I am in a situation where I have my daughter going off to college and am considering getting a cellphone for the first time so that she has one. And I have been looking at family plans which would allow her to call us without using minutes if we had a phone too. Being frugal, I am trying to decide whether it's worth it to pay for BOTH a land line and a cell phone for my person use.
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I have Cingular with a family plan for me & my husband. It is just under $60 including taxes for both lines, no roaming nationwide, free long distance, 1000 minutes to call each other, & 450 minutes per month (these roll over month to month, if we don't use them. I don't remember how many weekend minutes, but it is several thousand. However, there are a lot of "dead zones" with Cingular. If you don't need the nationwide no roaming, you can get 600 minutes per month in a "tri-state area" of no roaming for the same price for the 2 phones.
We did away with our landline the first of the year and just use cell phones (Alltel) which works great for us! Very rarely lose service and havent missed our home phone at all and are saving $$ - For our computer we use a cable service so we dont need a phone line! Angela
I gave up the land line and we only use our AT&T cell phones. I work and my hubby is stay at home, so having a cell phone to call him when I am stuck in traffic is a big plus. He is always on the internet and this saves on the expense of call waiting. With the cell phone, if I call him, my name pops up on the phone display and he knows it's me.
We gave up our land line in favor of a cell phone family plan last October (2003). BEST thing we ever did. Love it! We have T-moblie. We have three phones -one for me, one for my husband and one for the children. Our bill has free evenings, free weekends and LOTS of minutes. I know EXACTLY what the bill will be each month, makes it easier to budget and our family to family and friends with T-mobile calls are free.
Darby~
I would ask neighbors and friends how well their service works in your neighborhood. Where I love having only a cell phone, it is a bummer when service is not strong..
Until recently I had a cell phone with Cricket. I could call anywhere from home and there would be no long distance charges, no minutes, call ID, call waiting, etc. The draw back is not everywhere has Cricket capabilities, so while I could call anywhere from home if I wasn't at home chances are I couldn't use it to call anyone. Simply put I live in Lexington, Lexington is in the coverage area so is Frankfort and Louisville close by in Ohio - Cincinnati & Cleveland are covered.
If I were in and of these cities trying to call anywhere I would be successful. However, if I were in a little town close to home like Nicholasville or Midway they weren't in the coverage area so I wouldn't be able to use my phone. Since I didn't go out much it was great for me. Then I accidentally broke it and it cost more than I could afford to buy another one. I won't buy their cheap phones they aren't worth the money. I could go to the VA in the basement even here in Lexington and couldn't use the phone. So, our cable service has internet and phone services as well.
I went back to land line phone through my cable service its like an extra $30.00 a month and it has the same benefits as Cricket ie.no long distance charges, etc. Oh my goodness, I do miss my cell phone terribly. I survived 50 years without one but now that I've had one for the past three years I just don't know what I'm going to do without it. If the town where you live has Cricket coverage and the town your daughter is going to college has Cricket coverage then that might be a good choice for you. I never tried the other companies.
I don't like the thought that if you call someone you use your minutes and if someone calls you, you use your minutes at the same time they are using their minutes, it seems the companies get compensated no matter who is on the phone. The pay as you go is cheaper but when the minutes are gone you have to go buy more. Cricket was just more convenient and affordable. God bless and hope this helped. Marlene
Avoid Sprint at all costs. They made promises that haven't been adhered to and now are telling me to cut back on roaming. The issue there is that almost all my areas are roaming even at home. When I bought the family plan roaming was free and no limits set. Also when I bought the phones minutes between phones were explained as free. They weren't in my case and they stated this was in error. They also had other promises they did not adhere to, when my contracts are up so is Sprint.
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