Some people don’t need a full-time cell phone, and don’t want a full-time cell phone price.  These people typically make most of their calls on their home phone, and only want a cell phone for things like calling home from the grocery store to see how much milk to buy.  These people use their home phone when they want to chat with someone on the phone, and only need a cell phone when they are out and about with a quick question.

For these people, I might recommend Boost Mobile.  Boost Mobile is a no-contract, prepaid cell phone service.  Here is how it works:

• You buy a cell phone up front.  The cheapest Boost phones start at $50 (although I’ve seen them on sale as low as $30).  This is a little more expensive than other cell phone plans, because you don’t end up paying for the phone over the time of a lengthy contract.
• This is a prepaid account, which means you put money into your account before you use it.  If your account hits $0, then it stops working until you add more money. You never have to worry about being surprised by a large cell phone bill.
• Each minute you talk on your phone costs you 10 cents.
• Every three months, you log into your account from a web page, and add at least $10 to your account.
• Minutes (your account balance) never expires as long as you recharge your account every 180 days.

If you want to spend less than $4/month for a cell phone service, you buy 100 minutes for $10 every three months, which comes out to be a 33 minute/month and $3.33/month plan.

Non-disclaimer: I wrote this post hoping that it might save people money.  I was not paid to write this post.  I am not associated with any cell phone provider.

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