Mobile phones- talk me through it

[IAmSheWhoMustBeObeyed]

so DD-13yrs old lost her latest mobile recently. It was a cheapo Pay as you go and her £10 monthly credit went in about a week. So I'm contemplating a contract type for her and wanted some advice. I am not into the latest mobiles at all and still have a very basic Nokia so have no idea.

We have contracts with t-mobile. £8 p/month for 5000 texts, 100mins talk and 250 mins talk to other T-mobiles. It is in my name with the number of DD's mobile phone. I pay by direct debit and can see itemised monthly bills online. All texts she's sent and calls made are listed with the time they were made. From time to time I look up her bills to see how late at night she's texting mainly.
I've heard of similar contracts with other networks eg Giff Gaff.

Her phone cost about £50 three years ago. My phone which has the same contract was £25 from a supermarket.

Most of dd's friends only have basic phones still. Dd has a good one, but it was second hand and an Xmas present. The her contract is 12£ a month, sim only.

If you want a contract with a smart phone you are looking at around £30 a month. I'd stick to another basic phone then look at giffgaff for a contract.

My DCs 13&14 have blackberrys

£15 per month from virgin.

Unlimited texts, Internet and bbm

Thanks everyone. Do you get charged if they go over the allowance?

Yep. But they have been told that as soon as that happens I'm taking the phone. They can call the free virgin number to see how many minutes they have left so there's no excuse.

Yep, dd did it once, had to pay me back and not done it since!

Some network providers will apply caps. Dd is with orange and they refuse.

Mine have cheapo PAYG - and they've not been pressuring me for a smartphone (loads of teens have basic phones - possibly because they do still lose them, or don't want to be a target).

We found a deal which means free calls within the same network, so even if they run out of credit they can still ring me.

I am hoping that better phone will equal better care taken of it, haha!
Ok I feel slightly more confident about entering a mobile shop - yikes.

Take out insurance!

If it gets lost, broken stolen etc you get a new one in 2 days.

£5 a month

Hell, more money grrr.

It's worth it tbh. DS has lost or broken 3 phones in 2 years :(

Both my boys have add-on contracts to my own Vodafone contract: £10/mth for unlimited texts and 500mins (or is it 600?) This has 2 advantages for me: (1) There's never any excuse not to text me/text back/let me know where they are, cos they can never claim "I ran out of credit" , and (2) On occasions where DS1 has failed to keep in touch/answer my calls, I have been able to block his phone so he can't make outgoing calls or send texts until he picks up - which works a treat!
I don't really understand insurance: I have only ever bought them cheap £10-15 handsets, so they'd have to lose a phone every 2-3 months to make it worthwhile, and they're not that careless!

Check that you don't get phone insurance with your bank account - we do.

DD is on a capped tesco mobile 24 month contract £15 for 750mins 2500 texts and 500mb internet, or something like that. It came with a blackberry included, it works for her and no risk of huge bills.

Lots to explore and it sounds like there will be advantages in going contract. Thank you.

I buy cheap small phones (small is good, less likely to fall out of pockets) on Ebay. The running costs (per month) is more than the phones are worth.

I am going to try switching to Giffgaff, will have to see how good their coverage is. If good enough, then for 10/month DS will have 3000 texts which I think even HE can't quite exhaust, and he never hardly uses minutes anyway.