Are Pay as You Go, Cell Phone Plans, Worth the Money?

I first began using a TracFone 15 years ago for talk only when I was called out of town for several months and needed a cell phone for communication. I went with TracFone brcause it was convenient, no contract and the price seemed to be what I could afford at the time. Back then there weren't too many options for pay as you go cell phone companies so it wasn't as if I had the same choices as today. There were no activation fees and setting up minutes on my phone was easy enough as long as I had a credit card. I could add minutes through the phone and were detected within minutes and was ready to go.

I learned quickly that my minutes were taken up with not only outgoing calls but with incoming, in and outgoing text messages. The 240 minutes that I initially had, ended up being cut in half due to me having to pay for incoming and text messaging that was already paid for by someone else. So it's like double paying. By the time the month was over, the cost of my minutes ended up well over $100.00. As for quality of service, half of the time I had none and had to drive several miles until there were a few bars on my phone showing the service availability.

I should have went with an unlimited service plan which would have cost me around $100.00 a month at the time anyway, especially since I had to use the phone a lot.

Today there are a lot more pay as you go cell companies and options where having to sign a contract is not needed. You still have plenty of alluring choices of inexpensive service plans along with inexpensive smart and flip phones. Be careful with the plan that you choose because they still charge you for all in and out calls including texts unless you go with unlimited. If you just plan on having the phone in the car only for emergencies, the plan doesn't matter, but I recommend that you have automatic refill. One of these days when you're going to need it, you might find out that you forgot to add minutes to your phone and the sim card is expired rendering your phone useless. It happened to my wife.

Depending on your needs, the memory and speed on a phone is like on a computer these days. There is so much filler crap built in to the phones that take up memory and speed so you need to have enough of it if you are planning on taking a lot of pics and going on the internet.

Another important factor to consider is whether a phone is compatible with the service feed in your area. If the phone is a G3 and the only service in your area is G4, it ain't going to work. I recently had to replace my wife's TracFone because of that. Some service companies put out all available services from G1 up, these guys don't. She couldn't even use the phone in our own house. I went with a different company, got a flip phone for about $30.00 and unlimited talk service for $20.00 a month. I am not being charged for any calls in or out and the phone works well anywhere she goes in the area.

For us, a pay as you go plan has worked well. We only use the phone for talk and have auto refill, not having to worry about adding minutes the following months is a plus. I'm not locked in with a contract and can change plans and companies anytime I want. The unlimited plan is definitely a way to go if you plan on using the phone.