How My Mom Became a Member of the TracFone Family

Posted by Jeff on August 10, 2015 at 9:31 am

My mom already owns a cell phone. It has a tiny antenna. Need I say any more?

As a result of her extremely lo-tech phone situation, she’s gotten into the habit of being one of those people who carries their tablet — and not one of the mini variety — around with them to take grainy but instantly sharable photos of the things they are seeing in the places they are visiting. I couldn’t allow this behavior to continue because those people are…well…I don’t want my mom being one of those people. Let’s just leave it at that.

To save her from herself, I headed into Kmart to find a good deal on a , a modern device capable of taking sweet, sharable photos AND that will fit into her purse. Man-o-man, did I ever get a great smartphone at a great price! I snagged the Samsung Galaxy Stardust, which runs Android 4.3, at ½ price so my mom will be able to quickly and easily share pics (and finally be able to receive her sons’ and granddaughters’ photos), make a reservation for dinner on OpenTable while she and my dad are out and about without calling me to do it, and access her email from anywhere, thus ensuring she’ll never miss a single one of those thrice daily ‘super special’ Talbots offers, all for just $50 plus whatever minutes she wants to load onto her snazzy new Galaxy smartphone.

That’s right, no contracts in TracFone land, meaning the flip phone on the (probably) over-priced contract doesn’t have to be impacted BUT when her all time favorite Philadelphia Phillie gets inducted into the team’s ring of fame, she can head out to the ballpark without a giant tablet in tow and still capture the evening for posterity, and share those crisp images with me and my brothers in real time.

This is exactly how she first used her TracFone, to snap a few shots of Pat Burrell while he was paraded around the field at Citizens Bank Park in Philly a couple weeks back. Here’s one of the pics she sent me that night.

I could almost see her beaming with pride that she was able to easily take decent photos and within a few clicks, text them to me. She’s never texted before this very moment. Now I know how she must’ve felt in 1986 when I brought home my first (and possibly last) good report card.

The process of buying her the TracFone phone and the 200 minutes card to get her started was a breeze, so easy in fact that when it comes time for my mom to reload the phone in 90 days or so with more calling/texting/internet minutes, she’ll have no problems at all doing it without her trusty tech support (that’d be me…it’s always me answering that hotline). Activating those minutes right on the phone couldn’t be any more simple or rewarding, because you get 3x your TracFone minutes on an Android smartphone when you do so!

If she had an out of contract and/or unlocked smartphone instead of that in-contract tiny antenna one, I’d have saved her even more dough thanks to the which brings those devices back to life simply by activating them and picking up some TracFone minutes; again, no contract and no commitment.

TracFone is brilliant and makes so much sense as a young child’s first phone or your mom’s newest and most advanced device that lets her leave the giant tablet at home and better enjoy her travel and her night out at the ballpark.