Cheapest Pre-Paid Phone

eldergamer

eldergamer

CAGiversary!
See, I live cheaply and simply. No I-phone, Droid, Blackberry or smart phone of any kind for me.

I've let my AT&T Go-phone expire and am looking at getting a motorola Tracfone like the wife has.
Phones are about $20 and you can get double minutes and I believe the minutes even roll over. We're only buying about $20 worth of minutes a month and those don't even come close to expiring.

Have no one to call but work and the wife, really.

So, is there a even cheaper option for a pre-paid no-frills cell phone than the motorola Tracfone?
 
Since it looks like you no longer want to go the way of AT&T I'd recommend at least checking out Verizon depending on what area you're in. I paid a little less than $25 for the LG Accolade (edit: sorry not allowed to post links cus I'm a noob) at Walmart and it came with $10 airtime. Fees are about the same as AT&T with their basic plan being $0.25/minute. Minutes roll over, however you have to pay $30 instead of $25 for it to last 90 days.

However the reason I love this phone so much is because it displays the amount in your account and the expiration date right on the home screen. I've used quite a few of the AT&T Prepaid phones and they usually only display the amount in the account AFTER you make a call & with no expiration date. Correct me if they offer this service on their other phones.

Also I've found the LG Accolade to be a much better overall then AT&T's comparable phone (Samsung SGH - a167) in features (at least for a prepaid one) and screen quality. The Accolade is much much better.
 
[quote name='eldergamer']
So, is there a even cheaper option for a pre-paid no-frills cell phone than the motorola Tracfone?[/QUOTE]

Just a refurbished Motorola Tracfone like I bought at Big Lots. I think Tracfone is about as cheap as it gets, and it always seems to work. I bought two years of service for $150 and have like 1600 minutes on my phone. $150 would buy maybe two and a half months of Iphone service.
 
The motorola also displays the remaining minutes and expiration as well. I might check big lots if I can ever get the time.
 
My monthly cell phone bill is around $20 or $25 and I have unlimited talk and text, voicemail, and call waiting. But I'm using Cellular South so this doesn't help you out at all.
 
I used T-mobile prepaid. I buy $100 worth of minutes(1000) at a time since that lets them last a year from that point. Any subsequent reload extends it another year. I.e. if you only use 500 , you can buy a $10 card and push it another year. I bought the $100 card for my wife last February(2009) and she still has 300 minutes left.

If you time it right, you can get the phone for like $20-25 that comes with a $25 prepaid card from their website. There are also a few websites that sell the cards at a slight discount(10%ish) that are reputable, Callingmart.com is where i get mine from.
 
[quote name='Pookymeister']I used T-mobile prepaid. I buy $100 worth of minutes(1000) at a time since that lets them last a year from that point. Any subsequent reload extends it another year. I.e. if you only use 500 , you can buy a $10 card and push it another year. I bought the $100 card for my wife last February(2009) and she still has 300 minutes left.

If you time it right, you can get the phone for like $20-25 that comes with a $25 prepaid card from their website. There are also a few websites that sell the cards at a slight discount(10%ish) that are reputable, Callingmart.com is where i get mine from.[/QUOTE]
I do this, too. That phone with the $25 card happens rarely though.
It's the best prepaid deal that uses good phones cuz of the sim card.

Where's the best place for phone cards? Ebay has $50 cards for less then 40 but they are usually from some shady characters from vietnam. I bought one and it worked. They way they function is you give them your number and they do some shit and the min/money is added to your account. But I thought with Gold status it is 10 cents a minute ($50 = 500 min.) but they give you like 480 or something like that.
 
I've got Page Plus, you should check it out. Cheapest prepaid minutes anywhere and they use the Verizon network. Best deal around as long as you don't need data.

http://www.pagepluscellular.com/


Their phones are pretty shitty, so I bought an old Moto Razr on ebay and had it activated. Most CDMA phones will work as long as they have a clean ESN (i.e. they're not stolen and not blacklisted for nonpayment). Verizon or Alltel branded phones definitely work, but NOT Verizon prepaid phones.

Where Tracfone gets you is that their minutes expire after a short period of time unless you buy more. Pageplus gives you 120 days and the minimum amount is quite low ($10 for 100 minutes).
 
I'm currently using Virgin mobile. Not sure if you want to count it as prepaid but for $25/month, I get unlimited text, data, and 300 minutes. I usually don't talk much on the phone, hence a heavy data user.
 
I use t mobile. A 100 dollar card gives 1000 minutes and 15% extra minutes on all other cards and it lasts a year. I used tracfone and then changed to t mobile because the service here was crap.
 
As I found out recently, if you *did* want an iPhone, for the music player and games, phone, wifi, etc, you can buy a used one one from ebay (doesn't have to be unlocked, so look for ones that aren't unlocked on ebay, because those will go for less money), and then pop an AT&T pay-as-go sim card into it. It works like a charm. Shows the cost of the call and remaining balance after each call. You don't get data, mind you, but it's an awesome phone, and the 3GS has a decent camera/video camera. If you can snag an iPhone 4 the camera is way better.

I know this doesn't qualify as "cheap", but I figured it worth mentioning because if you were planning to get an iPod touch, then buying a used iPhone 3GS is better then an iPod touch and it can be your pay-as-you-go phone too, and a much better one at that. There's lots of used 3GS's out there due to people upgrading to the iPhone 4.
 
Since it doesn't sound like you use many minutes...

Myself, I also use Virgin Mobile, but I go the prepaid route. Cards come in $20, $30, and $50 (and I think there's at least one other option that's online only). Minutes last for 90 days, but do rollover if you buy a new card. Since I don't text, and hardly talk on the phone, I spend anywhere between $80-$120 a year depending on what my minutes look like.
 
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