We took the plunge and bought DD her first cell phone. We've been researching it for a few weeks. We checked the prepaid options but finally decided to add a line to our Cingular/ATT family plan. On the surface, the prepaid option looked cheaper. However, with her on our plan, calls she makes to our cell phones (or us to hers) are free. Also, any friends she calls who are on the Cingular/ATT network would also be free.

We never use all of our plan minutes and, in fact, have about 4,000 rollover minutes stored. So even if, with her, we now use all of our plan minutes, we've still got a cushion of rollover minutes so we wouldn't generate any additional charges.

We did opt for the phone insurance for now until she gets used to carrying and caring for the phone.

Of course, while we were there, DW started looking at all the nice new phones. Her phone is almost 3 years old. I upgraded last year after losing my phone. The clerk said she was eligible for a free upgrade - just had to pay for the new phone. She looked at the options and liked one that was $29.99. We decided that would be her Mother's Day gift. She's been wanting a new phone for quite a while. We rarely splurge like that or upgrade things that are still working okay, so it was actually a hard decision, but she's happy to have a nice new phone with more modern features.