11-13-2012, 05:36 PM
GGD wrote:
[quote=clay]
It works well for my very limited needs, and also meets my cheapskate requirement :-)
I'm doing even better than that.
I'm also on TracFone with a dumb phone (Nokia 1100), I work from home, have poor cell reception at home and use landlines most of the time, so this phone is only used when I'm out running errands, and only family members know the number, so it's very low voice usage and no text/data usage.
I pay what works out to $4.70/month. Every 15 months I add a 60 minute / 90 day airtime card from the Tracfone website for $19.99 and they offer an option of adding an additional 365 days of activation for $50, so after taxes are added, I wind up with 15 months of activation for $70.40.
I've got the double minutes for life on this phone too, and usually find a promo code to add an extra 30-60 minutes, so I'll get about 150 to 180 minutes every time I refill, and with the minutes I've accumulated over the years I've rarely need to add more.
I've also got one of these phones in each car for an emergency phone, again, averaging $4.70/mo. each. And over the years, those phones have built up a pretty good size balance of minutes.
haha! I forgot to mention that I also use bonus codes and the phone came with a Triple-minutes-for-life bonus as well...so my $7.50/month total is probably a little high as well. My wife also has a tracfone, and I'm getting closer to $5-$6/month with her phone with a combination of those same tricks as well. Either way, I'm happy to be spending under $8/month no matter how you splice it :-)