My wife has very limited phone needs, as she is mostly home with our newborn right now. Our best bang for the buck is getting Tracfone's refurbished phone and then maximizing minutes and contract length. Total cost is $20 for a decent Nokia 1100 phone with 240 minutes you can stretch to 7 months.
For anyone interested:
Go to Tracfone's site, then click on "BUY PHONES." After entering your zip code scroll down to "Best Deals" which show the reconditioned phone they are currently selling (at this point for my zipcode the Nokia 1100 phone comes up.) It comes with a 60 minute card.
Method on maximizing minutes and time:
1. 20 minutes for 30 days - Activate your phone online. That nets 20 minutes just for activating. This period is a little rough as one has to go with only 20 minutes for as long as possible. Obviously, if needed add the minutes in the next step earlier than at Day 30.
2. 100 minutes for 90 days - Go to Ebay and look for "tracfone minutes." Many folks offer a 100 minute friend referral "for new signups" free of charge. In fact, many actually pay you $5. They get 100 minutes themselves for the referral. Take advantage of this, and pocket the $5. Apply the 100 minutes to your tracfone. Whatever you did not use of the initial 20 minutes is added to the 100 minutes. So far, so good, this takes you to the end of the 4th month.
3. On the day that is shown as the last day of active service in the phone's display window take the 60 minutes card (sometime they give you only 40 minutes, depends) that you had put in a safe place 4 months prior, go to
http://www.tracfone.com and click "Add airtime." Enter the info from the card PLUS any coupons. Tracfone usually has codes floating around to double these 40 or 60 minute cards. In the case of the current 60 minute card that now gives you 120 more minutes to add. Best places to look for the doubling-codes are places like fatwallet.com or slickdeals.net. Any minutes you had left over from the previous 4 months are added to the 120 minutes you add here. Your activation clock is reset for another 3 months, which brings you to the end of month 7.
After month 7 the only option with THIS phone is to add minutes the convential way, by buying them. Too expensive. Drop the phone (makes a good gift for a kid) and get another refurbished deal for $20 with 200 to 240 minutes for 7 months.
Deal calculations:
Refurbished phone $19.99
Shipping Fedex 3-day $4.95
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Total Phone cost $24.94
Credit $5 for the 100 minute referral deal via Ebay
DEAL COST: $19.94 for 240 minutes spread out over 7 months.
Works for my wife's limited minute needs. The only thing is that after the 7 month period is over the better deal is to start the 7-month/240 minute cycle over again, which means you lose the cell phone numbers. That could be a pain for some, as you may have to give everyone your new cell number. Also, any unused minutes on the old phone would be lost, so be sure to use up your minutes before you move over to another refurbished phone with them.