Pay As You Go Cell Phones

Thinking about getting a new cell phone or perhaps your first cell phone? There are basically two ways you can go.

The first is with a traditional cell phone plan. You pay for a certain number of minutes per month whether you use them or not. In return for signing a two year contract, you get a deep discount on your cell phone or perhaps a free cell phone.

The second option is to pay for your cell phone usage as you go. These are called pre-paid cell phone plans. There are no contracts to sign and no credit checks. You buy a special cell phone that is set up to work on a particular service and then you buy some minutes to go with your phone. It’s a little like charging up the phone. As you use minutes making and receiving calls, your balance goes down until you get low enough that you want to add more.

An advantage of the pre-paid approach is that you can adjust how much you spend on cellular service each month by how much you use the phone. If you only want a cell phone for emergencies and to occasionally use when you are out and about, a pre-paid cell phone plan is a good deal for you. You do need to add minutes to keep the service active, but you can do that monthly or by purchasing a bundle of minutes that’s good for a year or two. Unlike most traditional cellular service plans, the pre-paid service keeps your unused minutes accumulating until you want to use them. You might go weeks without ever using the phone, but all your minutes will still be there.

How much does prepaid cellular cost? A great value is the Net10 pre-paid cell phone service that has a flat rate of 10 cents per minute. Call across town and it’s 10 cents a minute. Call the other side of the country and it’s 10 cents a minute. It’s even 10 cents a minute while you are roaming.

How about texting? Text messages are a flat 5 cents each. You only pay for the messages you send and receive. If you are a modest text message user, this can be cheaper than paying for a bundle of text messages monthly and then not using all of them.

Are the Net10 phones expensive? Not really. You’ll pay anywhere from $20 for a reconditioned basic cellphone up to $80 for a slider with a QWERTY keyboard, MP3 player and 1.3 Megapixel digital camera and Bluetooth. There are a number of models in-between with cameras, Bluetooth and texting capability. That’s cheaper than most contractual cell phones that you’ll find in stores and without the 2 year contract.

If you are looking for a BlackBerry or high performance touch screen Web enabled smartphone, you want to shop the regular cell phone plans market. But if you want to have the security and convenience of owning a cell phone while being able to minimize the amount you spend on cellular service and the option of being able to stop using it without having to pay any disconnect fees, then consider Net10 pay as you go cell phones and service for an excellent deal.

AT&T Waives Cell Phone Activation Fee This Week

I just got the word that AT&T is waiving the activation fee for new wireless customers through Midnight on Sunday, March 22. If you've been pondering a new AT&T cell phone with service this year, here's your incentive to act now. Hey, that's $36 you get to keep in your pocket. Now considering that you can get many hot AT&T cell phones for free and others at deep discounts, this special offer is really a bonus on top of a bonus on top of a ... Well, you get the idea.

Note: This is an exclusive offer available only through Sunday, March 22, 2009. We've got a collection of 67 AT&T cell phones, including BlackBerry models for your perusal. Some will even give you cash back as well as waive the activation fee. It's like finding a hidden gold mine, isn't it?

There are all sorts of cell phone specials available every day. Before you poke your nose in a retail store and get roped into paying too much, see how much you can save online first.

Consolidate Cell Phones Under a Family Plan

As the recession deepens and you start thinking harder on where to economize next, your eye might turn toward those considerable cell phone bills. With everyone in the family now wirelessly connected, the combined monthly costs might have grown to over a hundred dollars a month. Perhaps even several hundred dollars per month. It's so tempting to just to cut back and not renew those contracts when they expire. But, oh, the pain of going cell-less. Isn't there something that can keep everyone connected but slash the phone bills?

There is indeed, but you'll need a little discipline to make it work. It's called sharing. You may already share a car. The kids may share toys or computers. What can save your cell phones is to share the wireless plan.

Notice that I didn't say share the cell phones. The whole idea is to be able to make and receive calls when you are on the go. Unless you are always traveling in pairs or groups, a shared cell phone won't provide that instant communications ability. Somebody will always have the phone and everyone else will be wanting. Don't share phones, share the phone plan.

The trick here is to buy what is known as a family plan. It's one cellular service plan with one bill per month and a bucket of minutes. So far, that sounds like a regular wireless plan. But this is different in that there can be two or more phones on that plan, each with their own phone number. It's not like the old party line where all the neighbors are on the same phone line and can listen to each other's conversations. Each phone has private service and its own number. Just like individual service. What's shared is the monthly minutes, nothing else.

Yes, it's going to take some cooperation to make this work. If you have a blabbermouth in your family who runs out all the minutes every month, they need to be throttled. Or at least forced to take an extra job to pay the bill. But most people don't have that problem. They love their cell phone for the security and convenience it provides. Plus you have the peace of mind of knowing that you'll never miss a call because you're not home to take it. At the end of the month, most people have minutes that simply expire unused.

If that sounds like your situation, moving to a family plan could cut your phone bill dramatically with no inconvenience whatsoever. Let's take a look at some plans. AT&T has the Nation FamilyTalk 550 w/ Rollover that includes 2 lines on a 2 year contract for $59.99 a month. You get 550 minutes per month shared between two phones at a cost of roughly $30 a phone. What's even better is that you can add a 3rd phone to that plan for $9.99 more. At those prices, it makes sense to put one in junior's backpack so he'll never be stranded.

Need more minutes? Get the AT&T Nation FamilyTalk 1400 w/ Rollover for $89.99. That 700 minutes a month each for the two phones on the plan. Plus the beauty of this plan is that it can handle up to 5 phones at just $9.99 additional for each phone added. Notice also that the AT&T rollover minutes carry your unused minutes to the next month so you don't lose them. That can help you get by with a smaller family plan if you don't use every minute every month.

Verizon has similar plans, as do T-Mobile, Sprint, Alltel and Nextel. You pick the carrier you prefer and then select the plan that gives you the most minutes for the budget you are planning.

But wouldn't you save even more if you shared cell phones as well as the plan? Not necessarily. If you buy your cell phone and service online, you can easily get free phones to go with your family plan. Not just bare bones models, either. Right now you can get dozens of models free, including the LG Vu, Samsung Rant, BlackBerry Curve, Motorola RAZR, and Sony Ericsson Walkman. Order a family plan and you can get all your phones free. With free phones, there really isn't much motivation to share a handset. Unless, of course, you need to discipline someone who hogs all the minutes.

Does a family plan sound like the right solution to save you money while preserving your wireless freedom? If so, check out all the wireless plans and special phone deals available right now at Cell Phone Plans Finder.