<p>We have 450 minutes shared between 4 cell phones - Cingular, with rollover and free to all cingular customers, and free weekends and nights after 9. Even with 4 of us we never go over our minutes. College kids and high school kids do most of their gabbing late at night, and aren't even able to talk until noon ;)</p>
<p>OK..the "evil mom" weighs in. DD and I share the family plan with 550 minutes. Her "share" is 350 minutes. If she goes over that SHE pays. We will not upgrade the plan and that is that. She has free nights and weekends and can make some of her calls during that time (free from 9pm to 7am). I don't know what we have for text messaging but it is very minimal. We told her SHE could pay for all of that. We are paying for her tuition, room, board, and all fees at a pretty pricey college. She has a choice...more cell phone and a cheaper college, or she can cut back on her cell phone use. We are not a bank and we do not have a money machine in our basement. DS has 350 anytime minutes on his plan and has never gone over his allotment. In fact, he has 3000 rollover minutes that he loses some of every month.</p>
<p>Isn't text messaging typically a bad deal?</p>
<p>I recently spent hours comparing different plans and configurations and options in a giant spreadsheet.</p>
<p>thumper:</p>
<p>You're not the 'evil mom'. You're just teaching prudence and fiscal responsibility. It sounds to me as if you're being quite generous.</p>
<p>No cell phones. Works for us.</p>
<p>If you send more than about 100 text messages in a month, $10 monthly for it isn't really a bad deal since that's what you'd pay for those 100 messages anyway.</p>
<p>I have unlimited texting because I discovered that while I don't text, a lot of my friends do, and I was paying for all their incoming messages and the very few I sent myself. </p>
<p>I use about 350 minutes a month by myself at school with this as my only phone...I guess I just do most of my gabbing online for free.</p>
<p>this month my sister used close to 2000 minutes...and i used 49..b/c i lost my fone i usually only use 100-200 minutes and hers a 1000-2000 minutes...it works out good that way b/c the charge is less....$100/month...for the both of us(all together its 100) and were having more people join and my sister has a lot of "in" network friends but she doesnt shut up cross country to the people who r not "in"(she lives in cali us on long island) but seriously guys get sprint...ur calling time is 9 oclock get sprint and get 7 oclock for free calling.. i dont have sprint but i think thats a good deal</p>