S/O cell phone thread: what's your plan?

[BillK]

AT & T Family Share - 700 minutes a month w/rollover - 4 phones.

2 iPhones w/200 txt's each
2 regular phones with nothing extra

$190/mo.

[wellyes]

OP your plan sounds way wrong. I had 1400 minutes & 4 lines for about $90/month. No texting. But could texting be worth $40/month?

I agree with PPs that you should look at your actual usage. We recently dropped to 700 minutes & there was no charge for the change. Will save us $20/month.

[boogiemomz]

OP your plan sounds way wrong. I had 1400 minutes & 4 lines for about $90/month. No texting. But could texting be worth $40/month?

I agree with PPs that you should look at your actual usage. We recently dropped to 700 minutes & there was no charge for the change. Will save us $20/month.

we apparently had 250 texts for $5/month on DH's phone and got charged $0.20/text for my phone (i swear i thought i had the $5 thing on my phone bc i text more than DH does, but neither of us uses 250 per month so that works). i was getting charged $5-15 per month for texts, so $5/month would save us $5-15/month max, and our baseline plan would still be $122/month. i told the guy on the phone that this was WAY too much to pay, and he said there was nothing he could do. we do not get into overage b/c we have 1400 minutes, and we can't go below that because we would lose our friends and family numbers (free all the time), and if we didn't have that feature, just talking to our family members would probably exceed the next lower plan. this is blowing my mind.

[scrooks]

It does sound high. We are on Verizon and pay about $145 a month for 5 lines with unlimited text on each and 1400 minutes between the phone (which we never come close to touching because of free nights and weekends, free mobile to mobile on verizon and the free 10 numbers of our choice)...I get a 15% discount from work but it's still seem cheaper than what you are talking about....

Can you potentially add family members on your plan to cut costs? We have my dad, MIL and FIL on our plan. We all split the costs and plus then we all have Verizon phones so calls between us are free.

[SpaceGal]

I have T-Mobile pay as you go. I have a cheesy Nokia phone but it does the job. I spend $100 to get a 1000 minutes that have a year expiration. I can send/receive text messages for like 5 or 10 cents. I don't text much and I have not used up my 1000 yet...I have about 200 left for the last 2 months. It works for me since I'm not a big cell phone user and at home I have digital phone. This is my first year having this pay as you go plan but it's worked and saved us a ton of money.

I used to have the base Verizon phone plan and spent $40 a month to only use like 20-50 minutes of my 400 and I just used my phone to use minutes. Now that I have 3 kids I'm not out and about as much so I use the home phone line more.

DH has a cell phone for work so a family plan wouldn't work for us just yet. But maybe later with the kids getting phones and what not.

[kozachka]

I have Tracfone's Straight Talk prepaid plan for $30 per month (fees and taxes are >$1), which includes 1000 minutes, 1000 text messages and 30MB data. I use this as my only phone (and supplement with Skype) and only ran out of minutes once when I was doing a lot of 30-60 mins phone interviews and networking as part of the job search. An unlimited plan would have been $45 per month, and you can switch between plans from month to month.

It runs on Verizon Wireless network, at least in the SF Bay Area, and the reception is OK. My Motorola Razr phone cost me $100 or $130. You can get Straight Talk phone and minutes either from the website directly or at WalMart. Service has been rolled out nationwide as of October '09. Customer service was good the couple time I had to use it.

[randomkid]

I have Tracfone's Straight Talk prepaid plan for $30 per month (fees and taxes are >$1), which includes 1000 minutes, 1000 text messages and 30MB data. I use this as my only phone (and supplement with Skype) and only ran out of minutes once when I was doing a lot of 30-60 mins phone interviews and networking as part of the job search. An unlimited plan would have been $45 per month, and you can switch between plans from month to month.

It runs on Verizon Wireless network, at least in the SF Bay Area, and the reception is OK. My Motorola Razr phone cost me $100 or $130. You can get Straight Talk phone and minutes either from the website directly or at WalMart. Service has been rolled out nationwide as of October '09. Customer service was good the couple time I had to use it.

I'm assuming this is per phone? If DH and I both have phones, can we be on one plan or does each phone need a separate plan? I am intrigued.

ETA: I just read that there is no roaming on these phones. So, does that mean if you travel to another state, you can't use it unless you pay per minute or how does that work?

[kozachka]

I'm assuming this is per phone? If DH and I both have phones, can we be on one plan or does each phone need a separate plan? I am intrigued.

ETA: I just read that there is no roaming on these phones. So, does that mean if you travel to another state, you can't use it unless you pay per minute or how does that work?

Prices are per line, but DH spends so much time out of the country that he does not have a monthly plan, we just buy minutes for from NET10, not a good option if you talk a lot, and not the best service either. I have yet to travel out of state after getting this phone so I am no help as far as roaming is concerned. It's a nationwide network, I think the way it's described on the site roaming refers to international roaming, and I was never willing to pay for that even when it was an option. It is way cheaper to get a local card.

[Penny's Pappa]

My wife and I have the 700 anytime minute Family Share Plan (or whatever it's called) with Verizon and pay ~$80 a month including $5/phone for 250 texts. We virtually never go over our allotted minutes as most of the people we talk to are on Verizon's network so those are free mobile-to-mobile minutes. Other times we're talking during free night and weekend minutes.

To the OP: I assume the people in your Friends and Family list are either not on Verizon's network or don't have cell phones?