been told to only use data in an emergency and use WiFi whenever possible.

Edited September 26, 2018 by mamaraby

[Liz CA]

Mine is Republic Wireless. Had the same smartphone for 3 years now.

Phone was around $225

Monthly fee is $14.96

I purchase 1GB and use WiFi as much as possible but when I am on the road I still use the phone all the time and have never exceeded my limit. One thing I do not or rarely do is streaming on the phone.

[Liz CA]

3 hours ago, Lanny said:

Note: This only works if you have good WiFi available:   The magicApp works extremely well.  It is from the company that sells the magicJacks. We are in South America and have excellent WiFi in our house. The call quality is usually excellent. If you have a magicJack in your house, it is free if you use the same phone number on your cell phone. That's what I do.  If you don't have a magicJack, I believe it is about $10 USD per year, possibly a little more with taxes. They provide a regular ("Landline") phone number in the USA. You can choose from a Dropdown Menus of states and select the area code and prefix of your phone number.  You can make and receive calls and you can send and receive SMS messages to cell phones.   For other things,  I am sure others will clue you in on the many MVNO providers. Those are providers who do not own and run on their own cell network. They buy "excess" capacity from companies like Verizon and T-Mobile and Sprint.

 

Clark Howard is a big fan of MagicJack and he seems to keep up on all this stuff. It was through his website that I found Republic Wireless as I had never heard of them.

https://clark.com/technology/

[LucyStoner]

We did Tracphone for our son on an old iPhone for one year.  It was about $100 for the entire year.  Now he has a phone on our plan.  

[BakersDozen]

We have Page Plus which costs $80 for 2000 minutes that expire in one year. I use about 1/4 of my minutes, dh uses all of his (quite unnecessarily...). We so rarely use our phones, we don't want to pay much for something that I usually don't remember where I left it or I fail to charge.

[mom@shiloh]

Hmmmm, I use Republic, but I pay $25/month for what someone else is paying about $15/month.  It works ok at our house, but there are areas where I know I won't get reception.  I'm thinking of switching.

[Momto6inIN]

We have our kids on Tracfone. We pay about $165 for the first year (includes an LG low-end smartphone) and afterwards about $100/year for service. Kids know to use wi-fi whenever possible and not use data unless they're lost and need google maps. Sometimes they use up all their texts before the year is up and pay $5 out of their own pockets to add more.

For me, I use Cricket instead of Tracfone because I need the unlimited texts and calls and for $30/month I get 2GB of data which has always been plenty, even on vacation for 2 weeks using primarily data instead of wi-fi.

[Zebra]

I pay $100 a year for my ATT prepaid phone.   I have a $30 phone, and I put a $100 credit on it every year to keep it active (you can also do $25 quarterly).    Monthly I automatically pay $5 out of that credit for 200 text messages.   That leaves $40 a year towards any .20 a minute phone calls.   I was very careful the first few years, and now I have a large balance of money and texts rolled over.   We don't have data, but can connect to wifi when it's available.

I rarely make calls, and don't need data, which is why this plan works for me.   My daughter has it too, and we've used it for 5-6 years.   I have had to replace the phones during that time.

DH has project FY which he loves and is $25-$30 each month depending on data usage.   

[RootAnn]

It depends on your needs and what's available in your area. We're Tracfone people. Free-ish phones, $120/year for service plus a bucket of minutes  (or text, data, and minutes). For smartphones, $5 gets you 1,000 more texts. Use data mostly on wi-fi.

If you use a dumb phone (through Tracfone) you don't get group texts.

[Farrar]

If it’s adding an extra line for a kid or relative and you already have a plan, it's often cheapest to put them on your plan - even cheaper than Tracphone or Republic. But for yourself as a primary, those are the best options, I've always heard.

[mamaraby]

38 minutes ago, Farrar said:

If it’s adding an extra line for a kid or relative and you already have a plan, it's often cheapest to put them on your plan - even cheaper than Tracphone or Republic. But for yourself as a primary, those are the best options, I've always heard.

You’d think, but that’s not been my experience. To add the kids phones to my AT&T wireless account, even if we bring our own phone, it’s at least as much per month per phone as I pay per quarter with Tracfone. I know because I’ve gone in thinking this has to be the case. Surely it must be less expensive to just add the lines to my account - at least with AT&T here, the answer is that’s the more expensive way.

[Pen]

16 hours ago, mommyoffive said:

What is the cheapest way to have a cell phone? 

We tried Freedom Pop, which they said was free.  But it never worked.  You could make calls, but not get them.  Or send texts.  

What do you use that is cheap? 

 

We used to use Tracfone, and originally got a year plan along with smartish phones (Alcatel touch),  case, car charger, via a home shopping network special all for the price of the year plan ~$100.  

I got upset with tracfone for reassigning my mother’s year of prepaid for emergency need phone plan to someone else just because she had not made or received calls (there was some fine print about this that they could do that)...

It had worked okay other than that. That is, for me since I used it often enough to not have gotten into that surprise situation of losing it, it worked okay.  Though nowhere near as well as the more expensive phone and plan I am using right now  

 

[shawthorne44]

Hands-down, Tracfone.  Then turn off data and turn on Wifi whenever you can.   Buy a refurbished phone from them. We used to use T-Mobile pre-pay by the minute, but tracfone is cheaper AND has extra buckets for texts and data.  

[Pen]

This seems like possibly a current deal similar to ours from a few years ago... 

https://www.hsn.com/products/lg-premier-pro-53-hd-16gb-tracfone-w1500-mintextdata-an/8705459

In fact, with the extra power bank and 200 more minutes than we got, it looks better  !

we mostly used public WiFi to load audio books etc so as to keep data for “emergency “ use , like lost and need map, or bus schedule or something like that. 

Edited September 27, 2018 by Pen

[mommyoffive]

19 hours ago, OKBud said:

I recently asked a similar question, and ended up going with Tello. 

https://tello.com/buy/custom_plans

If you get it, let me know because I have a referral code and we'd both get 10$. 

 

Both my children and our babysitter have used it. It sits in the same spot in our house. I can download apps/music/books/etc if I want to. 

 

 

Hmm Tello looks like the best deal.  I haven't heard  about them before.  Has anyone else used them?  Does it have good coverage? 

[mommyoffive]

Just saw this

Free year on sprint

https://www.sprint.com/en/shop/offers/free-unlimited.html?ECID=vanity:1yearfree&ECID=AFF:PH:slickdeals1&utm_source=PH&utm_medium=affiliate&dclid=CMzE0OD23d0CFQM6TwodpJkKUw

 

Has anyone done this?  

[DawnM]

3 hours ago, mommyoffive said:

Just saw this

Free year on sprint

https://www.sprint.com/en/shop/offers/free-unlimited.html?ECID=vanity:1yearfree&ECID=AFF:PH:slickdeals1&utm_source=PH&utm_medium=affiliate&dclid=CMzE0OD23d0CFQM6TwodpJkKUw

 

Has anyone done this?  

 

Is it a 2 year contract?  Do you have to pay the 2nd year?  Sprint is horrible in our area, but I also find them shady, so I really do wonder what the catch is.

[DawnM]

On 9/27/2018 at 7:03 AM, mom@shiloh said:

Hmmmm, I use Republic, but I pay $25/month for what someone else is paying about $15/month.  It works ok at our house, but there are areas where I know I won't get reception.  I'm thinking of switching.

 

I recently found out that it depends on which phone you have as to which towers you are using.  

Also, the old, old plans were $10/mo for unlimited talk/text and $5 for some data, if you have one of the old phones, you can still be on the old plan, but once you upgrade your phone, you have to switch.  

I got my oldest on Republic Wireless and I am about to put my middle son on it too.  They are both at college and it is just easier to manage their data on RW.

[JustEm]

On 9/27/2018 at 7:03 AM, mom@shiloh said:

Hmmmm, I use Republic, but I pay $25/month for what someone else is paying about $15/month.  It works ok at our house, but there are areas where I know I won't get reception.  I'm thinking of switching.

 

It depends on what plan you have, if you have an older plan and still have the old phone then you are grandfathered in until you upgrade phones.  My plan is actually $17 for talk, text, and 1 gb of data.  But I'm on an old rebate plan that I get money back for any data I don't use.  Since I only use it on wifi I always get the pull refund so my bill is always $13/month.

I'd probably switch also if there were places I didn't get reception, but so far I haven't had that issue and I've been with them for 4 years.

[mommyoffive]

On 9/28/2018 at 1:37 PM, DawnM said:

 

Is it a 2 year contract?  Do you have to pay the 2nd year?  Sprint is horrible in our area, but I also find them shady, so I really do wonder what the catch is.

 

Here is what I have heard.

There is no fine print, you don't have to stay any amount of time. 

[DawnM]

If you are a public or private school teacher, Republic Wireless is half price.  You must have an official school ID and email address though, it is not valid for homeschool moms.  I don't know about college professors.

 

Edited October 3, 2018 by DawnM

[mommyoffive]

On 9/27/2018 at 6:26 AM, Momto5inIN said:

We have our kids on Tracfone. We pay about $165 for the first year (includes an LG low-end smartphone) and afterwards about $100/year for service. Kids know to use wi-fi whenever possible and not use data unless they're lost and need google maps. Sometimes they use up all their texts before the year is up and pay $5 out of their own pockets to add more.

For me, I use Cricket instead of Tracfone because I need the unlimited texts and calls and for $30/month I get 2GB of data which has always been plenty, even on vacation for 2 weeks using primarily data instead of wi-fi.

 

How did you end up liking these phones? 

[Momto6inIN]

1 hour ago, mommyoffive said:

 

How did you end up liking these phones? 

They are fine for our teens, who have never had a Samsung or an iPhone and so have nothing to compare it to 🙂

They aren't fancy and don't have much internal memory but so far they have been very reliable and last a long time.

[cjzimmer1]

We use Tello.  It runs on Sprint lines.  Their cheapest plan is $5 a month (plus taxes) for 100 minutes, unlimited texts and no data.  But they have customizable plans so you can pick what you need.  The nice part about data is if you have any amount of data on your plan and you use it up they have unlimited free 2g.  Not enough speed for streaming but more than adequate for emails and reading the boards etc. So I buy 200 mb a month for $1 and just use free stuff when I run out (I don't stream so it's no big deal for me).