Here some YouTube videos - one on e and one on Ubuntu Touch and a really cool hardware phone device:
Android without Google: the /e/ Project blew me away!
Ubuntu Touch + LineageOS? THIS Is The Linux Phone I Want!
Consider using ting as for phone/messaging/data-plan service
Ting has an approach where you use their planner to figure out a plan that would typify your monthly use - that establishes your monthly baseline bill - if you exceed that plan's quotas, you'll be charged for that additional usage. (Perhaps you need to reconfigure your baseline monthly plan - say you're really using more like 4GB instead of just 2GB on your data plan). They also allow for buying a minimal plan just to keep a phone active for potential use - at about $5 per month. Can then have extra phones laying around - say a phone that is just for the baby sitter to use when she comes over.
Also might want to youtube search on the PinePhone and the Librem phone. The PinePhone has a number of phone OS (based on Linux) to chose and try out - really easy to do because it can boot them off of an inserted SD card. The PinePhone is about $150 - it's aimed at kind of an early adopter and beta test sort of audience as it's a community effort that is trying to work toward a kind of 1.0 product definition.
[edit] I made this posting too for those that want to diversify their communications options still further: get GMRS radio gear as some alternative comms for any coming comm blackouts
there is actually the ability to do all these things right now - the stuff I posted are things that can be done right now
Most folks would probably want to go with something like e - Android that has had Google software stripped out (myself, I want even further distance away than that), hence I'll be looking at something like the second option I posted which is using Ubuntu Touch (plus I like physical keyboards on a phone)
Now anyone can go out to DigitalOcean and start renting their own Linux server - I pay roughly $5 to $10 a month for the one I've got spun up. You can then install your own software services onto that server and be your own boss over everything you use in the cloud. DigitalOcean has these VM templates called Droplets that have a lot of services ready to be spun up immediately.
On Linux there are good server-side apps for anything. VPN solutions, email, cloud storage, etc. Now a lot of folks aren't going to want to install and admin those kinds of things themselves, but there are patriots in the community that do have the skill sets to do it - slap a PayPal (and Bitcoin) tip jar on a web page to the server and get the community of patriots to help fund it. DigitalOcean does Kubernetes so can deploy and manage Docker containerized scalable solutions.
But some folks probably would at least like to get out of Google's Orwellian/Spyware gmail and start using a VPN to browse things out on the Internet. Well, consider getting a ProtonMail account.
[edit] BTW, I'd recommend keeping the IP of a DigitalOcean VM out of DNS servers - spread the IP on a person-to-person basis. In that GMRS radio link I added to the OP of this thread, I made a comment where I describe a DNS service done via a text messaging service built on top of GMRS radios (or using existing packet radio software, say, in the 2 meter band - requires getting a HAM tech license to use).
Eventually I could see offering patriots a low-cost hardware peripheral for their computer that is contacting a radio-based server in their area and that refreshes their computer with DNS of patriot IPs. Probably will need to be a daily refresh as patriots will have to be nimble in the context of an extremely hostile Internet environment. Being that it would be a receiver only, it would not require getting any manner of license to use.
You can install Ubuntu Touch on many currently available handsets. You may have one sat in a drawer!
https://devices.ubuntu-touch.io/ Closer to the top of the list means UBports runs well on the device and will work well as a daily driver
The Librem 5 and Pinephone are still beta, very buggy at the moment, not yet daily driver ready.
for still more comms diversification I posted this:
get GMRS radio gear as some alternative comms for any coming comm blackouts
Can we get this info stickied for a while?