Best Cell Phone Plans for Back to School

If you're not careful your kid's cell phone bill can cost more than his/her tuition. Many carriers are offering special back to school rate plans for multi -phone households. Here are some of our picks: Verizon- offers its “Family Share” plan where you can add additional phones for $15/mo. Each additional handset comes with 30 free minutes of airtime, which can be handy for emergencies; Additional minutes are charged to primary plan.

Sprint- offers “Add-a-phone” which allows you to add phones to a primary service agreement for $10 each if you have a one year contract.

VoiceStream- Lets you add a phone just like the Sprint plan, but the cost is higher at $20/mo. for each phone.

Cingular- offers a variety of family plans. These plans allow unlimited calling between two family members (such as parent and child) within local calling areas and calling minutes that can be shared between phones for making other and local long distance calls. Plans start at $39.99 for unlimited calling between two family members and 300 minutes that can be used anytime. Unlimited night and weekend calling is $10 more a month.