Because I work from home, I have access to at least two phones all the time (I am also noticing that hardly anyone calls any more). Obviously, I also have access to the Internet on a variety of devices, including my laptop, iPad, and iPod Touch at home. So when I do go out of the house, the last thing I want to do is to surf the web or use the phone, but it is nice to have a mobile phone for emergencies. The bottom line is that I rarely use a phone, maybe a few minutes a month. So it makes no sense for me to have a smartphone and pay almost $100 a month when I have no use for it.
After doing extensive research I found that the Tmobile pay-as-you-go plan is one of the cheapest (there are others lesser known brands often run by large companies but they do not disclose that). You can buy a fairly cheap phone (for less than $50 you have pretty good phones and I think I paid around $29) and then just add $10 to get 30 minutes that last three months (so that makes the phone cost $3.50 a month including taxes, which in my opinion is an awesome deal). If you stay with the company long enough and refill your phone with a total of $100, you get upgraded to the gold status (which I now have) and in that case your minutes last a year and you get 15% bonus minutes. So, theoretically, in the gold level, if you really do not use the phone much, your cost drops to less than a buck a month. I think that unless you are counting your pennies, this is the best way to have a cell phone for calling and texting in emergencies.
After doing extensive research I found that the Tmobile pay-as-you-go plan is one of the cheapest (there are others lesser known brands often run by large companies but they do not disclose that). You can buy a fairly cheap phone (for less than $50 you have pretty good phones and I think I paid around $29) and then just add $10 to get 30 minutes that last three months (so that makes the phone cost $3.50 a month including taxes, which in my opinion is an awesome deal). If you stay with the company long enough and refill your phone with a total of $100, you get upgraded to the gold status (which I now have) and in that case your minutes last a year and you get 15% bonus minutes. So, theoretically, in the gold level, if you really do not use the phone much, your cost drops to less than a buck a month. I think that unless you are counting your pennies, this is the best way to have a cell phone for calling and texting in emergencies.