bare-bones phone and cheapest prepaid plan for a kid

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BeerTooth
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bare-bones phone and cheapest prepaid plan for a kid

Post by BeerTooth »

Our oldest kid will be 11 soon and becoming more independent. Staying home by himself, going over to friends houses, arranging rides to get home from soccer practice, etc.

He needs a way to stay in contact with me and my wife. Basic talk and text stuff. Mostly wifi but needs a 4G LTE option for when he's out and about.

We have no home phone so he's incommunicado if he's home alone. We need to be able to coordinate pickup and dropoff as plans change.

Want to avoid full-feature smartphone for obvious reasons. Not concerned about him doing nefarious things behind our backs, but want to avoid him getting sucked down the social media rabbit-hole.

He is a good kid, a rule-follower, and is not really interested in a smartphone at this time. My wife and I are not interested in tracking him.

So what are the phone and plan options?

phone - I see the Light Phone, love the idea, but no way I'm paying $350 for that. Do they still sell flip phones? Or can I pickup an old Android phone on eBay and just cripple it with Google Family Link? I'm comfortable swapping SIM cards.

Second choice is the plan - would like to avoid any recurring subscription plan. Just a few hundred text and talk minutes as needed. Wife and I are on Xfinity Mobile but I don't see any prepaid options with them. What's the cheapest prepaid MVNO on Verizon cell towers?
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arcticpineapplecorp.
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Re: bare-bones phone and cheapest prepaid plan for a kid

Post by arcticpineapplecorp. »

here's Clark Howard's 2020 list of cheapest cel phone plans:

https://clark.com/cell-phones/best-cell ... ans-deals/
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BeerTooth
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Re: bare-bones phone and cheapest prepaid plan for a kid

Post by BeerTooth »

arcticpineapplecorp. wrote: Sat Sep 12, 2020 8:00 pm here's Clark Howard's 2020 list of cheapest cel phone plans:

https://clark.com/cell-phones/best-cell ... ans-deals/
wow so Xfinity Mobile is already the cheapest option? Is there no "talk and text only" plan anymore? I don't even need a single GB of LTE data. There will likely be months where he doesn't use to phone at all. Do all the plans require a monthly subscription? Can't I just prepay for X minutes and X texts upfront and draw down the balance without a monthly subscription?
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arcticpineapplecorp.
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Re: bare-bones phone and cheapest prepaid plan for a kid

Post by arcticpineapplecorp. »

BeerTooth wrote: Sat Sep 12, 2020 8:14 pm
arcticpineapplecorp. wrote: Sat Sep 12, 2020 8:00 pm here's Clark Howard's 2020 list of cheapest cel phone plans:

https://clark.com/cell-phones/best-cell ... ans-deals/
wow so Xfinity Mobile is already the cheapest option? Is there no "talk and text only" plan anymore? I don't even need a single GB of LTE data. There will likely be months where he doesn't use to phone at all. Do all the plans require a monthly subscription? Can't I just prepay for X minutes and X texts upfront and draw down the balance without a monthly subscription?
i believe there are just talk and text. you can build your own:
https://www.usmobile.com/
https://tello.com/buy/custom_plans
https://www.t-mobile.com/support/plans- ... -text-plan
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Tiger85
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Re: bare-bones phone and cheapest prepaid plan for a kid

Post by Tiger85 »

We used Total Wireless for our 12 year old in a similar situation. Bought a cheap flip phone at Walmart on their plan. Actually ended up buying my smart phone that I'm typing on now with his phone as well. It runs on Verizon's network and works great. I travel all over for my job and have had no issues.

Customer service is almost all via chat (get what you pay for), but I've only needed it once or twice.

Another option would be prepaid plans. My wife is on the Verizon prepaid plan and it's cheaper than their pay as you go plan.
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Bruce
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Re: bare-bones phone and cheapest prepaid plan for a kid

Post by Bruce »

Have you looked at Tracfone prepaid options?
https://www.tracfone.com/why
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BuddyJet
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Re: bare-bones phone and cheapest prepaid plan for a kid

Post by BuddyJet »

For a phone that is probably more locked down than you want, do a google or eBay search for kosher cell phone. Along with locked internet, no camera.
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BeerTooth
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Re: bare-bones phone and cheapest prepaid plan for a kid

Post by BeerTooth »

thanks, looks like some good options for me to research
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Re: bare-bones phone and cheapest prepaid plan for a kid

Post by runner3081 »

Moto G6 (or others in the line) with a Tello plan.
RudyS
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Re: bare-bones phone and cheapest prepaid plan for a kid

Post by RudyS »

Bruce wrote: Sat Sep 12, 2020 8:21 pm Have you looked at Tracfone prepaid options?
https://www.tracfone.com/why
Our second phone is a tracfone. It can connect to internet but charges minutes, rather than data. Irrelevant if you just want to talk and text.
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Re: bare-bones phone and cheapest prepaid plan for a kid

Post by Jack FFR1846 »

We had our younger son on a Cricket non-smart phone plan a while back. It costs MORE than a full smart phone plan by about $20 a month. You can buy a full smart phone plan, then a non-smart phone and stick the sim card in it.
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mecht3ach
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Re: bare-bones phone and cheapest prepaid plan for a kid

Post by mecht3ach »

I second (third?) the recommendations for TracFone. When my son was at the same age, and had a similar need for such a phone, we bought a super-cheap android-based phone from Target during on-line black Friday sales (this was ~3 years ago, and it was around $20-25), and then bought the $125, 365-day plan. We didn't pay $125 for it, though - it pops up periodically on eBay for about half that amount ($60-70). It comes with 1.5 GB of data that we didn't use (we disabled that with a password in the phone), and we also found the 1500 minutes and 1500 texts to be more than adequate for a full year, and not bad for under $6/month.

Now that he is older, he has a smart phone, and we were also able to continue using that plan, with occasional supplements for extra data ($10/GB - maybe purchased twice per year, given the prevalence of wifi) and and extra texts ($5 for 1000 texts). My husband and I are on MVNOs as well, and are happy to deal with the small extra hassles of remembering when to buy refills for the considerable savings.
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Re: bare-bones phone and cheapest prepaid plan for a kid

Post by CharacterCounts »

Ting - https://ting.com/
Build your own plan. Have used it for a number of years and very satisfied.
Katietsu
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Re: bare-bones phone and cheapest prepaid plan for a kid

Post by Katietsu »

BeerTooth wrote: Sat Sep 12, 2020 8:14 pm
arcticpineapplecorp. wrote: Sat Sep 12, 2020 8:00 pm here's Clark Howard's 2020 list of cheapest cel phone plans:

https://clark.com/cell-phones/best-cell ... ans-deals/
wow so Xfinity Mobile is already the cheapest option? Is there no "talk and text only" plan anymore? I don't even need a single GB of LTE data. There will likely be months where he doesn't use to phone at all. Do all the plans require a monthly subscription? Can't I just prepay for X minutes and X texts upfront and draw down the balance without a monthly subscription?
What kind of plan do you and your wife have? If either/both of you have a per GB plan, then the only additional charge would be taxes to add a third line of talk and text. This is why Xfinity can be a good option for a low/no data usage line. Price can be less than $2 extra per month if your state does not have any state specific taxes. For example, if you are currently paying $60 a month for a 10 GB plan, your total bill might be $64 with taxes. If you add a third phone and still stay under 10 GB, your total bill will be less than $66.

If you and your wife both have unlimited data plans, you might want to look into switching all 3 phones to a different provider. I have seen some better deals in that situation.
jaybee9
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Re: bare-bones phone and cheapest prepaid plan for a kid

Post by jaybee9 »

I just went thru this for my son who is a few years older than yours. We got him a Moto e at Best Buy for $130. I disabled all the Google apps and the Google Play store. Mostly just rely on F-Droid (f-droid.org) as an open source alternative app store. (Its very doable.) Less on there that could cause trouble and the apps are free of mal/spyware.

As for a plan might be worth mentioning Republic Wireless, they are a low cost MVNO. They have a talk and text plan for $15/month. If you prepay a year in advance they give you two months free. One other feature is that you can send MMS that would ordinarily require data (with other carriers) on this plan. I used US Mobile (mentioned previously) in the past for myself for a while but switched back to RW because it was actually cheaper. Good luck.
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Re: bare-bones phone and cheapest prepaid plan for a kid

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terriprg
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Re: bare-bones phone and cheapest prepaid plan for a kid

Post by terriprg »

UltraMobile has pay as you go an for $3/month with 100min/100tex/100mb data
https://www.ultramobile.com/paygo/
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jabberwockOG
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Re: bare-bones phone and cheapest prepaid plan for a kid

Post by jabberwockOG »

The average 12-18 year old is doing 50-100 texts a day at a minimum - they generally do not talk on the phone at all. Be prepared for that at some point relatively soon.
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Re: bare-bones phone and cheapest prepaid plan for a kid

Post by harrychan »

Best plan is just add o to yours. For an 11 year old, get an iphone se. I'm an Android guy but iOS has the best parental controls that work well. Android doesn't even come close.
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JoMoney
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Re: bare-bones phone and cheapest prepaid plan for a kid

Post by JoMoney »

"Liberty Wireless" (a MVNO on T-Mobile's network) has a pre-paid plan for $100 a year ("$10 a month w/ 2 mo free") w/ unlimited talk & text + 1GB/per mo 4G LTE data
https://www.libertywireless.com/
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08548W9QN/

There are several 'Flip Phones' out there still being made and supported.
Alcatel 'Go Flip' series seems to be popular with people that want to avoid Android/Apple.
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Re: bare-bones phone and cheapest prepaid plan for a kid

Post by LFT_PFT »

Resist getting a cell phone as long as possible for your son. It is the rare teenager that is not glued (aka addicted) to their smartphone. The social connections and pressures for social media are very strong for today's youth. Our son was once a big reader and had comparatively little screen time during his elementary and early middle school years. He got his first phone at age 13 and was not interested in social media then. Initially, he used it little. Then, he got into the social media rat role to see what all the friends were talking about. Now, at 15 fifteen his phone does not leave his side and he sends 100 hundreds of messages, texts, snaps (or whatever they call it) daily and scrolls through mindless content. We limit the use and it is a regular point of contention. A common point of discussion with like minded friends is the addiction of our teenagers to their phones.

To your question:

We use Red Pocket as it is cheap with smaller data limits. Used Moto phones initially for the value and reasonable functionality. Our son recently saved and purchased an older Apple phone (since his friends had Apple). The Apple phone has good parental controls that are not available on Android.

I can't urge caution enough about kids and the use of cell phones.
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Re: bare-bones phone and cheapest prepaid plan for a kid

Post by Watty »

Bruce wrote: Sat Sep 12, 2020 8:21 pm Have you looked at Tracfone prepaid options?
https://www.tracfone.com/why
+1

When I was making the switch from a flip phone to a smartphone I found that they were a good choice.

In researching it I was a bit surprised to find that one of the best placed to buy a Tracfone bundle was at the Home Shopping Network website of all places. I would not have thought about looking there unless I saw that mentioned in a review somewhere. Some of the low end ones they sell with a smartphone for less than the cost of a years service with their 1500 minute bundle.

When you need to buy extra minutes or get to end of the year and need to buy a top up card Target will often have sales if you watch for them, or you can sometimes get good deals on eBay from TracFone. With a kid I would not have a credit card on file to automatically load more time or data.

Give your kid a break and don't get them a flip phone, which would likely cost more anyway.
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Re: bare-bones phone and cheapest prepaid plan for a kid

Post by inbox788 »

RudyS wrote: Sat Sep 12, 2020 9:06 pm
Bruce wrote: Sat Sep 12, 2020 8:21 pm Have you looked at Tracfone prepaid options?
https://www.tracfone.com/why
Our second phone is a tracfone. It can connect to internet but charges minutes, rather than data. Irrelevant if you just want to talk and text.
Strange. Never heard of charging minutes for data. Can you post a link to the plan? Data mostly pay as you go packages (voice, text, data) and very limited from most of their plans I've seen. You can often find 1 year of service with free phone for well under $100 deals and sometimes under $50. It's probably cheaper to get a new phone/plan when you've used up your allocation before the year is up than to add to it.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Tracfone-Moto- ... 3873320845?

Someone just mentioned Red Pocket, which I haven't tried yet. (There is a Sprint plan that's even less)

https://www.ebay.com/itm/5-Mo-Red-Pocke ... 3058476404

How little data will be sufficient? 150MB/month? 500MB? What kind of usage? Hard to find really cheap plans with unlimited slow data after allocated faster data is used up, especially on Verizon.
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Re: bare-bones phone and cheapest prepaid plan for a kid

Post by invest4 »

T-Mobile. $3.00 per month for 30 mins talk / text. You can go over for something like .10 cents per. Worked great for us at that age where their usage is generally more limited.
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Re: bare-bones phone and cheapest prepaid plan for a kid

Post by jfave33 »

invest4 wrote: Sun Sep 13, 2020 3:37 am T-Mobile. $3.00 per month for 30 mins talk / text. You can go over for something like .10 cents per. Worked great for us at that age where their usage is generally more limited.
They discontinued that a while ago. The new $3 plan gives 100 mins, 100texts and 100mb and is managed by ultra mobile but you still can only buy the sim from tmobile stores.
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Re: bare-bones phone and cheapest prepaid plan for a kid

Post by galawdawg »

Consider me old-fashioned, but we didn't get cell phones for our kids. DW and I were very involved in attending their sporting events and other activities and for the very infrequent times they needed to call us, there was always either a landline at their friend's house or someone had a phone they could borrow. But, they have all been out of high school for over ten years now and I'm sure the social pressures now are even greater than they were just 10-20 years ago. Fortunately, many of their friends had parents who took the same approach. Today, some parents insist on buying their preteens the latest and greatest $1,000 smartphone, I suppose it helps the parent's self-esteem in some bizarre way. :|

Good for you to be considering a phone that will reduce the temptation and opportunity to be on social media and the screen time addiction that is common for children, teens and young adults. As others have mentioned, you can get a flip phone from Total Wireless for about $10.00 and plans with unlimited talk and text and 1gb of data are about $25.00. You may also want to see what options there may be to add a line to your plan, perhaps you can even limit the data through their app, it is worth checking.

Good luck!
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Re: bare-bones phone and cheapest prepaid plan for a kid

Post by RudyS »

inbox788 wrote: Sun Sep 13, 2020 2:53 am
RudyS wrote: Sat Sep 12, 2020 9:06 pm
Bruce wrote: Sat Sep 12, 2020 8:21 pm Have you looked at Tracfone prepaid options?
https://www.tracfone.com/why
Our second phone is a tracfone. It can connect to internet but charges minutes, rather than data. Irrelevant if you just want to talk and text.
Strange. Never heard of charging minutes for data. Can you post a link to the plan? Data mostly pay as you go packages (voice, text, data) and very limited from most of their plans I've seen. You can often find 1 year of service with free phone for well under $100 deals and sometimes under $50. It's probably cheaper to get a new phone/plan when you've used up your allocation before the year is up than to add to it.

Update: What I said was true when we bought the phone about 3-5 years ago. I just checked; there is now a plan available with talk, text, and 1 GB (or more) of data. We pay $6.95 per month to keep the phone active, and buy minutes very rarely.
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Re: bare-bones phone and cheapest prepaid plan for a kid

Post by RetiredAL »

BeerTooth wrote: Sat Sep 12, 2020 7:49 pm Our oldest kid will be 11 soon and becoming more independent.
Do consider the angst you will be setting him up for when his peers find out he has the crappiest dinosaur phone in the group.

That said, don't get him a $1000 phone either.

As to what plan, well do it as an add to whatever plan you already have, for no other reason than centralized simplicity.
inbox788
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Re: bare-bones phone and cheapest prepaid plan for a kid

Post by inbox788 »

RudyS wrote: Sun Sep 13, 2020 11:17 amUpdate: What I said was true when we bought the phone about 3-5 years ago. I just checked; there is now a plan available with talk, text, and 1 GB (or more) of data. We pay $6.95 per month to keep the phone active, and buy minutes very rarely.
Do you use data? How is it metered and what do they charge? I've had a phone with Tracfone for nearly a decade (started with double and triple minute cards -- gimmick), and it's always been something like "a 60 minute card will give 60 talk, 60 texts, and 60 MB data". I didn't use data back then and loaded up 400 minutes x 3 for a year, and didn't run out, and now have thousands of minutes of talk. Once I started using data, it got used up very quickly, so I had to buy the $10/GB cards. It's a very flexible program, but data limited by cost.

One drawback of these big prepaid buckets is the accidental use or error. A bad app can drain the data allocation, which can happen for monthly plans too, but they're renewed. One time I made a one minute call from one prepaid phone to another, but the call didn't properly terminate so the phones were both charged an hour each before disconnecting the call. The company wouldn't do anything about it, so I basically burned 2 60 minute cards getting pickup at the airport. It was a bigger deal back then, now pretty much meaningless, but something to keep in mind before committing too far into the future.

Some people use this opportunity to buy themselves a new phone and pass down their phone. Depending on how scrappy your phone is, the kids may love it or hate it.
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Re: bare-bones phone and cheapest prepaid plan for a kid

Post by CABob »

These conversations used to get a number of suggestions for using Page Plus Cellular but for some reason haven't see the name recently. I have one of their plans and pay about $30/month. They have a relationship with phone suppliers and I see that they have some flip phones in the $20 to $40 range. Page Plus uses the Verizon network.
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Re: bare-bones phone and cheapest prepaid plan for a kid

Post by RudyS »

inbox788 wrote: Sun Sep 13, 2020 12:07 pm
RudyS wrote: Sun Sep 13, 2020 11:17 amUpdate: What I said was true when we bought the phone about 3-5 years ago. I just checked; there is now a plan available with talk, text, and 1 GB (or more) of data. We pay $6.95 per month to keep the phone active, and buy minutes very rarely.
Do you use data? How is it metered and what do they charge? I've had a phone with Tracfone for nearly a decade (started with double and triple minute cards -- gimmick), and it's always been something like "a 60 minute card will give 60 talk, 60 texts, and 60 MB data". I didn't use data back then and loaded up 400 minutes x 3 for a year, and didn't run out, and now have thousands of minutes of talk. Once I started using data, it got used up very quickly, so I had to buy the $10/GB cards. It's a very flexible program, but data limited by cost.

....

Some people use this opportunity to buy themselves a new phone and pass down their phone. Depending on how scrappy your phone is, the kids may love it or hate it.
I never did use data. I suppose my memory may have failed me since others too report having data on their tracfone plan.
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Re: bare-bones phone and cheapest prepaid plan for a kid

Post by 02nz »

inbox788 wrote: Sun Sep 13, 2020 2:53 am Someone just mentioned Red Pocket, which I haven't tried yet. (There is a Sprint plan that's even less)
The Sprint plan (200 MB, 200 minutes, 1000 texts) is here: https://www.ebay.com/itm/2-50-Mo-Red-Po ... 3196831828.

Those amounts are per MONTH, and the cost is just $30 per YEAR (well, 360 days). Note that the text allocation only applies to true SMS texts - anything sent over iMessage, Whatsapp, etc., will count against data if using the cell network (of course each message only uses a tiny amount).

Red Pocket has been fine in my experience.
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Re: bare-bones phone and cheapest prepaid plan for a kid

Post by inbox788 »

CABob wrote: Sun Sep 13, 2020 12:20 pm These conversations used to get a number of suggestions for using Page Plus Cellular but for some reason haven't see the name recently. I have one of their plans and pay about $30/month. They have a relationship with phone suppliers and I see that they have some flip phones in the $20 to $40 range. Page Plus uses the Verizon network.
I still have an emergency phone on Page Plus that's $30/year ($10/120 days). They're winding down 3G support so make sure whatever phone you have is 4G/LTE (VoLTE). For some odd reason my old iPhone SE isn't showing up as compatible, though it should be.
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Re: bare-bones phone and cheapest prepaid plan for a kid

Post by CABob »

inbox788 wrote: Sun Sep 13, 2020 2:28 pm I still have an emergency phone on Page Plus that's $30/year ($10/120 days). They're winding down 3G support so make sure whatever phone you have is 4G/LTE (VoLTE). For some odd reason my old iPhone SE isn't showing up as compatible, though it should be.
Good point. I have an iPhone 5s that I am about to upgrade and have received the notice that the iphone 5s will not be compatible at some point in the near future.
According to this the SE first generation should be compatible.
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inbox788
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Re: bare-bones phone and cheapest prepaid plan for a kid

Post by inbox788 »

Was going to add PagePlus doesn't seem to have much between close to 0 (pay as you go $0.10/MB = $100/GB) and $30/month 3GB plan. On Verizon, I thought Total Wireless was more competitive, though their plans have changed since I recall a $20 or $25 2GB that doesn't seem to be there anymore (when Mint introduced their $15/month 2GB, now 3GB). I can live with T-mobile over Verizon network at half the rate, but YMMV.

What I'm seeing now at Total is $25 for 1GB and $35 for 5GB, which cost is still more than Mint. Interestingly, their family plan is now 30GB shared for $60 for 2 lines. If you need 2 lines, this is somewhat competitive with Mint $30 unlimited. These might interest moderate to higher data users or when the kids get older and need more data. Any other similar or better plans?
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Re: bare-bones phone and cheapest prepaid plan for a kid

Post by Luke Duke »

I use speedtalk.com for our oldest. I bought her a smartwatch on Amazon and pay $5/mo for the service. The watch isn't very good, but it does what we need it to.
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Re: bare-bones phone and cheapest prepaid plan for a kid

Post by ddurrett896 »

I got a pre owned iPhone 8 for my child for $100.

While an iPhone is more than I wanted, I like being able to track using Find My Location and the Screen Time limits.
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Re: bare-bones phone and cheapest prepaid plan for a kid

Post by eye.surgeon »

Having been through this with my own 3 kids, I would suggest you come to terms with the reality that a smart phone is essential for teens (and near-teens in your case). It is not a luxury like it was 10 years ago. It is how kids communicate and socialize not only with their peers but with educators, coaches, and other appropriate adults they network with. Restricting access to a smart phone would be akin to us as teens in the 70s and 80s being refused access to the home telephone. It is a crippling restriction socially. I am not suggesting that the phone should be used without supervision or oversight.

What worked best for me was handing off to my kids my 2 or 3 year old iphone when I get a new one and putting them on the family plan. Adding a kid to a family plan is a trivial expense.
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BeerTooth
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Re: bare-bones phone and cheapest prepaid plan for a kid

Post by BeerTooth »

after a followup conversation with my wife, I now understand that what she REALLY wants is a pseudo-home-phone for when my son is home alone.

We have an old Samsung Galaxy S3 sitting around without a SIM card. I installed WhatsApp and demonstrated that he can place a receive calls and text messages to my wife's iPhone.

So we kicked the can down the road with a free stopgap solution. Eventually the smartphone monster is coming for all of us, but my kids are safe for another couple of years!
inbox788
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Re: bare-bones phone and cheapest prepaid plan for a kid

Post by inbox788 »

Great solution.

Kids don't talk on phone anymore, so even if a smartphone had zero voice minutes, they can probably do 98% of what they need to do. Still, an S3 is a bit too old to keep up these days, so be on the lookout for something more modern and a decent data plan.
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Re: bare-bones phone and cheapest prepaid plan for a kid

Post by retire2022 »

BeerTooth wrote: Mon Sep 21, 2020 11:59 am after a followup conversation with my wife, I now understand that what she REALLY wants is a pseudo-home-phone for when my son is home alone.

We have an old Samsung Galaxy S3 sitting around without a SIM card. I installed WhatsApp and demonstrated that he can place a receive calls and text messages to my wife's iPhone.

So we kicked the can down the road with a free stopgap solution. Eventually the smartphone monster is coming for all of us, but my kids are safe for another couple of years!
Ah you can do that with Ipod touch, using app Talkatone as well.

EDIT: You can use google voice, you can choose an assigned number with area code and have that number call and go to voice mail as well as show up in his in box via gmail.com

One can get calls via Wifi, I know of a extreme frugal slacker (adult in his 40's gen-xer who does this, they never pick up calls anyway)

Might as well op in for a tin can and a string! LOL.
Last edited by retire2022 on Tue Sep 22, 2020 5:38 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Watty
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Re: bare-bones phone and cheapest prepaid plan for a kid

Post by Watty »

BeerTooth wrote: Mon Sep 21, 2020 11:59 am after a followup conversation with my wife, I now understand that what she REALLY wants is a pseudo-home-phone for when my son is home alone.
Assuming that you have wifi at your house then there are lots of VOIP solutions for that where you have a home phone like that for free or a very low monthly cost. We use the premium version of OOMA because it has junk call filtering but as I recall they also have other low cost options where you mainly just have to pay some taxes and a 911 fee. There are lots of other ones out there like Magicjack.

Whoever you get your internet through likely has a VOIP phone option too, but those are often not a very good deal.
ctfish
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Re: bare-bones phone and cheapest prepaid plan for a kid

Post by ctfish »

Republic wireless or Google fi
wfrobinette
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Re: bare-bones phone and cheapest prepaid plan for a kid

Post by wfrobinette »

BeerTooth wrote: Sat Sep 12, 2020 7:49 pm Our oldest kid will be 11 soon and becoming more independent. Staying home by himself, going over to friends houses, arranging rides to get home from soccer practice, etc.

He needs a way to stay in contact with me and my wife. Basic talk and text stuff. Mostly wifi but needs a 4G LTE option for when he's out and about.

We have no home phone so he's incommunicado if he's home alone. We need to be able to coordinate pickup and dropoff as plans change.

Want to avoid full-feature smartphone for obvious reasons. Not concerned about him doing nefarious things behind our backs, but want to avoid him getting sucked down the social media rabbit-hole.

He is a good kid, a rule-follower, and is not really interested in a smartphone at this time. My wife and I are not interested in tracking him.

So what are the phone and plan options?

phone - I see the Light Phone, love the idea, but no way I'm paying $350 for that. Do they still sell flip phones? Or can I pickup an old Android phone on eBay and just cripple it with Google Family Link? I'm comfortable swapping SIM cards.

Second choice is the plan - would like to avoid any recurring subscription plan. Just a few hundred text and talk minutes as needed. Wife and I are on Xfinity Mobile but I don't see any prepaid options with them. What's the cheapest prepaid MVNO on Verizon cell towers?

https://www.whistleout.com/
wfrobinette
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Re: bare-bones phone and cheapest prepaid plan for a kid

Post by wfrobinette »

BeerTooth wrote: Mon Sep 21, 2020 11:59 am after a followup conversation with my wife, I now understand that what she REALLY wants is a pseudo-home-phone for when my son is home alone.

We have an old Samsung Galaxy S3 sitting around without a SIM card. I installed WhatsApp and demonstrated that he can place a receive calls and text messages to my wife's iPhone.

So we kicked the can down the road with a free stopgap solution. Eventually the smartphone monster is coming for all of us, but my kids are safe for another couple of years!
How is your son calling 911 if needed?
stimulacra
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Re: bare-bones phone and cheapest prepaid plan for a kid

Post by stimulacra »

iPhone SE (first gen) or any of the recent models used.

Apple's stance on privacy is head and shoulders above other hardware and software developers. Their support for older models is pretty impressive.

iPod Touch or iPad mini is a good wifi-only option.

If you or your wife are due for an upgrade this fall/winter, hand-me-down strategy works great.
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illumination
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Re: bare-bones phone and cheapest prepaid plan for a kid

Post by illumination »

I used an old iPhone 6 we had with a prepaid Tracfone plan. One year was like $100. I got the sim card at BestBuy for like $1, just take the old one out. Comes with instructions.

It gives you like a 1000 minutes of talk and a thousand texts. But since the iPhone goes through iMessage, it doesn't "count" texts when on WiFi.

It was perfect for a younger kid, most of her use is on WiFi anyway. Eventually we plan to put her on a Verizon plan, but that's about $600 a year. ($50 x 12) when we priced it.
random_walker_77
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Re: bare-bones phone and cheapest prepaid plan for a kid

Post by random_walker_77 »

Consider the red pocket prepaid ebay plans. They offer service on any of the major networks -- we chose Verizon.

We're on their $60/yr ebay option, which is 100 min, 100 text, 500MB (per month).

They've also got a $30/yr ebay option if you use the sprint network, which is 200min, 1000 texts, 200MB (per month)

It's worked fine for us for the last couple of yours, but obviously we don't use very much data. Even less under covid lockdown. I do like that their rate to buy extra data for the month is quite reasonable. Almost bought some on vacation but ended up having enough to get through the month.

(Looked it up and the data refills have gone up slightly: extra data that's good for the current month only is $15 for 1GB, $5 for 250MB, or $2 for 100MB. Still seems reasonable for my purposes, given that I'm paying just $5 per month, with no extra taxes or fees)
inbox788
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Re: bare-bones phone and cheapest prepaid plan for a kid

Post by inbox788 »

random_walker_77 wrote: Wed Sep 23, 2020 10:17 pm(Looked it up and the data refills have gone up slightly: extra data that's good for the current month only is $15 for 1GB, $5 for 250MB, or $2 for 100MB. Still seems reasonable for my purposes, given that I'm paying just $5 per month, with no extra taxes or fees)
That's higher than the $10/GB or less that others like Mint, Tracfone, and Boost are charging. https://www.mintmobile.com/add-ons/ https://www.boostmobile.com/plans/add-on/data-packs

These days, you can get a whole month of service with 1GB data prepaid for $10. I think these are regular rates month by month, but I just started noticing them and haven't delved into the details yet. Haven't figured out if this is a new sustainable price point or loss leader and the plans or companies will shutdown or the service is just poor, unreliable and unusable. Cricket got to $20-25, but you had to buy 4-5 lines (and throttling). Mint got down to 15-20, but you had to pay for a whole year ahead of time. Risky when they were unknown and first offered it, but less so now that they have a couple of years under their belt.

https://www.boostmobile.com/expanded-plans.html
https://www.genmobile.com/pages/10istheplan_v3
https://www.libertywireless.com/plans.php
https://tello.com/buy/custom_plans
https://hellomobile.com/shop/plans
https://www.ultramobile.com/product/1gb ... nth%2Bplan (promotion)
random_walker_77
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Re: bare-bones phone and cheapest prepaid plan for a kid

Post by random_walker_77 »

inbox788 wrote: Thu Sep 24, 2020 12:58 pm
random_walker_77 wrote: Wed Sep 23, 2020 10:17 pm(Looked it up and the data refills have gone up slightly: extra data that's good for the current month only is $15 for 1GB, $5 for 250MB, or $2 for 100MB. Still seems reasonable for my purposes, given that I'm paying just $5 per month, with no extra taxes or fees)
That's higher than the $10/GB or less that others like Mint, Tracfone, and Boost are charging. https://www.mintmobile.com/add-ons/ https://www.boostmobile.com/plans/add-on/data-packs
Yes, but that's only if you ever need to get extra data. In two years, I've bought an extra $2 worth (100MB) one time. If your usage is low, the $5/month cost is a pretty good deal. If your usage is such that you normally use more than 500MB, then the plan isn't a good match. If you normally use 300MB/month, the rate to get more data for that one month you're travelling is a bit steeper than others, but still reasonable in my estimation.
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