What you need to look for when buying cell phones.

Well if you watch TV, or check the newspaper and the ads that come through your email, then you know that you just must have the newest, shiniest, smallest, cell phones that have a 2 inch by 2 inch screen with 10 million colors, and takes moving pictures! It must be so, thats what all of the ads tell us.

Well there is an old adage that says, "a lot of things were meant to sell, not to buy." Its just maybe that newest, brightest, etc, etc cell phone is one of them.

Lets go through a few things you should consider before going to get one of the new cell phones.

• Coverage

• Monthly Cost

• Length of The Contract

OK, now that we have given the essentials a once over, its time to look at what you want and maybe need in your cell phones.

• Emergency Use Only

• Camera

• Text Message

• Call Waiting

• Caller ID

• Memory Storage

• No Roaming

• Number of Anytime Minutes

• Roll Over Minutes

When considering a cell phones the first thing you need to look at is your coverage. You can have the smallest, brightest, and anything else you can think of, but if it won't work where you need it to work, then you've got a problem.

Where do you need it? At the office, the kid's school. Do you travel out of town? Maybe have a small farm or lake property.

Your cell phones have to work where you are going to use them, so before you purchase anything, find out what the coverage is.

Monthly cost. You should look at all of the fine print. Make sure you know how much you are going to be paying each month for your coverage.

If the carrier is offering to give you this great upgrade cell phone if you take service "A", over service "B" or "C", watch out. You may be able to go online and buy the same cell phone as a separate item. Yes, it may cost you a few bucks, but that is only a one time charge, you may have to make that monthly payment for your service contract for three or four years just to get one of their free

cell phones.

Now most carriers offer free cell phones as part of the contract, yes it may not be the latest and greatest, but it may do all you need. Try for a low-cost contract with a short term. You know they have specials on three or four times a year. Six months from now you may be able to get better coverage, better cell phones and pay less.

How will you use cell phones? Do you travel? If you stay local, why would you need nationwide service? Is the phone only for emergencies when traveling? Want to take pictures at the ball games or maybe sell real estate. If so a camera phone may be great.

Do you really need call waiting and caller ID? Whoa, what is text messaging all about? Is that something you will be using every day? What about roll over minutes?

You really need to take a good inventory of your needs and your wants when picking out cell phones and who your carrier is going to be.

Think it over for a few minutes before you sign on the dotted line.