What prepaid phone is best for me?

Try TracFone. I use it myself as my only phone. The minutes never really "expire", especially after you've loaded it a few times. I spend $100 or less a year on mine. The phone itself cost me $10 (on sale admittedly). I don't shill for many products but I'm a real TracFone fan.

I switched from Virgin Mobile to a Verizon Pay As You Go phone (phone only, no data) late last year to get the better coverage of the Verizon network (Virgin uses the inferior Sprint network). I paid $12 for a Gusto 3 flip phone (I love flip phones; no butt dialing or broken screens). Since I rarely use a cell phone (I carry it primarily for emergencies), I have the plan that costs $1.99 for unlimited use nationwide for each day I use the phone (if I don't use it on a given day, there is no charge; otherwise I can yap all day long for the same price as one minute). I have automatic withdrawal set up to take $5 ($5.45 with the added fees) out of one of my debit accounts every month. Any unused balance in a month rolls over and accumulates until I use it. Verizon will also take an additional $5 out of my account if my balance drops below $5.

indianacarnie said:

Try TracFone. I use it myself as my only phone. The minutes never really "expire", especially after you've loaded it a few times. I spend $100 or less a year on mine. The phone itself cost me $10 (on sale admittedly). I don't shill for many products but I'm a real TracFone fan.

I'm a TracFone fan too.

I buy one these Alcatel Big Easy Plus with 800 Minutes and One Year of Service Tracfone| eBay once a year.

A year of service and all the minutes I need.

When the minutes or days are about to run out I buy a new one and transfer the number.
If there are any leftover days and minutes, they transfer automatically.

I pay $30 a year!

iknowjohnny said:

indianacarnie said:

Try TracFone. I use it myself as my only phone. The minutes never really "expire", especially after you've loaded it a few times. I spend $100 or less a year on mine. The phone itself cost me $10 (on sale admittedly). I don't shill for many products but I'm a real TracFone fan.

Thanks. Thats pretty much what i want but the cost is more than i hoped because it's a phone i will almost surely never use. It would be for times when my internet goes down because i use a VOIP and wouldn't be able to call ATT to tell them i have no internet. I don't want to have to buy minutes every 90 days either, but minimum for a year card is $100. Maybe not seem like much but like i said it's only for emergency use. My ATT internet has never gone down so chances are i will maybe need a few minutes once every few years if that. By then i will have paid several 100 bucks for a few minutes on the phone. So i need a cheaper solution.

Go back and read what I said about Verizion's Pay As You Go plans. All I use my phone for is emergencies and it is costing me only $5.45 per month. You can set it up for automatic withdrawal from a credit or debit account so you won't have to horse around with refills. The phone itself is only around $12 at Wally World (Walmart).

My father payed 200 for a LG G2 and it gives you triple minutes when you reload and around 3GB of data and since his is GSM and works off ATT towers he pretty much pays around 40 a year for service. He does not use much data so it is always there for him and since the phone is android he can use it on wifi for pretty much anything when not using it for calls. EDIT: Sorry this is on Tracfone as well.

Not sure about the US but here in the UK you can get sim cards for use in security systems, (alarms that call an emergency centre or the house owner, when tripped), that never run out of credit until it is actually used for making calls,

You would need to buy a cheap phone from somewhere, (Craig's List, eBay) but it may meet your needs better than any involvement with the big providers