I only plan to use it once or twice a month. Basically for "HELP!" or "I'm running ten minutes late" or "Where are you?". In that case, have you ever considered a pre-pay plan like Virgin Mobile? I'm not sure what the pre-pay plans cost at all of the aforementioned providers, but on VM, you only have to deposit $20 every 3 months to keep your phone active. If you're not going to be making many calls, that comes out to less than $7/month. I do have an account with them because I too wanted a phone "just in case". I have a middle of the road phone and it consistently gets 3 bars out of 5 (reception) in the house and 5 bars almost everywhere outside the house. It's nothing fancy, but I love it because it is so inexpensive...$80 for the whole year. The phones don't cost too much to start with and some come bundled with airtime. If you want to check them out, they ship and activate for free from their website (or they are sold at Target and Best Buy along with the top-up cards you use to put more minutes on). Website