New cell phone plan?

[kane_magus]

Okay, let's say that my current cell phone plan is about to go completely kaput, and I need a new plan. That may or may not be the case, depending on how things go forward, but as for right now, I am operating under the assumption that I am going to need a new cell phone plan soon. Considering I know next to nothing about cell phone plans, aside from the scant research I have done in the past hour or so, I'd like some advice on my options.

Basically, my requirements are that I must be able to talk on the phone for whatever bare minimum I might be required/forced to talk on a phone during any given month (generally speaking, I hate talking to people, even family, on a telephone if I can at all avoid it). I don't need texting, and I don't want texting if I can get by without it. If I could get a phone that was straight up incapable of sending or receiving texts, that would probably be ideal. I don't need or want data at all, period. I want as little frill as I can possibly get away with, with a maximum of zero frill being the best.

From what I've been looking into, it seems like a pay-as-you-go plan might be the best for me, because I intend to talk on a cell phone for a little as humanly possibly. Failing that, prepaid is the next step up. (I wasn't even sure at first if pay-as-you-go and prepaid might not be different terms for the same thing, but research indicates some difference between them.) That said, I don't know shit about whether there might be hidden pitfalls to having a pay-as-you-go or prepaid plan versus a "normal" plan, so any insight into that would be appreciated, as well.

Gist: I want to have a cell phone without having to fucking pay $30-plus per month for a cell phone, if that is even remotely feasible.

(I will be cross-posting this to Facebook and Twitter as well, so if you're reading this from one of those, feel free to answer either here or there, it doesn't matter to me.)

Comments

[owsf2000]

Can't say I really have any experience with cellphones personally. My sister worked for a call center for a large provider here in Canada a few years back though.

If your cellphone likes to have software and loves to download updates for the software on it's own, then you may want to have a data plan either way unless the provider will simply not let your phone download anything. (Rather than let it download as requested then bill you for it.)

Pay as you go is likely the best option for ultra-low use/frills. Just check with the provider to see if the money you put on your phone expires after a certain amount of time (or if the phone number itself will be lost if not used at least once within a particular time span. I somewhat remember my sister talking about such things.

[kane_magus]

I think my plan now is to take my current Samsung SGH-A777 phone to Walmart and get a Tracfone SIM and whatever is the cheapest minutes card/plan they have available for it. I chatted with a customer support guy on the Tracfone website, and they said my phone should be compatible.

tokoz over on FB recommended not getting a monthly plan but simply buying a new minutes card as needed, which would probably work for me. My plan as for phone use is to only use the phone when absolutely necessary, which won't be zero usage, I'm sure, but will be as close to that as I can possibly manage. Won't be texting at all (which isn't a change from now). Won't be using Internet shit at all (again, not a change from now).