Bummer…Our Cell Phone Broke

We have a cell phone for emergency use only. It’s a Tracfone (pay as you go phone) and to save a few dollars I buy a yearly plan versus buying minutes every few months to keep the phone active. Wouldn’t you know it…the day after I bought a yearly plan, our phone would not power on. I give that phone some credit. My son has dropped it a few times and I’ve dropped it too. It’s been through a lot, but I guess after a three years it had enough.

We stopped by the store yesterday to buy a new one. Can you believe that a cell phone only costs $15? Sometimes I am amazed by technology. For $15, you can have a piece of equipment that can connect you with the rest of the world from almost anywhere. Amazing.

Anyways, after a call with Tracfone, our new phone was set-up with our number and the minutes will be transferred over shortly and we will be back up and running. I’m anxious to see how this phone works. It’s so small and light. I think about the day that I see an iPhone in action. I would probably faint at what it can do LOL.

Posted by Tricia on March 4, 2008 at 7:42 AM in Spending Money | 11 Comments »
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Raesmom responded:
Posted: March 4th, 2008 at 8:15 am
We used to have a Tracphone. It was a very reliable service and a nice little phone. I saw them the other day at Wal-Mart for around $15. I have a Net 10 phone. Bought the phone and two months service for $30. I’m like you. All I need is a phone for emergencies. Don’t really need email, camera, or any other features.
Jim responded:
Posted: March 4th, 2008 at 11:18 am
You had this phone 3 years? How much did it weigh and did it have a color screen? Glad you got a new phone though and hopefully avoid dropping it. There is an advantage in having those pay as you go plans with no monthly contract. I have had a cell phone contract since college and it runs me around $100 a month for myself and my wife. We use our cell phones though as our phone not just emergencies, which is becoming very common today.

My wife has an iPhone (NO I DID NOT PAY $600 for it either) and has become very attached to it. This thing (toy) does e-mail and web and has a lot of features to it, plus it is an iPod as well as a phone. My mom really wants to get one but they are service locked with AT&T right now and she has Verizon. I would advise you just stay away from these things though, technology can consume our lives sometimes. My phone just makes and receives calls, crazy that’s all I need out of a cell phone and primarily what it was designed to do.
Da Big D responded:
Posted: March 4th, 2008 at 11:31 am
I agree with Jim. Call me old (I am 40 now) but a phone is used to talk on. If I need it in an emergancy it there, it I need the convience of it, its there. I don’t need it to watch TV, be my radio or work from it. That’s just me though…
Da Big D responded:
Posted: March 4th, 2008 at 11:31 am
I agree with Jim. Call me old (I am 40 now) but a phone is used to talk on. If I need it in an emergancy it there, it I need the convience of it, its there. I don’t need it to watch TV, be my radio or work from it. That’s just me though…
Tricia responded:
Posted: March 4th, 2008 at 11:51 am
I could probably become very easily attached to an iPhone. Part of me would still like and iPod. But, when I really think about it, I don’t think they would enhance my life. They would more likely make it more hectic!

Jim – our old phone wasn’t too big, but the weight of it is about twice as much as the new phone.

When I think of old cell phones, I think of the movie Night at the Roxbury when the mom pulled out the cell phones to give the boys
FlatGreg responded:
Posted: March 4th, 2008 at 1:21 pm
I love the camera on my phone, and it doesn’t have to cost you anything. Even lots of the cheap prepaid phones have them. If I see something in the store that I like, I’ll snap a picture of the price tag and the model number to research it later. I consider it my external memory device
Grace responded:
Posted: March 4th, 2008 at 1:44 pm
I love my Tracfone. You can buy cards on e-bay for somewhat less than the going rate (I have paid $14.50 to $18.80 for a $20 card), and there are websites out there with all the bonus codes, so the 60 minute cards I buy wind up with 120 minutes. If you add minutes on the Tracfone site, you can “try out” bonus codes to see if they are any good.
Foxie responded:
Posted: March 4th, 2008 at 2:27 pm
iPhones are nice, but I’d be too worried about the touch screen getting damaged or the phone locking up on me. At my job, I sell a lot of phones, so part of my work is playing with the ones we have so I can talk to customers about what they can do. Don’t have any iPhones in my store, but I know quite a few people who have them and enjoy them. The HTC Touch is a pretty nice phone, it’s one of the other full touch screens out there. iPods are wonderful for traveling, mine did me well when I flew to England.

My personal favorite phone is the Palm Centro… Now there’s a phone that I would really love to have, but I can’t afford it. (I can have an employee plan with Sprint, but I have to buy the phone outright. I think the Centro runs somewhere around $550.)
SingleGuyMoney responded:
Posted: March 4th, 2008 at 5:39 pm
I have been considering switching to a prepaid plan once my contract is up. I’m so tired of being “tied” to the cell phone company.
Jonathan responded:
Posted: March 4th, 2008 at 7:15 pm
I was just thinking about this the other day as well. Cell phone service is cheap, and so are computers, but so many other raw goods cost so much more now.

How much does TracFone cost for a year?
Tricia responded:
Posted: March 4th, 2008 at 8:16 pm
I paid $99 for one year of service and 600 minutes (normally it is 400 minutes, but I found a code to get 200 extra for free).

There was an option to buy any minutes and then add a year of service for $49.99. So, the cheapest you could get for a year was around $70. You didn’t get many minutes, though.