Every time I get my AT&T bill, I brace myself for the additional charges I may have accrued from my month-long thumb frenzy with friends. Sure, I have a number of free texts built into my plan, but I do text a lot and even the short texts like, “Can’t wait!” or “Yep” definitely add up over the course of a month.

I recently heard about an app called Textfree with Voice that offers free texting and calling. I checked it out and yes, it’s true.

You do get unlimited free texts and to start, 10 free minutes of phone service. If you don’t want to keep adding more minutes to your plan, and more money to your bill, this is a really good alternative.

When you want to get more minutes for phone service, you can either “earn” them through in-app purchases (like getting 15 free minutes for downloading a free partner app) or paying $1.99 for a 100 extra minutes. Still a much better deal than with your carrier.

The interface is easy to use and is similar to what you’re probably already used to. The one caveat (of course there’s a big caveat) is that you’re assigned a new phone number. If you’re okay with straddling two numbers, one for texting, then you can save some cash and text to your heart’s content. –Jeana

Textfree is available for free from iTunes or the Android Marketplace.