NO RENT. NO DEATH. ONE TINY FEED EVERY 180 DAYS.
One £10 UK number, fed ~3p every 180 days by an open-source page → it never dies.
It receives your login codes FREE anywhere on Earth 
— WhatsApp, Telegram, your bank, any signup.
The whole thing, five moves:
1 Get the number — the eSIM lands in the giffgaff app (free, no plastic), or a free SIM posts to UK addresses
2 Activate — pick Pay as you go at the bottom of the plan page: zero rent, ever
3 Top up £10 once — the minimum; a friend’s referral link adds bonus credit
4 Feed it — data on the SIM → open gg-keeper → tap: ~120KB burns, clock reset, ~3p (open code)
5 Forget it — next feed due in 180 days; giffgaff emails you a month before anyway
What the £10 buys:
- login codes FREE anywhere on Earth — incoming texts cost £0 in every country (roaming facts)
- ~30 years of life on that one top-up — two feeds a year barely dents it
- a real +44 number that passes sign-up checks — Telegram, WhatsApp, Apple ID, banks
🤖 The lazy floor: auto-feeders + house rules
- iPhone: a community Shortcut texts on a schedule — 30p a text
- Android: gclinux/giffgaff-keeper (MIT) tracks the 180-day clock and nudges you
- The base station: sms-bridge (MIT) — a cheap USB dongle + a Raspberry Pi forward your codes and fire the feeds
- Before a plastic SIM goes in: iMessage off — the hello-texts stay in your pocket
- House rules: fair use protects pets — two tiny feeds + quiet codes is the intended life; a rescue PAC (the code that moves your number to any UK network) stays open 30 days past any deactivation (all UK networks’ rules)
A number only ever dies of hunger. Yours just ate. 
!