Tracfone do charge for everything, but it's perfect for us, as we just use ours for our visits to the States. From our experience, you can just buy minutes and then not use it for some time. Wendy got us a great deal and the minutes she got (I don't recall how many) are good until June 2009. We used it in December 2007 and then didn't touch it again until a couple of weeks ago and, because the minutes are still good until next summer, that's fine. Obviously we'll top up again before June 2009, so you can keep your phone and not use it for month after month, just long as your minutes aren't about to expire.
I hope that made some sense!
