I Have a Smartphone!

             Yes, ladies and gentlemen, I have finally moved into 2016 and I have myself a Smartphone.  So exciting!!  (Isaac is excited, obviously!)

             I am definitely a cheap person (or frugal, that sounds better) and I've been holding off on getting a Smartphone. Mostly, I've done fine with a flip phone from Trakphone that cost about $7 a month. I just couldn't wrap my head around paying $40 or $50 or $60 a month for a Smartphone when I am home most of the time and therefore have access to internet there.

               But...we realized we needed another cell phone because Naomi is now taking a college class and working outside the home, so SHE needs a phone.  Lydia is also out and about some, so she needs a phone.  And sometimes I am out when they both are.  So we looked into getting a new cell phone for me.

               Trakphone has Smartphones!  Instead of unlimited text, unlimited data, or large numbers of text and large amounts of data, we were able to buy a relatively cheap Smartphone with 1500 texts for a year and...I can't remember, a relatively small amount of data for the year. If I use those up, I can buy more as needed.

              Total amount this year (including the phone) will be about $15 a month so long as I don't need to buy more texts or data.  I can handle that (emotionally).

             I really don't plan to use my phone to surf the web or check emails.  Being away from home is kind of a nice break from being connected.

            What I AM very excited about is that I can now TEXT.  I have several friends and relatives who use texting as a primary mode of communication, and I was previously cut off from it.  Now I can text.  That is good news for keeping in touch with people.

          So yeah, I'm mostly happy.  The only issue is I have to figure out the Smartphone and I don't enjoy doing that. I just want to know how to do everything. I do have a tablet with a similar interface so learning is going fairly smoothly so far.