PAY AS YOU GO PHONES

Could I be the last person in the world without a cell phone? I’m pretty sure I’m the last student without a cell phone, as even my elevin year-old cousin has her own phone. I was walking through a department store the other day and I saw a phone designed for elementary school children; it didn’t have any numbers, only buttons to call numbers that the kids’ parents have pre-programmed into the phone. And then there’s me, well past twenty years old and still phone-less.

For a long time I persuaded myself that I didn’t need a cell phone, and even if I did need a cell phone I definitely couldn’t afford a cell phone. I didn’t need once since I never talked on the phone much in the first place, so why would I need to call people on the go? I definitely didn’t want people to be able to reach me anywhere I went. And then there was the money issue. I just couldn’t afford to pay $40 every month to cover my cell phone bill, at least not unless I stopped eating.

Then the pay as you go phones came onto the market. Pay as you go phones offered an alternative to the standard cellular phone plan. Instead of working through a set, monthly plan, pay as you go phones work much like phone cards. You buy a certain number of minutes or amount of money to put onto your phone and you can top it up any time you want, just like a phone card. There’s usually a hitch of some sort though. For example, Virgin’s pay as you go phone system requires you to spend $30 worth of time every 90 days to keep your phone going, which generally isn’t a big deal. Airtime with Virgin isn’t too expensive either; $.25 cents per minute for the first 10 minutes of every day, the $.10 per minute for every minute afterwards, any time during the day. The pay as you go phones are cheaper to get (sometimes you can find deals getting the phone for free if you buy enough airtime) and they don’t commit you to one geographic area or two months of bills.

Though I may not need to call people all of the time, a cell phone would be handy when trying to meet up with friends for lunch or getting directions on the road. With the new, inexpensive pay as you go phone plans, I may have to break down and get myself a cell phone.