Best Cell Phone Plans for Seldom-Calling Seniors

For seniors who don't use their cell phone very often but still want one for emergencies or occasional calls, there are a number of low-cost plans available depending on your specific needs. Here's where to find some of the cheapest deals.

Prepaid plans

The best way infrequent cell phone users can save money is with a prepaid cell phone — also known pay-as-you-go phones. With a prepaid phone, there's no contract, no fixed monthly bills, no credit checks and no hidden costs that come with traditional cell phone plans.

With this type of service, you buy a special prepaid phone (they can cost anywhere from $10 to $100), then pre-purchase a certain amount of minutes (for talk or text) that must be used within a specified period of time.

While there are many prepaid phones on the market today, the cheapest deal for occasional users belongs to T-Mobile (t-mobile.com, 800-866-2453), which has a 30-minute plan for $10 and minutes don't expire for 90 days. That averages out to $3.33 per month.

If, however, you need more talk time, check out T-Mobile's "Gold Rewards" annual plan, where $100 gets you 1,000 minutes that are good for a full year. And with all T-Mobile pay-as-you-go plans, if you replenish your account before your minutes expire, your unused minutes will roll over.

TracFone (tracfone.com, 800-867-7183) also offers some nice value plans that start at $10 for 50 minutes per month.

Senior-friendly phones

If you don't mind spending a little more, Consumer Cellular and Jitterbug are two other popular options for seniors because they offer inexpensive low-use plans and senior-friendly phones.

Consumer Cellular

(consumercellular.com, 888-345-5509) sells two "Doro" simplified cell phones that cost either $25 or $30. And they offer a $10-per-month "casual" calling plan, plus 25 cents per minute, and no long-term contract. They even give a 5 percent monthly service discount to AARP members.

Jitterbug (jitterbug.com, 800-918-8543), which makes the best senior-friendly cell phone on the market, sells its Jitterbug J phone for $99, with calling plans that start at $15 per month for 50 minutes and no contract. Both services do, however, charge a one-time activation fee of $35.

Free cell phones

If you're living on a limited income, you may even be able to get a free cell phone and free airtime each month through a program called SafeLink Wireless, which was created by TracFone, and is currently available in 29 states including the District of Columbia.

To qualify, you'll need to show that you're receiving certain types of government benefits, such as Medicaid, Food Stamps or SSI or have a household income at or below 135 percent of the poverty line — that's $14,621 for an individual and $19,670 for a family of two. To learn more or apply, call 800-723-3546 or visit safelink.com.

If, however, you don't qualify or if your state doesn't yet have a SafeLink program, another option to check into is the 911 Cell PhoneBank. This is a program that provides free, emergency-only cell phones to seniors and victims of abuse. To see if there's an emergency cell phone program near you, contact your local law enforcement agency or see www.911cell

phonebank.org/agencies.asp.

Savvy tip: If you're in a long-term cellular contract and want to escape without paying the hefty early termination penalty, see cellswapper.com or celltradeusa.com. These companies match cellular customers who want out of their contracts with people who are willing to take them over.

By Jim Miller

Reprinted with permission from:

http://www.savvysenior.org

What Do Seniors Do Online? Visit Facebook and YouTube, of Course

We’ve known for a while that Facebook users are getting a lot older, but now new data released by Nielsen reveals that the number of seniors (65 and older) using the Web has increased by 6 million in the last five years. Not only that, but nearly half of online seniors visited Facebook or YouTube last month, making them their third and fourth most visited online destinations. The research confirmed a trend that we’ve seen in recent years: That more seniors are becoming active on the Web. In November of 2004, there were 11.3 million active seniors online. In November 2009, that number jumped by 55 percent to 17.5 million. In addition, they spend more time on the Web, totaling an average of 58 hours a month in front of the browser.

While those numbers didn’t surprise us, we were interested in data that Nielsen collected on their browsing habits. Take a look at these two tables. The first reveals the most common activities among active online seniors. The second shows the top ten Web sites and online destinations that this demographic visited last month:

A majority of online seniors check their e-mail, print maps, play around with photos and check the weather. All of these tasks seem utility-based, but then again, we expect that these numbers would be similar in almost any other demographic. Come on — who here hasn’t checked their e-mail, mapped something out or paid their bills online in the last 30 days?

The more interesting data comes from the top 10 online destinations table. While Google Search was an obvious winner, Windows Media Player is a bit of a surprise until you realize just how many Web sites embed the thing. However, the rise of Facebook to number three on this list, when a year ago it was the number 45 most visited Web site by seniors, is a huge sign of just how mainstream social networking has become. YouTube at number four is another confirmation of this trend.