Cell Phones

Buying a Cell Phone

Buying a cell phone is somewhat of a paradox, it’s basically one of the hardest, but on the other side of the coin its one of the easiest. You can buy a cell phone almost anywhere, go to Radio Shack, a gas station and of course specialty cell phone stores. In addition to those stores every phone service has a large selection of cell phones you can choose from.

Now if you get right down to it you really don't have to buy a cell phone. The easiest way to do that is to subscribe to a phone plan that will just give you a phone for signing up for their service. This is a great way to save money:

Get your cell phone plan at a time when they are offering a special

You get the cell phone for free, just for signing up

However, for some folks cell phone plans are not a way they either don't want to go or possibly they can't. There are several reasons for this:

First off the contract. The plan may look good now, but what about down the road? The contract may have a large increase in price in six months and then go sky high.

The contract that was cheap may only cover a limited area, (in a certain part of the city you may have a great signal, but the other side of town where the kids go to school, it may not be so great), or anytime you get out of that area you get hit with roaming charges. You may have a job that requires you to travel outside the area. Here you are stuck with a cell phone plan for a year or two and can't use the service but half of the time.

What if you are planning to move in a few months. The plan may have a charge for the phone if you don't stay with the service for the life of the contract.

Many of the give away cell phones may only work with one of the local cell phone services. If you move to say another state you are going to have to switch cell phones do the whole thing over again including getting a different phone plan. So here you are, you have a perfectly good cell phone that you can't use. You may have even had to pay for the phone because you didn't complete the contract.

It may be a good idea to get your cell phone plan with one of the nation wide companies. That way even if you have to move several states away, you can usually transfer your service and because you are staying with the same carrier you probably won't have to get a new contract. If it is not possible to go with a nation wide company and you are not sure of the time you will be in the area, maybe you should consider either getting a short term contract or possibly one of the prepaid cell phones. Whichever you way you go, the largest problem is usually the phone plan.