Pre=pay phone

I take it you're in the U.S.?

I had a really good experience with Tracfone ... cheap, easy, etc. And I used it as my main phone.

I think the starting package (well, I did get it a few years ago) was 29.99, which included a perfectly compact, functional phone and 60 minutes.

They also send you 'specials' all the time in e-mails where it's easy to get extra free minutes (and no, they don't expire in like two weeks).

x2 for Tracfone. I bought one two years ago. I think I paid 50 for the phone and then spent 100 on minutes and they doubled the minutes or something. Anyway, I haven't spent a dime on cell phone charges since the original set up 2 years ago. Of course it helps that I never have my phone charged. Come to think of it, where is my phone?!

This user's post has been ignored.

We did the prepaids a bit with the kids, mostly Tracphone.  Unless you bought a lot of minutes, they "expired" in 60 days.  They offered some 1-year/double minutes deals that kept things from expiring, but that $100 up-front charge generally kept us from doing so. 

At least one of the prepaids (Virgin?) would automatically add minutes as you got low.  I think their model was $0.10/minute + $1 per day of usage where the Tracphone was $0.30/minute.  Not sure what current pricing is, but if your usage pattern is to use the phone a few times per month, the Virgin model should work pretty well.  I think we were generally in the $15-20/month range buying additional minutes until we added them to our regular cell contract. 

You can get an unlocked phone and get a card for it.  You can get cards for varying amounts of minutes and from different providers.

We have Tracfones.  I buy the $20 card every 90 days.  I think it's 60 minutes per card, but I'm not a phone person, so I have hundreds of minutes banked.

I believe that is what my oldest son has - the TracPhone.  We get a $20.00 pre-paid card and he needs to be mindful of those minutes, but, since he's not a texter (new word?), his minutes last for quite awhile.

We had a verizon monthly plan but never really used most of the minutes. Verizon converted our existing phones to pay-as-you-go phones for free but had to change our phone #'s. No big deal to us. If you buy $100 worth of air time on Verizon's plan the minutes last for one year. Per minute charges etc are pretty reasonable. At the rate I use my cell phone I end up charging it up with another $100 about every 8-10 months.