Super cheap cell phone for my soon-to-be teenage daughter

My Daughter and Her New Phone

I am not like most modern parents I think. Lots of kids these days are walking around with the latest and greatest in cell phones because their parents buy them for their kids. I'm a little bit more old fashion. I refuse to buy my kids a cell phone unless they can pay for it themselves!

When I was a teenager, my parents didn't buy me a cell phone. Granted, cell phones were way more expensive in the 90's, but that's not the point. I did have a pager (Remember pagers?!?), but I bought that with my own money!

My daughter has been wanting a smartphone, and she actually came up with a brilliant plan on her own! She decided that she would earn some cold hard cash by mowing my lawn and doing chores around the house, then she would go out and buy a pre-paid Verizon Samsung Galaxy J1 for $45!

Normally Verizon makes you sign up for a pre-paid account that is billed monthly at $40 per month or more. Instead of doing that though, she said she would use a free app for text and calling over WiFi!

The app we opted to use is TalkaTone which gives you a free phone number and lets you have unlimited text and calling in the US and Canada! It's available for both Android and iOS too!

Some things to consider if you decide to do this setup for your kids:

• The pre-paid cell phone wants you to go through an activation process when you power it on. You can actually skip this process. The activation app will pop up occasionally to bug you about activation, but you can ignore it.
• Your child will only be able to make and received calls/text where WiFi is available. Keep in mind that many restaurants like McDonalds have free WiFi. Encourage your kids to connect to these free hotspots so they can call you if they need to.

With this setup it only cost my daughter a measly $45, and there is no monthly fee for me to take care of! Win win if you ask me!

Do you use a similar setup for your kids? Let me know in the comments.