Anyone else NOT have a cell phone?

hopehacker

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I don't have a cell phone, because I simply cannot afford one. They are still way above what I can afford. Even pre paid phones are outrageous. First you have to spend about $50 to buy the phone. Ouch! Then you might get a half hours worth of calling time for $25. Big Ouch! The provider plans are about $40 or so a month, and I can't afford that. I would have to go without my home phone service and internet combined in order to afford a cell phone.

I'll get one, if they ever make them affordable to people like me. I can barely afford my regular phone as it is. I don't know how you people do it. Right now, I can't even afford cable TV. I wonder what it would be like to have luxuries like Cell phones and cable TV, and still have money to pay rent, bills and have money left over for a few fun things now and then. It must be nice to be able to live so comfortably.
 

babyharley

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I go thru Midwest Wireless as my provider, and they are so reasonable! They have plans for anyone, and usually when you start a plan $50.00 or higher per month, you can get their free phone. I do that every 2 years when my contract is up. I renew it with a newer phone that I can get for free. I get 1,000 daytime minutes and free minutes starting every night at 7PM and free weekends Friday 7PM til Monday. My bill each month is $58.42 (thats with text messages and taxes, ect.) but its the same every month!

We don't have a land line - we just use our cell phones for our main line.
 

neetanddave

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Tracfone is not that expensive. Less than $20 for a phone (here at least) and it comes with a 40 minute card. A 60 minute card is less than $15 (here, again.) Text messaging, no long distance.

Must be another CA ripoff, Hope.
 

trouts mom

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I have one but I have literally had it since high school, which was the year 2000
It is an old nokia. I don't use it at all, only for emergencies. Luckily, I scammed a $14 per month emergency plan from Rogers, SO i don't notice the bill.

I am thinking of getting a newer phone just because mine dies in one day now that its so old. But to get a new one for me is only $35 admin fee for a $0 phone, so I have it pretty good.

I am certainly not someone who uses the cell phone 35 times a day and I could easily live without it.
 
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hopehacker

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Originally Posted by babyharley

I go thru Midwest Wireless as my provider, and they are so reasonable! They have plans for anyone, and usually when you start a plan $50.00 or higher per month, you can get their free phone. I do that every 2 years when my contract is up. I renew it with a newer phone that I can get for free. I get 1,000 daytime minutes and free minutes starting every night at 7PM and free weekends Friday 7PM til Monday. My bill each month is $58.42 (thats with text messages and taxes, ect.) but its the same every month!

We don't have a land line - we just use our cell phones for our main line.
That's pretty much out of my price range. You would have to have cable for your internet then, and cable is twice as expensive as most DSL services. I pay about $40 a month for my DSL and telephone service which includes 3 hours of free long distance. I couldn't afford to pay twice that much for cable internet and cell phone service. The money I do pay, is really hard for me to afford.
 

gailc

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The only reason I got one this year is for my business (which isn't rolling in the dough but a business expense. I pay $49.70/month for 600 minutes which was the minimum for voice mail plus $5/month for insurance in case I drop it in the dirt on the job (I leave it in the truck) I have never used text stuff and probably use way less than 200 minutes/month. Neil and I by choice do not have cable/satellite TV) (or high speed internet). Since my business is out of season right now I can go days without using the cell phone.
 

catlover19

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I don't have a cell phone. I used to, but I got someone to take over my contract because it was too expensive.
 

lunasmom

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My cell is the ONLY way to reach me. I got rid of the land lines a long time ago, only because of the cost of long distance. I.e. at the time I gave it up, if I called my sister out of state and got her voicemail it would cost me $8 to leave a 30 second message because of the way LD was set up then.

I know its better now, but I really am use to being mobile and being able to call people when I do have a spare moment. Otherwise I would be calling people at midnight all the time.

I currently have 600 anytime minutes + unlimited nights and weekends for $40. Nights begin at 9:00 pm. this includes unlimited long distance too (as most cell phone companies do).

If you want a cheap phone, buy one off of eBay. Half the time the lesser models that cell phones give away for free (after spending $100 + $100 mail in rebate) will go for $10 or $20 on eBay.
 

sharky

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I use Virgin mobile... the phone was 20 ( that model I have seen now for 10) ... the service can be 18 cents a minute with pre paid cards or plans starting at 6.99 plus 10 cent s a minute or a 14.99 for a 100 minutes ...

I love the flebility right now I use the 34.99 for 300 anytime and 1000 night and weekend ( I was on the 14.99 but ended up up sizeing at 4.50 for 25 so i got a biggger plan)... I can change every month if needed /...
 
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hopehacker

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Originally Posted by sharky

I use Virgin mobile... the phone was 20 ( that model I have seen now for 10) ... the service can be 18 cents a minute with pre paid cards or plans starting at 6.99 plus 10 cent s a minute or a 14.99 for a 100 minutes ...

I love the flebility right now I use the 34.99 for 300 anytime and 1000 night and weekend ( I was on the 14.99 but ended up up sizeing at 4.50 for 25 so i got a biggger plan)... I can change every month if needed /...
The first plan you mentioned sounds doable. I would be nice if they could provide a plan somewhere in the middle of the first plan and your present plan. $15 is a lot for only 100 minutes. I doubt they'll ever get cell phones with the same rates as land line phones. I can't really see myself using a cell phone that much, but I sure could have used one this past week, when there was an outage in my area. The bad thing is that these days, you spend so much time listening to recordings telling you to press this and that, that you can use up your minutes in no time. It usually takes about 5 minutes of recorded menu's just to get to the point where you can actually talk to a live person. I'm not even that old yet, and I have to say, I miss the good old days, when you could actually talk to a real person. Customer Service these days is just so awful and impersonal.
 

icklemiss21

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Probably completely different as I am in Canada, but we have quite high usuage on ours and our bill (for both phones) is usually just under $100 a month and we get unlimited calling to each other and a good price for long distance. As with Gail however, it is a business expense so we write it off and don't pay taxes on any expenses so it works out well for us.

Cheap plans are around, and after Christmas they often have deals on, back home, I got a phone when I was a teenager and signed up for a plan for 2000 mins outgoing and unlimted incoming for 20 pounds and renew the contract on time, so my mum took over the contract and still gets a really cheap deal, you just need to watch out for them.

I have quite a few friends in the US that use Virgin and are happy with them (and my sister in the UK has Virgin and swears by it)
 

sophiec

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Originally Posted by HopeHacker

The bad thing is that these days, you spend so much time listening to recordings telling you to press this and that, that you can use up your minutes in no time........ and I have to say, I miss the good old days, when you could actually talk to a real person. Customer Service these days is just so awful and impersonal.
A little off topic here, but I wanted to mention this......when you call some place, and they tell you to "press this number and press that number", DON'T PRESS ANYTHING! For most places, after they request you to press something at least 2 times and you don't, they will put a customer service rep on the line. Even if they ask you to enter a customer number (or something similar) don't enter it.....just don't press anything!! It usually works for me every time!
 

ricalynn

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Originally Posted by SophieC

A little off topic here, but I wanted to mention this......when you call some place, and they tell you to "press this number and press that number", DON'T PRESS ANYTHING! For most places, after they request you to press something at least 2 times and you don't, they will put a customer service rep on the line. Even if they ask you to enter a customer number (or something similar) don't enter it.....just don't press anything!! It usually works for me every time!
OR keep pressing "0" until they put you in queue for a CSR. Works w/just about every menu I've ever used.

Hope i totally understand your dilemma about phone vs cell-phone vs internet. I'm cancelling my satellite and my land-line (and consequently my dial-up) on Monday to save myself some money. I'm not going to like not having the 'net at home, but it's more important that I have the long-distance on my cell-phone -- that and the 18mos remaining on my contract
 

catkiki

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I have had a cell phone for about 4 years now and I can not live without it. In fact, I just upgraded my 2 cells phones (mine and the hubby's) to camera phones. They were supposed to arrive on Monday but arrived ahead of time!


Since I have to drive home from work at night (I get off at 9pm) Mike feels it is safer if I have a cell phone incase of car trouble. My plan has unlimited mobile to mobile within the same carrier (Cingular) so I use the phone to call Mike during my breaks from work. It also has free long distance, so we use it to call his parents. We don't even have long distance on the regular phone. We rarely use the home phone and just use it for when we don't want to use the cell.

To me, the cell phones are a necessary evil and not a luxury.

Kiki
 

katl8e

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I have a Cingular GO Phone. The phone was $30 and Cingular started me with $10 airtime. I pay $1 per day, for every day that I use the phone and .10 per minute airtime. I have to reload it, at a minimum of $15 each month and any unused money rolls over, to the next month. In addition, with each reload, Cingular gives me $5 bonus money. Since I only use my cell about an hour per month, this works for me. I only pay for what I actually USE.
 

luvslive

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I would like a cell phone for emergencies, but don't think I can afford it either. Right now we have a "bundle" with our phone and internet tied together at a cheaper rate. I also would love to have more than 3 channels on the TV, but money is very tight right now.
 
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hopehacker

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Well for me, the only place I have internet is at home. I don't have internet access at work, so getting rid of my land line is out of the question. I can't afford cable, but my phone co offers internet and phone service as a bundle package for less a month than cable internet is. For me, it's still hard to pay the $40 a month that I do pay for my phone/internet service.

I don't know if I really think cell phone's are a necesssity, unless your a doctor or something or use it for business. However, I'm seeing that more and more these days, they are getting rid of pay phones, because everyone is getting a cell. A pay as you go plan with rollover would be best for me. I guess I could try to put in some extra overtime at work to be able to pay it, if my boss will let me. My budget is stretched so thin, that I can't afford much of anything extra except for the absolute necessities.

As far as cable TV goes, I guess I'm lucky to live in a city where we have a LOT of local channel. Of course it would be nice to have A & E, which is cable

I wonder what it would be like to be able to afford cell phone service and cable TV, instead of everything being such a struggle just to keep a roof over my head. I have to tell myself "NO" 95 percent of the time, when I see something I want.
 
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