When life gives you lemons, get a prepaid cell phone

My fiancé’s parents never had cell phones and I never pressured them into getting one, but it did kind of worry me. What about the one day we would need to get in touch with them immediately, or vice versa, and wouldn’t be able to? Then what?

The Disaster
They had just left for a blissful three-week vacation when, only a few days in, they found out that the tenants directly above them (who were also on vacation) had a pipe burst and all the apartments 10 floors below them had been ruined!  My fiancé went over to assess the damage while his parents scrambled to find an early flight home after learning about the incident on Facebook. The night they flew in, they sent him an email asking for a lift home from the airport, but he didn’t check his mail until it was too late. Had they called, one of us could have been there for them. It turned out they’d have to vacate the apartment and remove all their stuff until it could be gutted and rebuilt. The projected time it would take was 1 or 2 months. They’d be hopping between family houses, hotels, and the hardware store during this time.

Quick & Easy
It was at this point that I decided it was more of a hassle for them not to have a cell phone than to have one – for all of us – and I had to put my foot down. On my day off, I went into my Best Buy Mobile store and chose the cheapest prepaid phone ($20 on sale! Score!), picked up the cheapest airtime card ($10), protected it for two years with Black Tie ($9), got it activated with the most basic plan (free) – all for under $50 and in 15 minutes!

No-Contract Freedom
To my delight, they accepted and even appreciated my decision! They know that that they are under no obligation to keep paying for minutes on their new phone after everything’s back to normal, because with no-contract plans, they won’t incur any early termination fees and only pay for it it when they need it. They also have one less worry having Geek Squad Black Tie Protection on the phone – if it gets damaged during all the construction and heavy lifting, any Best Buy will replace it for free, on the spot, with no hassle. Even if it gets damaged when they’re 1,300 miles away at our wedding in Massachusetts this June, I know the way to the North Dartmouth store by heart!

No-contract phones can be a wonderfully economical solution for life’s lemons!