The cost of smart phones

If you buy a second hand phone outright eg. a Samsung then chose a SIM only deal with, say Lebara, you can have unlimited U.K. calls to mobiles and landlines, unlimited texts, 100 minutes of international calls and 3GB of data for under a fiver. If anyone who has a Lebara contract recommends you you get the first 3 months at half price. Beauty of Lebara is that you renew your contract monthly. They send you a text and if you don’t respond the offer continues. If you find a better deal you just let them know and cancel.
Very few people of our age need a bigger package but you can have unlimited data for a few pounds more.

Lebara sounds similar to Smarty Esspee except there are no limits with Smarty. I have no idea whether one is better than the other but they sound along the same lines.

Do you have a son or daughter who is upgrading their phone? My son just gave me his iPhone 8 and I’ve got a contract for £8 per month which gives me unlimited texts, calls and some data, enough for me.
Since you’re using the internet to be on Gransnet I think you’ll be fine using a smartphone.

henetha

I pay £10 per month. And the phone cost me £120 over 4 years ago. Some supermarkets have phone deals which are brilliant.

I know it's none of my business, but I can't help feeling that you might qualify for Pension Credit as your income seems very low. Might be worth claiming?

I pay £14per mth with BT including all calls and internet,I got it on their "Home Essentials" deal available for customers who are eligible for Pension Credit which as Henethamentioned you would probably be eligible for,ring DWP and give them your details it can be done over the phone,there is £2billion not claimed to which people are entitled to.

Why will you need it for buying things? I use my phone if it's in my hand but my card more often. Cards now pay up to £100 of goods in most shops. Never heard that this will be stopping. I hope not.

I would try Tesco. I have a Sim only deal with them with an old phone that I bought a few years ago (it is a smartphone but not very complicated) My deal costs £7.50 per month, unlimited texts and calls and 2GB of data per month (which I never use up as I don't trawl the internet and download stuff on it). They also give very good advice. I've been with them for about 10 years now and Tesco use the O2 network which is very reliable.

I have an old "dumb" PAYG mobile which I use fr everyday and which organizations like the bank, Paypal etc use to send an OTP.

I needed to get a smartphone to run my security system (the app would not run on my tablet) but my nephew passed me an old one and I use that for the cctv, and other bits and pieces like Google mail. I dont use it to pay for things or to bank with.

The smartphone I got from nephew is sim free and PAYG. I just top up about every 2 months.