Is there a phone plan out there for me?

[KarsusTG]

So I lost my phone for about 11 weeks. I didn't even know my phone was missing for about 10 of those weeks. I had been holding out fort he new blackberry phone for sprint, but now I think I should just get a pay as you go phone. I very rarely use the internet on my phone. I never use phone gps or anything crazy like that. I can count on 1 hand the number of texts I have sent, and now I don't need to answer email on my phone.

I have been looking at pay as you go plans, but most of them require you to either pay monthly or add minutes constantly whether you use them or not. Quite frankly, I think I would forget to add minutes regularly to keep it active.

Pulling up my bills for 12 months and as far as minute usage, I have used 7 minutes total over the last 6 months around 200 minutes a month for 2 months, and about 12 minutes the next 4 months. So not a lot....

So, what would you suggest? Oh, and I refuse to do business with AT&T. I consider them on the level of Ubisoft and Sony.

 

[Medion]

Since you're already using Sprint, I would recommend Ting, a MVNO on Sprint. You have to pay full price for your phone, or BYOD from Sprint.

https://ting.com/plans

You can also consider T-Mobile. Their $50 plan includes unlimited talk/text/2G data, with the first 500MB being high-speed data. You could grow into it without having to worry about overages in any way. You can buy your phone outright, or on a payment plan, which would bring this $50 plan up to a max of $70/mo until the phone is paid off. Ting is cheaper, but this T-Mobile plan offers the ability to bring virtually any GSM-based phone.

http://www.t-mobile.com/shop/plans/individual-plans.aspx

 

[Trombe]

T-Mobile pay as you go is more expensive up front but if you like the set and forget style for convenience then starting with $100 prepaid puts you in gold status which gives your minutes a one year expiration, and all future refills, even $10 ones will also be valid for one year as long as the account doesn't get closed (and I think doing a cheapo refill will also renew any unused minutes still in your pool to one year from refill date but double check this part with someone else).

 

[OGOC]

Page Plus.
Uses Verizon prepaid coverage map.
$10, 100-minute card every four months. 10 cents a minute, 5 cent texts. Can get better rates with higher-minute cards.
Best plan for more minutes is 2000 minutes for $80 expires in one year. That's 4 cents a minute.
Usually easy to get 4% or so off the card prices.
Minutes do carry over, so you could do 2000 minutes for $80 for a year and then use $10 card every four months ($30 a year) from there.
Can use data but it's pricey.

Use almost any Verizon-branded phone. Might have to mess with some/all 4g phones a little to get them to work. 3g phones are no problem for sure though.
Page Plus will send you a reminder text about five days before expiration to remind you to renew.

Make sure to turn off data or the phone may use your minutes/money doing things in the background.

They also have monthly plans like $12 for 250 minutes and 250 texts plus a little data, $30 a month 1200 minutes 2500 texts 500mb data, $40 or whatever for unlimited but not unlimited data. Something like that. Check their site for specifics. That's not the kind of plans you're looking for, but someone else might be.