Today we are all dependant on cell phones. Last year, being our first winter in Maricopa, we decided that we didn’t need or want the expense of a cell phone. Neither of us were working so where was the need? When we got to the border we shut off our Canadian cell phone and thought nothing of it.
Being without a cell phone has it’s merits. You can actually leave home and nobody follows your every move while you’re out. It was nice for the first few weeks but then we were running into situations where I would be at the grocery store and needed clarification on an item to buy. I didn’t have a cell phone so usually it was a “Heads or Tails” decision. I came home with the wrong item 50% of the time. It was time to check out the cell phones.
I don’t want to be pushing one plan over the other, but I picked up a Pay-as-you-go phone they sell at Fry’s grocery store. $49.99 for the phone and it came with 500 minutes to be used over 90 days. Then it is 20 cents per minute to anywhere in the United States and 15 cents to Canada. If you opt for their $5.00 per month plan, it is only 10 cents per minute. You can switch plans back and forth so that you aren’t paying the $5.00 per month while you are away but if you do you must add funds to the account every 90 days.
The one and only pitfall to the phone is that you can’t use a Canadian credit card to add funds to it. But like everything else, there is a solution. Just buy 3 or 4 of the prepaid cards from Fry’s before you head home and activate them every three months online.
You could just let the $5.00 per moth plan run and it would just deduct the $5.00 from you account if you wanted to avoid the hassle while in Canada. It would only be costing you about $60.00 per year, plus minutes. If you can find a cell phone for less than that please let me know.
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