How to get a cheap cell phone

I recently acquired a few new cell phones, all of which are working great! My wife's Sony phone was stolen, so I was looking for replacements. Since our 2 year plan had over a year left on it, AT&T's only offering was.

I don't mind getting refurbished equipment. AT&T refurb seems to work as good as new. I found a flip phone that has similar features to my w580i, except its a flip phone. It was $99 plus tax. No thanks.

Next I looked at purchasing a Go Phone. Go Phones are AT&T's prepaid phones and if you pop your current SIM card into one, it works just like any other phone. So I could pop in my wife's existing card into the Go Phone. Unfortunately, this phone wasn't the one I wanted either.

So, I hit Ebay and won a bid on a used W580i. It was about $60.