I just picked up a flyer for tracfone. It leads me to believe that you get 90 days incoming calls, regardless of how many outgoing pre-paid minutes you have left, for 20 ( or 60 or 90 or whatever) dollars. Is this right or is it just more weasally worded BS. We want a couple of pay and go cells phones for emergencies only. It doesn't seem too important to have one here in the US for any other reason (though my whole life revolved around my phone in the UK lol).

If I am reading the blurb correctly it pans out like this. If I put 20 dollars on it I don't need to top up for 90 days and I get 60 mins call time. But, when the 60 mins runs out do I still get the 90 days service for incoming? Incoming is more importnat than outgoing as it is just so Mrs Sod or I can be reached should the car break down or some such. If for e.g. I was two hours late getting home from the store on the corner she could call me from the land line at home and vice versa. Anyway, this is rambling. Sorry, didn't sleep well last night lol. Can anybody clarify for me?

when you buy a top-up card there will be a date on your screen, and you keep service until that date. If you top it up again, it extends your service by how many minutes you bought, and you keep the same tel number. If you ever let it expire, you lose your number. You pay for incoming and outgoing calls. You can buy a years worth of minutes, and then keep it for a year without doing anything (unless you use all the minutes). It's quite cheap if you don't use it much. You can buy cheaper minutes online with specials, and top it up online of course. You wouldn't get incoming calls if you go past the date on the screen.

Buy a couple of homing pigeons ...

I used to use Verizon Wireless pay as you talk when I first got here. It was pretty cheap and depending on how much money you put on it the longer the cut off period was. However if you ran out of credits or went over your date without adding more minutes / credit you basically got cut off.
I got it at first just for emergencies but inevitabley you start using it to call your mates or the OH calls it just to chat so you will probably fall into old mobile phone habits. Also check out Virgin pay as you talk phones their per minute call rate was alot cheaper than the Verizon one I had. In the end it worked out cheaper for me just to go on contract with Verizon in the end.
How about a two way radio instead?

That's what I was worried about. I would rather get the homing pidgeons than suffer such a rip off. In the UK (as I am sure you all know) with O2 if you put 10 quid credit on a month you get 150 free minutes and 300 hundred free texts (if I remember correctly) before you even start to use your tenners credit. And the incoming is free forever of course. So if you get a sim card and never put a penny credit on it you can always be reached on that number. Plus you can always change your sim card and go with another network if you don't like the one you have. Americans are being so royally ripped off by mobile phone companies. I don't know how they get away with it!!!

Or even two cups and a bit of string lol.

God I remember doing that as a child with my sisters. We were shouting so loudly you have heard us two streets away never mind through the bleeding cups!

Remember your plan though. You are going to use your landline for most of your calls, and local calls are free in the US. As you said, you will use the pay-as-you-go phone for emergency/checking in calls, so it will be quite cheap (if you keep it short).

I am considering your advice, oh wise one, for when I arrive, but do many get shot down by the gun happy 'septics' .

Well, we had one a few months ago but everytime Mrs Sod called me on the way home to say pick up milk or whatever the mintues were gone in no time. I would rather not bother paying mighty dollar for the priv of having somebody call me!!!

I may be Silly Sod but I aint a Silly Sod!!

get a pager, and you can jump when she says jump.

I'm married, she don't need a pager for that lol - she is training me up good (or so I like her to believe).

I was really just curious because I saw the handsets for 15 dollars and the woman in the store said you dont pay for incoming. Thought I'd check here though becuase she was a bit vacant looking.

a bit vacant looking

Most shop assistants are.... or were they in a trance coz of your weird accent..?

Used them for a while a few years back. If you're a light mobile user, makes more sense than a contact, and you get frequent internet specials. Ended up switching to Virgin as I think it worked out a bit cheaper (but there's no year long activation like Tracfone).

Trouble is, PAYG phones here seem to be marketed either to teenagers or to the same demographic as subprime mortgages. For example, Consumer Reports frequently reports mobile phone plans, but I've never seen them do a comparison of PAYG providers - it's as if its below them.

get a att gophone

phone will be about a tenner

$100 will buy you 1 year of service...