By 1999 I had sold my pager to a local store that bought used pagers & cellphones, got $15 for it as I recall. I didn't bother getting anything to replace it and simply carried two $0.25 Quarters in my wallet in case I needed to call someone from a payphone. I also did not own a car and just used a bicycle+public transit to get around. I didn't get my first cellphone until 2 years later, and first car the year after that.
I believe this was the pager (Motorola Memo Express, purple, except mine was translucent):