Making the Leap: A Cell Phone for Our Teen

I'm back on it—researching cell phone plans for my teenager, who is graduating from 8^th grade this week. She may very well be one of the last in her class to get a phone. But to be honest, we have not been in a rush to add another significant bill to the monthly pile.

So we'll start out with a prepaid plan and see how that goes. I've heard the horror stories about how quickly text messages add up into the hundreds of dollars to the shock of many parents. But I'm banking on my very responsible teen to take ownership of her usage and stay within reasonable bounds. If not, she'll pay for anything that goes above what we agree to.

I've got an individual contract for my Palm Treo through Verizon, so of course I checked first to see how much it would cost to add a line. For the most basic family plan, a total of 700 minutes a month, it would mean an additional $30 a month. That may be what we end up paying for a pay-as-you go plan, too. But we've decided to start out on this journey paying as she goes so we can see how she will use the phone and then adjust if needed. I think it's important for kids to see how much it costs for the privilege to have a phone to communicate with her friends (and us) and to budget for how much they use it.

We're going with T-Mobile. I've researched the prepaid and pay-as-you-go plans in our area and T-Mobile seems to have one of the best. I like that the carrier does not charge a per-day fee; we'll start with $25 for 130 minutes. Phone choices start at $30. Text messages are 10 cents each to send, 5 cents to receive.

I have a sneaky suspicion it all comes out the same in the end. Or if you have a teen who takes to texting with a vengeance, then it makes much more sense to add a line and go with the family plan, and maybe even the extra $20 a month for unlimited text message and picture messages that carriers such as Verizon are now offering (if you're feeling extra generous.)

We'll see how it goes. In the meantime, please share your lessons learned on the best laid plans for teens and cell phones.

Update: We went with kajeet's pay-as-you go service. Check out why in this post.