Just got a call from the family member whose cell phone plan I've been piggybacking off of and he's cancelling his plan to go prepaid. So after dealing with a thoroughly beat up 6-year-old flip phone for a number of years, I'm thinking of taking the plunge and getting a smart phone. But I want to do it in a relatively Mustachian way, which means hopefully without getting stuck with a huge bill and a 2-year contract. It looks like the cheapest plan I can get through Verizon is $80 (after data, low minutes, and texting) and I assume AT&T is about the same though I haven't checked. I'd like to stay under $50 a month.
I had a very un-Mustachian buddy offer to sell me his relatively newish iPhone so he can upgrade, and I thought about springing for it because, I really like the iPhones I've played with and they have everything I want on them. Plus it'd keep me from having to purchase a replacement iPod and running GPS (two things I use regularly as a runner, both of which need replaced soon) so in that sense it'd be multifunctional. But it seems like all the iPhone-compatible plans are at least $75/month, usually with a contract. I know there are some cheap plans out there (page plus, pure usa, etc.) but I've heard they don't always play nice with iPhones. Does anyone know anything about this?
Another option is to get a StraightTalk plan, which I've gathered are $45ish a month for unlimited talk, texting, and data. I don't think they work for iPhones? But it looks like they have a decent LG Android phone for $150ish. I really like the iPhone better but if it comes down to a huge difference in monthly price I'd rather just get the 'droid.
Then I heard murmurings about being able to "tether" smart phones, whatever that means, so you don't have to pay for home internet? I'm intrigued by this. My home internet costs $20-30 a month (depending on how successfully I've haggled with them recently, lol) so taking that out of the equation would almost make a normal plan worth it. The major problem with this is that I'm NOT a very tech-oriented person by nature and I rely on the internet a lot to get work done at home- I'd worry about service being glitchy and me not knowing how to fix it, basically. And I use my internet at home for watching movies and other data-intensive things, so it'd probably have to be an unlimited plan.
Also, is the security of using a mobile network as good as having a home network? Something I'd worry about as I do a lot of banking online.
All of these options are kind of making my head reel, so I guess I'm just looking for feedback from anyone who's tried any of these options to see which would be best for me. In general, I use a lot of texting, a minimal amount of calling, and I've never had a smart phone so I have no idea how much data I'd use but I'm an internet addict so probably a fair amount. Thoughts?