I did not have a phone at all for about 18 months. During that time, I used phones at homeless service centers in downtown San Diego or I used public pay phones with a phone card. I got a cheap cell phone again back in October. I got a TracFone. I have been a big fan of TracFone for several years. If you don't use your phone much and just need something cheap, it is the cheapest phone option I could find and has the longest leash.
What do I mean by "longest leash"? I mean time until you have to pony up more money before they cut you off and you lose your phone number. When you have serious financial constraints, this time issue is a big deal. When I was originally looking to move to a prepay phone, I still had a corporate job and an apartment but was already hip-deep in financial problems. I wanted to lower my costs but I also wanted more flexibility on when I had to pay, not less flexibility. That flexibility is still extremely important to me.
When I had a landline, I sometimes paid it late. If you pay a contract phone too late, you can lose your phone service and the number that goes with it but it takes like a couple of weeks or something. In researching my options for prepay phones, I found that most of them give you only 30 days of service and you have to give them more money before that 30 days is up or you lose your service and your phone number. Because of my financial problems, I wanted more time before a payment was due, not less. A 30 day pre-pay phone that kills your service on day 31 is a shorter leash than a contract phone, not a longer one.
In contrast, TracFone typically adds 90 days to your service when you buy more minutes. They also offer the option of buying service for a whole year. When I did my initial research, I found only one other pre-pay phone that let me pay a year in advance. I was going to buy my phone with Christmas money and I wanted to have no phone bill for an entire year while still having phone service, so I wanted a phone I could prepay for a whole year.
When I got my first TracFone, I bought the phone, a double minutes card and a one year service card (that comes with 400 minutes, doubled to 800 by the double minutes card). The phone itself also came with 60 days of service and a few minutes of time. Due to a 10% discount at the store where I purchased it, I ended up spending about $145 for 14 months of service. This is hands down the cheapest phone service I could find.
If you have never had a TracFone before, you probably need access to a landline (or pay phone) to get set up. But since I have had a TracFone in the past and already had an online account set up with them (which I think is optional -- I just like doing everything online if possible), I was able to complete set up of my phone in October via my online account.
Not only is TracFone cheap and has a longer leash than most prepay phones, it tells you the number of service days and number of minutes you have remaining every time you open it. You never have to guess or calculate or look anything up. (I currently have 80 service days and 148.08 minutes available.) The other thing is that when I add airtime and more minutes, any unused minutes will rollover. A lot of prepay phones have those minutes expire at the end of 30 days. So not only is the leash short but the price winds up being relatively high per minute. This is a way to stay poor, not a way to cope effectively during hard times.
I am using this phone more than I expected to when I first got it. I have health problems, including a history of sinus and ear infections. For several years, using a phone made me quite sick. I tried to avoid it as much as I could. I am pleased that this phone is not making me sick (which is mostly about improvements in my own health). Years ago, I was a big phone person, hanging on the phone with relatives and friends all the time. But as I got sicker, I stopped doing that and began avoiding the phone. That remained true for a several years.
So having a phone again is part of getting my life back and has been more life enhancing than I expected it to be. For now, I use it maybe a few times a week for short "business" type calls -- calling my bank to check on the balance, calling an eatery to order take-out, calling my mom who does not do email, etc. Please note that my current balance of minutes is less than 2 minutes per day for the remaining service days. So this is not a situation where I can hang on the phone for an hour or more every day chatting with friends (which I mostly don't have anyway - friends, I mean).
This is not the phone for you if you need unlimited minutes because you hang on the phone constantly (and if you are homeless and can afford that -- you have more money than I have, apparently). I have wondered if I might someday use a phone socially again but I assume if my life goes in that direction, I will likely get something other than a TracFone, which is probably not the best deal if you spend a lot of time on the phone. In addition to being a financial expense that I can't currently afford, there are other obstacles to me hanging on the phone to make social chit chat.
Currently, I keep my phone turned off most of the time so I only need to charge it about once a week. I initially kept it on all the time and it was threatening to die every few days. Being homeless means watching your use of power. I use the phone mostly for outgoing calls. I occasionally get a text message. I have 3 missed calls in the history where I had to arrange to call people back. In part to conserve power and in part for other reasons, my situation is not currently conducive to me having a phone in my pocket at all times and available to answer it at any time of the day.
In addition to power constraints, I also have limited privacy and sometimes find myself making calls in noisy situations (like outside near a busy highway). I am celibate for medical reasons but there is no reason I could not have an emotional attachment to someone in a long distance relationship and keep in touch via email and phone -- I mean, medically, there is no reason I could not do that. But my internet access is currently limited to when I am physically at the library and I have the above listed constraints on phone use.
My point: Even if I could afford to spend the money to hang on the phone for social contact, I don't really have the privacy to, say, coo at a boyfriend on the phone. It could potentially be arranged in limited amounts but most people aren't going to want to work within my constraints to work things out. And, hey, why should they? So while I would kind of like a relationship, it is not a very realistic goal.
Having a phone while on the street can be very life enhancing. It has expanded my options in important ways. I have known people on the street with unlimited minute plans but I don't have that kind of money and I just don't use a phone that way. Even with unlimited minutes, being on the street means a phone gets used differently than if you have a home, in part because you don't have the same privacy and in part because you have limited access to electricity.
What do I mean by "longest leash"? I mean time until you have to pony up more money before they cut you off and you lose your phone number. When you have serious financial constraints, this time issue is a big deal. When I was originally looking to move to a prepay phone, I still had a corporate job and an apartment but was already hip-deep in financial problems. I wanted to lower my costs but I also wanted more flexibility on when I had to pay, not less flexibility. That flexibility is still extremely important to me.
When I had a landline, I sometimes paid it late. If you pay a contract phone too late, you can lose your phone service and the number that goes with it but it takes like a couple of weeks or something. In researching my options for prepay phones, I found that most of them give you only 30 days of service and you have to give them more money before that 30 days is up or you lose your service and your phone number. Because of my financial problems, I wanted more time before a payment was due, not less. A 30 day pre-pay phone that kills your service on day 31 is a shorter leash than a contract phone, not a longer one.
In contrast, TracFone typically adds 90 days to your service when you buy more minutes. They also offer the option of buying service for a whole year. When I did my initial research, I found only one other pre-pay phone that let me pay a year in advance. I was going to buy my phone with Christmas money and I wanted to have no phone bill for an entire year while still having phone service, so I wanted a phone I could prepay for a whole year.
When I got my first TracFone, I bought the phone, a double minutes card and a one year service card (that comes with 400 minutes, doubled to 800 by the double minutes card). The phone itself also came with 60 days of service and a few minutes of time. Due to a 10% discount at the store where I purchased it, I ended up spending about $145 for 14 months of service. This is hands down the cheapest phone service I could find.
If you have never had a TracFone before, you probably need access to a landline (or pay phone) to get set up. But since I have had a TracFone in the past and already had an online account set up with them (which I think is optional -- I just like doing everything online if possible), I was able to complete set up of my phone in October via my online account.
Not only is TracFone cheap and has a longer leash than most prepay phones, it tells you the number of service days and number of minutes you have remaining every time you open it. You never have to guess or calculate or look anything up. (I currently have 80 service days and 148.08 minutes available.) The other thing is that when I add airtime and more minutes, any unused minutes will rollover. A lot of prepay phones have those minutes expire at the end of 30 days. So not only is the leash short but the price winds up being relatively high per minute. This is a way to stay poor, not a way to cope effectively during hard times.
I am using this phone more than I expected to when I first got it. I have health problems, including a history of sinus and ear infections. For several years, using a phone made me quite sick. I tried to avoid it as much as I could. I am pleased that this phone is not making me sick (which is mostly about improvements in my own health). Years ago, I was a big phone person, hanging on the phone with relatives and friends all the time. But as I got sicker, I stopped doing that and began avoiding the phone. That remained true for a several years.
So having a phone again is part of getting my life back and has been more life enhancing than I expected it to be. For now, I use it maybe a few times a week for short "business" type calls -- calling my bank to check on the balance, calling an eatery to order take-out, calling my mom who does not do email, etc. Please note that my current balance of minutes is less than 2 minutes per day for the remaining service days. So this is not a situation where I can hang on the phone for an hour or more every day chatting with friends (which I mostly don't have anyway - friends, I mean).
This is not the phone for you if you need unlimited minutes because you hang on the phone constantly (and if you are homeless and can afford that -- you have more money than I have, apparently). I have wondered if I might someday use a phone socially again but I assume if my life goes in that direction, I will likely get something other than a TracFone, which is probably not the best deal if you spend a lot of time on the phone. In addition to being a financial expense that I can't currently afford, there are other obstacles to me hanging on the phone to make social chit chat.
Currently, I keep my phone turned off most of the time so I only need to charge it about once a week. I initially kept it on all the time and it was threatening to die every few days. Being homeless means watching your use of power. I use the phone mostly for outgoing calls. I occasionally get a text message. I have 3 missed calls in the history where I had to arrange to call people back. In part to conserve power and in part for other reasons, my situation is not currently conducive to me having a phone in my pocket at all times and available to answer it at any time of the day.
In addition to power constraints, I also have limited privacy and sometimes find myself making calls in noisy situations (like outside near a busy highway). I am celibate for medical reasons but there is no reason I could not have an emotional attachment to someone in a long distance relationship and keep in touch via email and phone -- I mean, medically, there is no reason I could not do that. But my internet access is currently limited to when I am physically at the library and I have the above listed constraints on phone use.
My point: Even if I could afford to spend the money to hang on the phone for social contact, I don't really have the privacy to, say, coo at a boyfriend on the phone. It could potentially be arranged in limited amounts but most people aren't going to want to work within my constraints to work things out. And, hey, why should they? So while I would kind of like a relationship, it is not a very realistic goal.
Having a phone while on the street can be very life enhancing. It has expanded my options in important ways. I have known people on the street with unlimited minute plans but I don't have that kind of money and I just don't use a phone that way. Even with unlimited minutes, being on the street means a phone gets used differently than if you have a home, in part because you don't have the same privacy and in part because you have limited access to electricity.