Re: Frugal Cell Phone

Kathy N-V wrote:
> On Wed, 3 Dec 2003 19:31:21 -0500, AxelandarFlemming wrote
> (in message <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>):
>
>
> > "George Evans" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> >
> >
> > > My teenage son wants
> >
> > Your son does NOT need a cell phone.....he wants.   Big difference..   
> >
> > Give him a prepaid calling card for fifty bucks.    Let's see how much the
> > balance on the card is come March.
>
>
> If he's like my teenager, it will still have darned close to $50 bucks in 
> March.  I let my kid carry my Virgin Mobile prepaid cell phone once in a 
> while, so she could call when she needed rides, etc.  She's been so good with 
> it, and it's turned out to be so convenient for me that I let her have the 
> phone.  She's never come close to $20 in any month, and really does use the 
> phone in a responsible way.  At home, she's quite happy to use the landline 
> for "free."
>
> I made it abundantly clear that if the phone was misused, it would be revoked 
> immediately.  DD knows that I don't make idle threats, and the first thing 
> she asked me was how to check how much money she had remaining on the phone.  
>
> If your kid understands that misuse of the phone means it goes away, I 
> recommend Virgin Mobile.  The phone (they call it the "party animal" model) 
> is reasonably sturdy and not heavy, the service we've had has been flawless, 
> and there are lots of games and ring tones that the kid can download for a 
> dollar and have fun with. Playing games is free.  :-)
>
> Kathy

I agree with Kathy's recommendation of the "Party Animal" phone.

I gave my son my old pre-paid phone (cingular) with an $8 balance 
on it when he got his license, and bought myself a Virgin phone. 
He only used the phone to call home to let us know when he was on 
his way home from someplace occasionally.  (He usually called from 
his friends' home phones instead of using the cell.)

We ended up letting $6 of the airtime expire on the cingular phone 
because they changed the way they allocated the numbers and it 
became a long-distance call for us to call his cell phone from our 
area code and prefix.  I gave him a Virgin phone a month ago, and 
I think he's used a total of 6 minutes, mostly from calls I've 
made to him.

I've got the same phone, and love the included features.  Virgin 
offers free call waiting, caller ID, and voicemail on their 
pre-paid plans.  There are times when I know I'll be unavailable 
and am expecting a call from someone who doesn't really need to 
talk but just needs to pass on a bit of information.  They can 
leave a message on the voicemail, my phone will beep to show a 
missed call, and I can dial in on a landline to retrieve the 
message at no charge.  That's really convenient because my 
schedule changes from day to day and the secretaries don't always 
know where to find me or if I'll even be at the school on any 
given day.

I can even go to the website and print out a list of the calls 
I've made or received and turn the school related calls in for 
reimbursement if I use the phone for school business.  I like that 
since I might be running from location to location and need to 
check on things.  With a contract, I'd just have to say Oh well, 
and not get reimbursed.