Low cost Mobile phone for Senior

[HOSED]

Hi Friends, I need to get my first basic cell phone soon. I do not plan to use it more than 20 minutes per month (probably just for emergencies on the road). I do not need texting, data streaming, or web browsing.
I also do not need large buttons or a big display (I can still see 20/20 LOL)
It seems Consumer Cellular's lowest cost phone https://www.consumercellular.com/Info/PhoneDetails/495/ConsumerCellular-Envoy-495
and plan ($10 per month --- $.25 / minute) would fit my needs.
https://www.consumercellular.com/Info/Plans
I now have a landline (Verizon) only.
Thanks for any advise or warnings, I am living 8 miles outside of Philadelphia PA.

 

[lsd]

Have you looked into Safelink?

 

[jpeyton]

My grandmothers both have an iPhone 5C.

They like to Facetime, and iPhones are simple enough to use.

 

[isekii]

what's your max monthly budget for service?
If you don't have a preference in carrier, you can go with ultra for $19 a month.

http://ultra.me/

unlimited talk/text/100mb data + unlimited international to certain countries.

They use t-mobile towers so if you have good t-mobile signal by you you should be good.

 

[lxskllr]

I used to use Net10. $30 gets you 300 minutes, and lasts 60 days; so $15 per month. Minutes will rollover as long as you keep the phone up to date.

http://www.net10wireless.com/#/plans

 

[cronos]

H2O Wireless paygo. $10 buys you 200 minutes, and it is good for 90 days.

Any unlocked or AT&T branded phone will work.

For the phone, the simplest thing is to just buy any of the boxed 'GoPhone' at the stores. Keep the GoPhone SIM card, and just insert the H2O SIM card.

 

[IronWing]

My wife has a Jitterbug and it works well. Cheapest plan is $15+tax/fees and includes 50 minutes/month. It uses Verizon's network.

 

[HOSED]

Thanks so much for all the excellent suggestions. I was hoping someone would say YES go with consumer cellular. Obviously there are better choices out there. Now to do a little more research!

 

[holden j caufield]

can you add them as a family line? I'm on an old plan and it only costs me $5 or 10 to add another line on tmobile and this includes unlimited text, 2 or 5gb of data.

 

[crashtestdummy]

Look into Ting as well. You pay for what you use, so if you don't use much, you won't pay much.

 

[ImDonly1]

H2O Wireless paygo. $10 buys you 200 minutes, and it is good for 90 days.

Any unlocked or AT&T branded phone will work.

For the phone, the simplest thing is to just buy any of the boxed 'GoPhone' at the stores. Keep the GoPhone SIM card, and just insert the H2O SIM card.

H2O would be good since the balance expires every 90 days so if you don't use it much it would be cheap. The 200 minutes for $10 comes out to $0.05/minute.

Another option would be pageplus (verizon prepaid). You can buy a $80/year plan with 2000 minutes. The per minute rate is $0.04/minute and probably the cheapest available.

 

[Thump553]

You might want to try out the wrongly named "Obama Phone" program http://www.obamaphone.com/

My MiL got one-perfectly fine flip phone. I'm glad she went that route. It turned out she is so set in her ways that she couldn't even adopt to a simple cell phone and left it unused. It was eventually sent back.

 

[Radeon962]

Went with PureTalk USA for my dad who is in his late 70's and just needed something for an emergency. $5/mo for 50 minutes and it includes a Samsung flip phone. AT&T MNVO. They have other plans with more minutes, rollover, data, etc. Pick your pleasure.

http://www.puretalkusa.com/


* Edit - looks like they bumped the $5 plan up to 80 minutes. If you want the minutes to rollover you need to bump up to the $10 plan.

 

[dainthomas]

You might want to try out the wrongly named "Obama Phone" program http://www.obamaphone.com/

My MiL got one-perfectly fine flip phone. I'm glad she went that route. It turned out she is so set in her ways that she couldn't even adopt to a simple cell phone and left it unused. It was eventually sent back.

I heard one of those old people phones even has a dial tone. Maybe someone should make a rotary one too. :biggrin:

 

[Harry_Wild]

My grandmothers both have an iPhone 5C.

They like to Facetime, and iPhones are simple enough to use.

I have a 5C Yellow 32Gb myself! Before that I had a WP and before that a 5S 64GB Space Grey!

 

[jpeyton]

I have a 5C Yellow 32Gb myself! Before that I had a WP and before that a 5S 64GB Space Grey!

Why downgrade from a 5S to a 5C?

 

[HOSED]

I heard one of those old people phones even has a dial tone. Maybe someone should make a rotary one too. :biggrin:

I have now retired my tin cans and long string and have my puretalk phone setup and working. It is on AT + T network, I went with 160 minutes / month plan, free Samsung flip phone. Minutes rollover, taxes are included and activation was very easy. (10 / month)
For the Samsung SGH-A517, do you recommend charging every night, or let it discharge to a specific range then recharge? (I plan to leave it on standby unless this is a bad idea).

 

[NickelPlate]

Tracfone. I picked up a starter kit at Walmart for $10 which included the phone, charger, battery, car charger, and belt clip.

I got this for one of my parents and get the $20 - 60 minute card every 90 days which works out to $6.67 per month and the minutes roll over and never expire. The phone has double minutes (meaning when you buy a refill you get double what is printed on the card). Plus there are always promo codes for bonus minutes for Tracfone. For a good basic phone only that's dirt cheap, they're hard to beat. No contracts, you don't even have to give them your name. Just buy a phone, buy a refill card and use it.

http://www.walmart.com/search/?query=tracfone