Consumer Advice > General AdviceNovember 25, 2007

Wondering What To With Extra Cell Phone Minutes

I am wondering what to do with unused cell phone minutes. A while back we switched from Tracfone to Net10 because we determined it would be cheaper, which it is, but now we have found that T-Mobile's prepaid plan would be cheaper yet. With Net10, all the minutes are 10 cents, but the least you can buy at a time is 150, which comes with 30 days of service. We don't use any more than about 100 minutes in 30 days. Right now, I have over 600 minutes that expire in about 2 months, and my husband has about 300 minutes that expire in about a month. We want to switch plans but we feel like we are just throwing money down the drain not using those minutes, but to roll those minutes over, we have to pay $15 for 150 minutes on top of the abundance we already have. We can't give the phones to somebody else because we want to keep our same numbers and I'm pretty sure once we switch our numbers to new phones, the minutes on the old phones will disappear. What can we do to use up these minutes before they expire? We already get 500 free minutes on our home phone that we use maybe 200 of so it's really to no advantage to use the cell phone instead of the home phone.

I just hate letting the unused prepaid cell phone minutes go to waste.

Any ideas?

Allison from northeast TN

By

Answers

Read answers for this post below.

By
11/30/2007

Donate your old cell phone using our postage paid label and we'll make a donation that will save rainforest! It's easy and keeps hazardous materials out of our landfills.
http://www.redjellyfish.com/cell-phone-donation.html
or
like several people already mentioned :
http://www.cellphonesforsoldiers.com

By (Guest Post) 11/28/2007

My idea was donating them, too. Soldiers, battered women's shelters, and although I do not approve of drinking, what about bars? for those not sober and don't want to get behind the wheel? Or you could look up your high school best friend, etc and yak it up.

By
11/28/2007

Perhaps you could donate them to soldiers or their spouses or maybe you know of someone with out of state family so they could call their loved ones during the holiday season. You may even be able to use it as a charitable write-off. Just a suggestion...

By Charlotte (Guest Post) 11/28/2007

If you have a military base nearby perhaps you could invite some of the soldiers/sailors over to your house for a special "call home" time. Let them use your phone to call loved ones. This being the holiday season it would mean a lot to the guys/gals, especially if they cannot take leave and visit family. Giving to them in this way would add a blessing to your holiday as well.

By
11/28/2007

Perhaps you could donate them to soldiers or their spouses or maybe you know of someone with out of state family so they could call their loved ones during the holiday season. You may even be able to use it as a charitable write-off. Just a suggestion...

By Kelly (Guest Post) 11/28/2007

Do you know someone with family living long distance? Perhaps you could bless them by allowing them to use your minutes to talk to someone for "free." We had a young lady living with us this summer and I would let her use my cell to call her mom who lives 9 hours away. She always appreciated it.

By Meggan (Guest Post) 11/25/2007

You could always try selling the phones on Ebay after you change your number over, I see people list old phones all the time. Check it out for yourself by doing a search on Ebay for Net10 phones/minutes. Good luck!

Related

Answer this Question

Your thoughts are welcomed and appreciated. Enter your answer here!

Answer:

Image Upload:

Add an image to your post! Click the "Browse" button above and select an image from your hard drive. Please only select gifs or jpegs. If you have any problems, please contact us.

  

facebook like arrowLike ThriftyFun on Facebook

Browse Topics

Over 80,000 tips, recipes, questions & crafts.

Ask a Question

Submit a question to the TF community.

Subscribe to ThriftyFun Newsletters!

Email: