I want a sim for my school age kid, who commutes. Initially I thought boost/aldi 12mth, but realise they don't need a number, could go with pure data only. It's for sending a txt/msg/whatsapp to say where they are, late/early bus, etc.
What would you suggest? They "shouldn't" use data, tho last time I gave them an aldi 365 payg with $15 credit, it ran out in a week. Refilled, and they did it again. Just no self control. So maybe some small amount of data is good.
Going into y7. They did not text at all. Data uses YouTube, Spotify, and I don't know. That said payg data wouldn't have been much for that $
I just thought data sim may cost less than one with voice + data
Data is what costs money, not calls or text. You'll be paying for that. Figure out how much you need, and go from there.
If they are going to go overboard (they will), consider a watch (eg. Apple Watch) or dumb phone.
Mine have 365 day woolworths plans which have 100GB for $140 currently, or less than$12 a month. This is vastly more data than they need or can use.
I'm sure you can get cheaper, but that suits us.
On the subject of data, check your background use. My partner was draining data, turned out that tiktok which was only installed to spy on the kids was using 10GB a month in the background even though the password had been forgotten and the app was never opened.
If you buy an Aldi PAYG sim just for calls & sms you need to turn off data.
Another option because kids want data is to go with a sim that has throttled unlimited data like Belong. However the cheapest plan is $15 per month.
PAYG does not work well with kids. They could send a bunch of text messages in no time (without communicating much useful information at all) and deplete the credit fast.
Yeah I think I need some sort of 12 mth long plan
Just no self control.
None of the long term SIMs give monthly parcels of data, so you need to set up data limits on the handset itself.
So if they exceed their quota, it will warn, and then stop using mobile data.
Do you shop at Woolworths? Their plan comes with 10% off groceries once per month, which can make it cheap or even "free".
realise they don't need a number
I guess they do? It's good to be able to call someone for help in situations rather than jump on some app and send messages. You also don't want your kid to be isolated from their social group by not able to call their friends etc.
In terms of self control, it might be a good idea to give them a monthly sim with limited data, and tell them it won't be refilled until expiry, they will only learn when they got bite hard from having no self control(and no data).
Kogan sim for $2 for 1 month can give them a good lesson, but do remember to port out before 1 month mark as you'll get auto recharge costing $$.
otherwise $6 for 2GB at amaysim is also a good choice.
you can help your kid to do all the sim slutting, and once they grow a good habit you can opt for yearly plans from Coles/Catch/Boost/Kogan/Amaysim etc.
I think you've got it wrong. The reason kids use up the data is because there is a data plan with a phone which allows using those data!
The best solution is to teach self control, but good luck with that. The second best is a plan with just a number, without or very limited data, in combination with a dumb phone. Communicate via SMS messages, or even better, teach them to actually make a phone call (a rare thing among kids these days). Some phones are "almost" dumb, they have Facebook, WhatsApp installed, and you could browse internet, but the experience in painful enough not get addicted.
No data and they call you when they want to let you know something, you don’t answer, they hang up You then call them back.
Cost = nothing on their phone.
i got a Telstra 5gb data plan only for my mum n my dad hotspot to it. the 5Gb runs out within a day then the speed slows down but still usable, so it's like unlimited. We don't hv WiFi at home, all 4 of us using our own data. This Telstra data plan cost $15/mth. I think optus has a similar plan, so depends which provider works better in your area.
Tell your kid to make Spotify playlists and download them so it doesn’t use any data.
Consider getting YouTube Premium: <$3 a month for individual membership via Turkey. Again, download any videos (while on WiFi) they need to access offline. This comes with YouTube music which essentially does the same job as Spotify, so you can cancel your Spotify subscription if you have one.
Then, get one of those yearly prepaid plans, and make kid learn how to budget a year’s worth of data across 12 months. If they use it all up before that, too bad. They have to wait out the remaining months to get more data and will likely become better at controlling data use the following year. If they actually download playlists and YT videos that they frequently watch, they shouldn’t ever run out of data. An Amaysim plan should do such as the $99/year for 60GB data, calls and texts.
If the purpose is for communication solely between the two of you, why are you now considering to get them data?
Did they max out their $15 texting just you? Or did they do things they weren’t supposed to be? If the latter, why reward them with more credit/data, if that’s not what you want them to be doing?
Would be interested to know their actual age. “School age” doesn’t say much… a suggestion for a 6 year old would be very different than that for a 16 year old.