It might seem the opposite would be true, considering the terms most prepaid cell phone companies are offering on their services, but it is possible to save money using prepaid phone cards by using them instead of a regular cell phone.

The reason this is possible is because of both the high cost of cell phone service charges and the way that prepaid phones work.

In a nutshell, the way that prepaid cell phones work is you buy a phone, generally for a lot less than what you would have to pay for cell phone in the regular way. For example, you can buy a prepaid cell phone for as little as ten dollars. When you buy your phone, it usually comes with some preset number of minutes and a time schedule. For example, you may get twenty minutes for a maximum time frame of sixty day. This means the minutes you have will expire either when you talk for twenty minutes, or after two months, whichever comes first. Once they expire, you but more minutes either at a store or online. What you get is a paper card with a code on it. When you type that code into your phone, it activates and resets your phone to the new minutes and time frame.

The way that this whole thing can be cheaper is if you discontinue your regular cell phone service and then buy a prepaid phone. Then, you only talk for a minute or less each time you talk on your phone, because they deduct your minutes in full minute increments. This means that if you buy a prepaid card that has 180 minutes on it and last for two months, you can make 180 calls over that two month period for substantially less than it would cost to own and operate a regular cell phone, because a card with 180 minutes only costs something like twenty five bucks.

They way this whole scheme really works is you learn to keep your conversations short; very short, down to one minute or less, when you’re talking on your cell phone. That is how you’re really saving money, and time for that matter, because talking less on your cell phone will mean more time for you to do other things.

You also save money by not having to sign up for a multiyear plan. You just buy as much time as you want and that’s the whole price. There are no cancelation charges and no problems or questions if you want to cancel. The whole thing is easy, short and sweet. And you wind up saving a bunch of money in the process.

The hip-hop mogul, founder of Def Jam Recordings and vegan yogi also sells prepaid debit cards and has successfully lobbied for changes in the financial services reform bill and its regulation of credit card fees.

The debate over so-called interchange fees has brought out some big guns: merchants, including titans such as Wal-Mart Stores, that pay the fees on one side and large banks and credit card issuers that receive the fees on the other. Consumer groups cheered the agreement to bring oversight to the fees, saying the savings would be passed on to consumers.