my 2 junior high girls....dad wants to get them trac fones, say they are too young for their own cell phones on our plan....

best deals? pros and cons? to be used for emergency calls only. not to chat away with their friends......


tia

I have for my own personal use one of the cheapest tracfones I could find. I only need it for occassional use. In my case it's great because I can put 60 minutes of time on it and use it at my leisure. For a teenager they'd have to be very careful to use their time sparingly - pick and choose what's important enough to use their minutes on. But you wouldn't have to worry about them "running the bill up".

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and the free phone. Otherwise you have to pay attention and "reload" it every 60-90 days. They have a lot of good offers right now on their website. $99 for a phone and 450 min good for one year, or $129 for a camera phone and 600 units. (that sounds like a great deal.. may do that myself.

Anyway, my DH and I both have them and have had no problems. With coupos I usually have 400 min. a year and have never used them all. They roll over. I don't use it for "chatting" though. I think they would be great for teens, if they are responsible enough to only use them for short calls.

Also, search the web for "tracfone coupons" as there are always some out there.

HTH

a tracfone is the easiest and cheapest way to go with teenagers, right now you can get a really nice flip phone with a year service and 300 or more minutes. comes to 108.00 dollars. then you can see if your child is going to use his time wisely or waste it. with a regular cell phone plan you can get a bill for hundreds of dollars before you realize the phone use has been abused. Believe me I know, I went through 3 teens with cell phones. Learned the hard way, they can alway buy more minutes, and if you make them buy their own minutes its amazing how better they use their time. Regular cell phones make you sign up these days for 2 years, I pay as I go, NO surprises, less stress.

I too have one for my personal use - and have had it for close to several years. They are great for promotions. I still have about 600 minutes on mine, and add an annual card each year.

If you go this route, activate the first one, and then use that one to refer the second one, so you get the referral minutes. I know the old referral program is over, but they are planning a new one (or already have, I haven't visited the website recently).

Pro:
1 - cost. You can get an annual card for a cost that results in a equivalent of $8 per month, and probably get a free reconditioned phone with it. If you activate at the right time, you may end up with as many as 600 minutes (minutes from annual card, bonus minutes for whatever promotion is going, plus referral minute)

2 - they can't use more minutes than they have on the phone.

Con:
1 - If they don't follow your rules, not much you can do about it. If you have the annual plan and they blab the first couple of months your $8 per month goes way up, as you will now need to add more minutes. If you don't, they won't have any minutes to use in an emergency.

2 - If they don't follow your rules, and you top off every 60 days, they are even more likely to run their phone down and have no minutes. This just has the potential to cost you less. You try for a couple of months and discover they can't follow the rules, and it only cost you your initial buy-in. If they follow the rules, THEN you get the annual card.

Joining your plan, if they will follow the rules should cost you about $20 per month (for both) vs $16 with Tracfone, but then they have the option of free nights and weekends. Whichever option you choose, I would give them the option of chipping in to either buy extra tracfone minutes for their own use, or bump your family plan to the next level of minutes. I believe with a family plan you may be able to restrict their phones to only call a specific list of phone numbers (home, your cell, dad's cell, etc), but I don't know how many numbers could be added to such a list. It may be worth a call to your current cell provider to find out.

Good luck! Personally my middle school DD won't get a phone until she hits high school.

Just checked - Annual card currently has 200 bonus minutes for a total of 450 (plus 20 for activation), and comes with a free phone - 4 different models are offered: reconditioned Nokia 2600, NEW Nokia 1100, NEW Motorola c155, Reconditioned Motorola v170. Double-minute annual card for an additional $30 includes a free camera phone and 600 minutes (all cards for the next year are doubled too).

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Mom to Kimberly (6/95), Rebecca (4/98) and Gwendolyn (2/02)

Our middle school girls have one for calling home and emergencys ONLY. They have been very reliable with the phones.

Right now there is a phone and 2 of the 60 minute cards for $19.99 available on the tracfone website. You could add one card to get the 60 min and 60 days right away and save the second card to add for another 60 minutes and 60 days when you need them.

If you want you can always add the year card later.


THERE CURRENTLY ARE NO REFERRAL MINUTES.
It says they are working on it. (??)

we just fot a net 10 phone on there website for my grand daughter for 40 dollars comes with 300 minutes its a flip phone trac phone is more than 10 cents a min

Since the phone comes with 60 days service and each card will add 60 days - you actually will have 180 days with the $19.99 phone. By then you will know how reliable the young girls are with a phone.
They now say it is a fixed rate for each call.


Here is the free phone offer-

Was wondering if anyone who has these phones are out in the boonies? im asking cause I now have
verizon free up which isnt available anymore and my phone is 6 years old and they now charge a buck a min so in no time I can be out of min real quick, im not a chatter but do have to use it so I was thinking about this brand of phone.

I have a tracfone and live in the boonies! It works here in town whereas NONE of the other prepaids do! I got a virgin mobile phone a few years ago cause it was a really great deal and they told me it did work in my area. WRONG! Tracfone works great for me and sometimes I have service and my other friends post-paid phones dont'!!!

One problem that i have they do not have to give you a phone number that is local to you as long as it is not a roaming number. That is, my phone number is from an exchange in a town 50 miles from here. So when i make local calls, I have to dial 1 + area code. They somehow fixed it when I called to complain so that my number an be reached locally without dialing 1 plus area code first. But I still have to do it when i call out. Big pain in butt.

I am in a large city, but we travel a lot and I have used it on the road on our trips wth no problems.

I have a Tracfone and love it! I took it to the NC mountains this summer and called Florida and NH without any problems and no cnnection troubles. On the other hand, my son was in the NC mountains at the same place I was and couldn't connect to Florida with his Altell plan. He was impressed with my phone!!

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Thanks. ~Susan

Please email me at.... snschapin@yahoo.com

Do not value the things you have in your life,
but value who you have in your life!

Thanks for the great post I am buying one for my dd she is almost 12 for xmas this will help alot!!!

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mom of 3 greats girls

I agree thanks for this post, it reallyhelped me alot!

Right now there is a phone and 2 of the 60 minute cards for $19.99 available on the tracfone website. You could add one card to get the 60 min and 60 days right away and save the second card to add for another 60 minutes and 60 days when you need them.



grannyshirl - could you post or email me the url for that offer- tia

Under $10 a month to add our teens to our Verizon account, unlimited minutes and a camera phone (buy one get one free) at $39. Much better deal and they can gab on that and not tie up our home line.

It is only $10 if you have the $59.99 plan or higher. I have the $35.00 plan and can't add on for $10.00.

thanks, grannyshirl

I just ordered 2 tracfones and gave yuour reps! My girls are going to be thrilled. they've had cell phones on their list for 2 years now but dh and I were not about to get them on our plan because they are so young and don't realize how much they talk! this will be a learning lesson for them.