We currently have a two-phone $39.99 a month plan with Cingular, made available through Cindy’s employer. The only difference between the employer-sponsored plan and a typical Cingular plan is that the employer-sponsored plan doesn’t require a two-year contract. It may be the only difference, but it’s no small difference.
For two years now, Cindy and I have never managed to get close to using up our plan’s monthly minutes (we typically use fewer than 100 minutes each), and there’s no way we’re ever going to be able to use the Rollover minutes. In that regard, we’re pretty happy with the plan because most of our minutes are covered within that $40-a-month cost. The problem for us is that we talk to a lot of people outside the OKC calling area (primarily Tulsa), and I use the phone more when I’m on a dealership drive. The long distance and roaming tends to ratchet the monthly bill up to about $55-60.
That’s about $660 a year for our cell phones, which we use often, but not for extended lengths of time.
So, I’m looking at prepaid cell phone plans to see how they compare to what we have now. Going this route, we could save about $170 our first year, even after buying new phones for the prepaid plans. Providing we don’t have to replace the prepaid cell phones next year, that initial expense of buying the new phones gets rolled back into the savings, which would then be $360…in theory.
If anyone has any advice or words of warning, now is the time to share.
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We use a prepaid cellphone through Tracfone. We typically juice up our phone for about $40 every two months, but we don’t use it much. We just use the house phone more because we have a good plan through those traitorous bastards BellSouth and aren’t involved in terrorist activities.
I’ve never taken the cellphone anywhere and not been able to get coverage–I mean, I haven’t tried it in the middle of the desert or anything, but we live in the country and get fine reception. On all our travels we’ve gotten fine reception.
ETA: Are you getting TWO phones for $40 a month? It seems like for that price, you might should just stick with what you’ve got.
We are getting two phones for $40 a month, and the projected savings are based on that.
Speaking of reception, when we first got our Cingular phones, I tried making a call from Vegas to OKC and could not get a good sign, but Vegas is in the middle of the desert. But still…
I had a prepaid phone for a while until I went to the employer’s plan. It works well when you travel, and there doesn’t seem to be too many areas where you are roaming, so the charges shouldn’t be that high. I would recommend it, especially if you don’t use your phones much.
Taylor will start woking in the cell phone and Ipod department on the 11th of this month. You might get with him.