Our family is really poor and we do not have money to afford a cell phone. However, we do have a teenager who goes out often or stays after school. We wanted to give him a cell phone so that he could call or we could call him but our budget just would not allow it. Cell phone plans are really expensive. Just one phone would cost 50 dollars a month for the cheapest plan.
One day while surfing the internet, I happened upon an article that talked about free cell phones for kids. Basically, the cell phone is sponsored by the government for families living under the poverty line. I knew this was exactly what we needed. The article told us to try providers like Safelink Wireless, Assurance Wireless, or Reachout Wireless. I went to each of these companies and found that Safelink was best for us. To apply for the free phone I had to send them some information such as our household income. I asked them what that was for and they said that they needed to use that to determine if we are eligible. After they informed us that we are indeed eligible, they sent us the phone. Safelink told us that we only had a limited amount of minutes so we had to use it wisely. It amounted to no more than an hour of talk time per month. I figured this was probably enough for our child because he only needed to contact us when it was an emergency or we needed to find him.
When the free cell phone arrived, we gave it to our kid. We told him that he should use it to call us if he needed us to pick him up from after school programs or anytime he needed help. Safelink also told us that we could buy some more prepaid minutes if we needed them. We are really glad that this program is available for families who have no money.
