Cell phone help

My sister's teenager wants a cell phone. She is thinking about getting one of those pre-paid phones. Are the pre-paid phones better than the family plans? Should she just add the kid to her account?

 

Too many variables here. The prepaid plans can be a good answer, but I think they have a smaller portion of the market - my boss barely uses his cell phone, but pays almost $30 a month to have it. We got him a prepaid phone with 1000 minutes ($100, good for one year) at a substantial savings. Most of the time kids spend way too much time on the phone for a prepaid phone to be the best option. If it's a pretty good deal to do so, adding them to an already existing account is probably the way to go. I like the idea of parents pay for the cost of the basic plan and the child pays for anything above and beyond that like going over the allotted number of minutes or text messaging charges.

 

All teenagers want cell phones
Sorry..."need" cell phones, if you ask them

It depends on how trustworthy they are to stick to promises as to whether or not to add them to the family plan

Regardless of the TV ads, most of the time will be spent talking to friends
Allot of it will be at home when they just as easily used the land line, but want that privacy (no chance of mommy picking up the cell phone to answer it, and finding out who's calling-not that that means it's a drug dealer or whatever, it's a teen privacy thing)

Also regardless of the TV ads, it does not give the parent any "power" over a kid that doesn't want to answer the phone when you call
An irresponsible child will "not get any signal" if they don't want to PU the phone when you call, especially after curfew

The only thing that might be a real reason for a teen to have a cell phone is that because of there are so many out there, there is now a severe lack of pay phones

I personally believe that teens should pay for their own cell phones, and pay-as-you-go is the best way
I have also read a few consumer, financial, and family-oriented articles that back me up on this

I (and they)think it works on two levels

First, most teens don't have the ability to determine what is reasonable use, or should I say, their "reasonable" and the parent's "reasonable" will most likely differ greatly when it comes to cell phone use
This can quickly become a financial problem for the parent

Second, this a perfect opportunity for preparing a teen for real life, and helping them become more aware of the cost of their actions and decisions

I personally have been OK with buying a card now and then, when the phone has actually been used to call me to say the game is in overtime can I stay a little longer, or that movie was sold out, can we go to the mall instead

 

Both of our kids are on our family plan and we've raised them to understand the meaning of a dollar and to be as responsible as pre-teens can be. They niether one ever come close to the minutes we alot them but they do cut it close on the text limit. Texting is what they are really into, not talking. We only pay $10 bucks a month extra each for them to be on the family plan so a pay as you go was not feasable for us.

 

Thanks all for helping me out. I found that the pay as you go would cost us 15 dollars a month or a 100 dollars for the year and this doesn't include the cost for the phone itself nor the activation fee. Also the minutes cost 25 cents unless we pay 1 dollar a day for mobile to mobile and then it cost 10 cents a minute. We decided since he is only 14 and not in high school yet that we would wait another year or two. I think he just wants to look cool and thinks he needs a phone. Maybe we will get him a land line phone to put in his room. <------from Ladyfixer's sister.