Wanna support my kid?

I'm with ABC - No "bored" around here! LOL

OK - I figured it out though and 2700 texts isn't all that bad when you break it down. I HOPE I did this right.

I figured that was for 30 days. Let's figure during the school day, she's got 9 hours worth of time to text (yeah, like they never text in school ) because 8 out of 24 hours she's sleeping and 7 she's in school. So each week, that's 45 hours to text. Multiply that by 4 and we have 180 hours. Add in 16 hours for each weekend day and that is 32 hours a weekend or 128 hours. Now we have a total of 308 hours. I'm going to add in one more weekend day and one more week day day to make it 333 hours she has available to text in one month. Divide the number of texts she had (2567) by the number of hours she has available, and that ends up at under 8 texts in an hour. That's not that bad, honestly (shhh - don't tell her I told you so). My daughter texts a lot and the thing is, it's small short texts. We text back and forth and just dealing with an issue like her staying late after school can eat up a number of texts. I'd say atleast 2-3 if not more depending on what's going on.

Both of my teens have cell phones and both of them were originally paid for by me. I got them Virgin Mobile phones with a minimum of $20 every 90 days to keep the phone active. I told the kids when they got the phones that I will pay the $20 every 90 days and that's it. If the phone runs out before that, then the phone goes dead. If they would like to add money to it, that's fine and they can do so. I would buy top-up cards for them to buy from me for this purpose. Even if they just topped up with their own money, I'd top up the $20 every 90 days. I didn't want to do cell phones but after one day of not being able to find my 10th grader when she was coming home from school (there was a bus mix-up), we went to cell phones when they are no longer homeschooled and are in the public school. They're now 17 and 19. When they got their jobs, I no longer paid for their phones - it's up to them to do what they want with them. My oldest just has the basic plan. My 17 year old texts a lot more so went with the unlimited texting for $20 a month which also gives her calls at 10 cents a minute. She pays about $25 total for the month for all of her phone useage. Not sure how much she texts but she does a lot especially since her phone is connected to Facebook and she gets updates as texts.

The problem with not having a cell phone today is that there are no more pay phones. You can't find them anywhere. I've found cell phones to be invaluable when there have been emergencies or when we're in places that we would not normally be able to be located. For instance, my daughter was hit in the open eye with a volleyball a week ago and I was able to be reached to take her immediately to the doctor because I had my cell with me. I was also able to reach my daughters when my husband was rushed to the hospital with an injury. I see today that cell phones are much more necessary than they used to be before.

So Gina - good for you for teaching your daughter a lesson. It should be interesting to see if she does anything with the blog

 

I had texting taken off my phone ( I was charged by the msg). If you want to tell me something, leave a voice message. There might be a few instances where texting would be advantageous, but for the most part, it is unnecessary.

Salty

 

See, on my plan, I pay $2 for 60 texts but I pay $0.25 a minute for any call. So it's cheaper for me to get a quick text message "Mom, I'm ready. Can you pick me up now?" than for me to get a call. So for me, texts are cheaper. But then again, I'm not on a monthly plan other than the small text plan I have.

 

Exactly. My 19 year old ran out of gas on a main highway and was able to call me to come help her. I'd hate to think of her having to try to find a phone or be "helped" by a stranger. Nope. She'll have a cell phone.

 

Well, she is now! Sometimes lessons learned are not easy ones. But I can guarantee that she'll not run that low again.