I need a cheap, emergency-only cell phone.

[raccoon]

I don't get/make lots of calls on the land phone, so I sure don't need 2 phone bills.

Your experience?

[RebelOne]

1. Trac-Phone is pretty good and cheap.

I had one, but I switched to Cingular, which is more expensive.

[Orrex]

3. Another vote for Trac-Fone

It's served me quite well for about two years now.

[MrScorpio]

12. Third vote for Trac Phone

You can get the minute cards anywhere

[Radio_Lady]

15. Never heard of Trac Phone! Can anyone give me a link?

Are they on the west coast? Also, we have to include Hawaii because we go there often.

[MrScorpio]

16. Here you go

http://www.tracfone.com/

[Radio_Lady]

17. "Thank you, kind sir," she said.

[LSK]

2. Happy with Virgin Mobile for 3 years now

It boggles my mind why anyone needs contracts or to pay $50 per month. I pay $20 every 3 months at Target for a charge up card.

www.virginmobileusa.com

[Trailrider1951]

9. I second Virgin, best service and least cost to date.

I also had T Mobile: good service but expensive

and Cingular: rotten service and expensive

Also, the Virgin phone I bought at Target was a well-built flip phone for only $20.

[texanwitch]

4. I gave my father one,

It seems to work OK.

I want to be able to reach him.

I put off getting a cell phone for a long time, but pay phones are getting hard to find.

Now I have this Blackberry monster for work.

[Radio_Lady]

5. Seen any advertisements for Jitterbug? I don't really know much about it.

www.jitterbug.com (PHOTO LOOKS GOOD)

At Jitterbug, we not only created a simpler cell phone, but a whole new experience that puts our customers first. Jitterbug is easy to use and includes friendly, helpful service. That's why Jitterbug has been recognized as the "Best New Company" in the Industry.

Simple. Bigger, backlit
buttons. Bright, large text.
Powerful speaker sounds
loud and clear.

Helpful. Live, friendly
24-hour Jitterbug
operators can make calls
for you, provide directory
assistance and add names
to your phone list.

Affordable. Service starts
at just $10 a month¹. No
long distance or roaming
fees². No contracts.

[catmandu57]

8. I've wondered about them myself

They seem to be just a basic phone without the bells and whistles, large well lighted numbers for older eyes to see, I'm thinking that nay be a better deal for my mother in law, she uses a tracfone right now, and then just for emergency, if their car breaks down or something like that.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

6. I have T-Mobile's prepaid phone

the rock-bottom model with no camera or Internet, not even a flip-top.

I buy minutes in increments of $10, and they last forever. Some of the other prepaid options require you to buy a certain minimum amount of minutes per month, whether you need them or not. T-Mobile minutes do expire, but not before you would have used them up anyway.

[FloridaJudy]

7. I used tracfone for years

And recently switched to Credo because my land line is so crappy I'm thinking of ditching it.

If you're only planning to use a cell for emergencies, tracfone is the way to go. I bought something like 40 minutes every three months for $20. That's expensive per minute, but since I used the cell rarely, it was still a hell of a lot cheaper than a contract.

[Rambis]

10. tracfone

It saves us tons of cash vs a regular mobile phone contract-

[TreasonousBastard]

11. Another vote for TracFone...

I used to spend about 75 bucks a month for Verizon when I was on the road a lot and needed a decent phone and coverage.

I'm rarely on a long roadtrip now, and don't need a phone for business, so I got a TracFone for 15 bucks and buy a $20 card a few times a year. No problems at all with it.

(Just make sure there's coverage in your area)

[brook]

13. Have had Trac-phone for

going on 7 years now. You can get a card that doubles the minutes you buy for the life of the phone - which is a pretty good deal. I think it's around 40 bucks. You can also buy fancier phones. Mine's just a simple Motorola.

[hatredisnotavalue]

14. Be sure trac-phone comes in in your area

Waste of money for us because we weren't in the coverage area.

[raccoon]

20. Oooh, thanks for the heads up. nt

[Schema Thing]

18. buy any phone configured for Verizon network on Ebay or

Craigslist (I'm using one I paid 7.00 for, with shipping), and have it activated by Pageplus cellular. You can get them to port your old number too, if you need. They will give you 83 minutes to start out with (10.00), and that is good until used at .12 per minute, or for four months.

By purchasing a higher dollar amount of minutes, you can get more minutes for even less money per minute. An 80.00 refill gives you minutes for 5.7 cents. That's about as cheap as you can find anywhere.

The great thing about pageplus as an "emergency phone" is that you don't have to spend much on a decent used or refurbed phone, and the minutes last for 120 days, so you could potentially have service for as little as 2.50 per month, if you kept your usage to 20 minutes per month or so.

[Schema Thing]

19. oh yeah, and since it's the Verizon network

it has good coverage almost everywhere.