The Money Mustache Community
General Discussion => Throw Down the Gauntlet => Topic started by: Emily2651 on July 16, 2018, 11:18:48 PM
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[Caveat: I am newly returning to frugality after a lengthy hiatus. Much work to do.]
Thanks to Prime Day, today I took stock of how many freakin' subscriptions we have in our household. It's out of control.
- Amazon Prime ($119/year)
- Spotify ($9.99/month)
- Thrive Market ($59.95/year)
- Calm app ($59.99/year)
- NYT online/Sunday delivery ($41/month)
- Idler online/print (£125/year)
- Nautilus print subscription ($39/year)
- Photoshop ($9.99/month)
- YNAB ($50/year)
!YIKES! The annual cost of this mess is $1225.24.
I am horrified.
I've already stopped Amazon Prime from auto-renewing. I'm also going to shed Thrive, Calm, the NYT; won't renew the Idler and Nautilus. For now, I'll keep Spotify and YNAB; husband says he can't give up Photoshop. Total annual savings: $935.48. It's a start.
Am I the only one with ridiculous subscriptions?
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I hate subscriptions and avoid them like the plague. Here's what we have:
1. Amazon Prime (I hate it. DH likes the streaming entertainment options. I'm trying to get him to cancel it.)
2. Netflix (Not a big fan of this, either. I used to like it when it was DVDs; the options were way better. But Netflix is helpful if you have kids, which we do. And we do watch plenty of shows on it.)
3. NYT ($7/month online subscription--I get an educator discount. I read hundreds of articles/month so I really get the use out of this.)
4. Ranger Rick (a Christmas present for my son. He loves getting the actual magazine in the mail. I think it was $12 for the year?)
Other than that we have no subscriptions IIRC. Anything monthly gives me hives.
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Ouch.
We dropped all magazine and newspaper subscriptions a while ago. There is plenty of interesting, free content out there, and the costs of subscriptions are almost never justified. For every interesting event we hear of through a magazine, it could be just as easily discovered through Facebook or other means, and there is tons of free content out there if you want to pick up knowledge or skills, so learning from a paper or magazine is almost never worth the cost because the majority of what comes in doesn't get read anyway.
I've always been good with spreadsheets, so we've never been tempted to pay for any sort of budgeting apps, but that's an individual decision.
Food subscriptions are a tough call. I'd say you have to weight the cost of your annual savings on food through the subscription vs. the alternative. Food is definitely an area we are looking to cut expenses too. We occasionally get Blue Apron. My wife is an excellent chef, but cooking for two is hard due to portion size and Blue Apron is good with that, plus it gives her recipes that she can tweak or try to recreate on the cheap later. It's nice every once in a while, but we try not to do it too often. It's an ongoing process, and we're still trying to find the optimal mix while generally eating healthy.
The sleeping app, unless one of you has an extreme difficulty sleeping, I'd look to drop. And even if you do, a white noise machine can be purchased for less than the yearly cost of that app.
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We went through this awhile ago and now have that we pay for just Netflix, Spotify for the 2 kids in college and MLS package which was Birthday gift for my son which is $4.99 a month. That obviously doesnt include interenet and stuff but otherwise that its. No magazines or things of that nature and that all comes to about 30$ a month. We bought Roku's for the tv's a while back and that has alot of content as well and has paid for its self over and over again and removed any buffering problems. They were only like 50$ a piece and they as I said have a ton of free content.
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Keep in mind you can do free trials with most subscription services. And you can repeat those each year. Or you can sign up for a month, and then drop the subscription. Amazon prime might be handy at the holiday season if you would otherwise mail some gifts, so get the trial then. Also, check with your library. Mine has services called Overdrive and Hoopla that provide all kinds of media content....way more than I have time for.
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Good working cutting a lot of it so far! The only subscription I have is Amazon Prime. Netflix is included with my cellphone bill (T-Mobile, which is cheaper than our old AT&T plan even with the Netflix, and we love the unlimited data and international plan. No, it's not the most Mustachian out there, but it works for us for right now). My teenager had Spotify but he cancelled it recently. We are doing a 30 day free trial of the Amazon Family Unlimited Music plan and will decide if we're keeping it in a few weeks. I've been using the Amazon Music that comes with Prime to listen at work all day for years; now that my husband and son want to use it too we decided to do the trial and see if we really get enough value out of it to justify the expense.
It's really easy to get sucked into subscriptions; good job realizing it had happened and deciding to do something about it.
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Netflix
Hulu
Apple Music (wife)
Online access to Local Newspaper $6.93/month
Getting rid of Prime has saved me so much money. Not so much from the subscription price but from the ease of spending money on Amazon.
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Monthly subscriptions:
- Internet: $20 (Xfinity)
- Mobile phone: $14 (Republic Wireless, includes refund on unused data)
I'm fortunate enough to be added to my Dad's plan on Amazon Prime, as I would
not pay for it otherwise. Youtube and books handle most of my sedentary entertainment
needs wants.
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husband says he can't give up Photoshop.
If he's using a Mac, this is a worthy substitute: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/affinity-photo/id824183456 $35.
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Getting rid of Prime has saved me so much money. Not so much from the subscription price but from the ease of spending money on Amazon.
I think this is interesting because I find it's been the opposite for me. I always used to add more things to my order for "free shipping"...since getting Prime I don't do that anymore and find I indulge in a lot fewer impulse purchases/add ons.
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husband says he can't give up Photoshop.
If he's using a Mac, this is a worthy substitute: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/affinity-photo/id824183456 $35.
Or there's Gimp, which is open source and free. It's a bit of a learning curve, but it can do most of what PS does.
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Congrats on starting to cancel things, it's wonderful how little we missed some of ours when we started cutting.
Our household subscriptions are:
- Amazon Prime
- Economist Magazine (weekly)
- Harper's Magazine (monthly)
Prime we keep because we have the student price, and use it for watching TV more than buying things (though the free shipping is nice when we do buy something, a few times a year). Having Prime let us cancel Netflix last year, so I count it a win. The two magazines are gifts to DH from various family members, so I don't know what they cost. Probably wouldn't keep them if we were paying for them, but DH likes them - lets him keep abreast of the world getting sucked in to news sites online. I think it's a good balance.
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I hate subscriptions and avoid them like the plague. Here's what we have:
1. Amazon Prime (I hate it. DH likes the streaming entertainment options. I'm trying to get him to cancel it.)
2. Netflix (Not a big fan of this, either. I used to like it when it was DVDs; the options were way better. But Netflix is helpful if you have kids, which we do. And we do watch plenty of shows on it.)
3. NYT ($7/month online subscription--I get an educator discount. I read hundreds of articles/month so I really get the use out of this.)
4. Ranger Rick (a Christmas present for my son. He loves getting the actual magazine in the mail. I think it was $12 for the year?)
Other than that we have no subscriptions IIRC. Anything monthly gives me hives.
I forgot about Netflix! ::facepalm:: Just canceled our streaming subscription and downgraded the DVD plan to a $4.99/month option.
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Hmm, I'm probably somewhere in subscription purgatory. I've got Audible at $16/month, and Hulu at $9/month. I also mooch off my wife's Amazon Prime subscription. But the phone. The phone! That's my true excess, at $70/month.
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I enjoy reading the physical Sunday paper too, but man $41/month is really expensive. Consider switching to digital only.
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Making progress! Today I canceled Netflix and Calm. Tomorrow I’ll do Thrive (have to call them!!) and NYT. The magazines won’t auto renew.
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A little trick with news articles. Initially I thought they were tracking your IP address, however reset your history and it refreshes, I do this with Bloomberg... 10 articles then refresh, avoids the monthly cost...
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We have Amazon Prime, which pays for itself in video game pre-order discounts alone. We also have Kindle Unlimited, but that's primarily for my boyfriend's business (he's an editor). That's it - no television-like stuff, music, etc. We've never even really thought about getting anything else.
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A little trick with news articles. Initially I thought they were tracking your IP address, however reset your history and it refreshes, I do this with Bloomberg... 10 articles then refresh, avoids the monthly cost...
I'm going to have to try this. Thanks!
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My wife was put into subscription hell without even realizing it. She would buy something that came with some magazine for free....and of course auto renewal. We were getting renewal charges on things she didn't even know we received. A few years ago she went a little crazy and had our credit card registered on many sites for "ease of use". The entire internet was able to charge our card for some kind of tie in with something she bought. I'm still surprised that our identity was never stolen as our card seemed to be everywhere.
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I don't mean to derail and am happy to move this or remove it - but how do people buy the random items of life without amazon prime? I would say that we aren't even big consumer spenders - but when the kids needs stuff for school, or specialized vitamins for us or pet food, or whatever?
We often find that we don't actually have time to run to the store so Prime it is. We've actually considered cancelling just due to amazon's reputation as an awful employer, but our alternative was using Walmart because it is the only store open after 10 pm. And Walmart is pretty bad with employment practices too - so - we've decided to stick with the devil we know.
I'm sort of shocked at all the people who don't need prime - I feel that it is a key player in my family's ability to get stuff done.
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I don't mean to derail and am happy to move this or remove it - but how do people buy the random items of life without amazon prime? I would say that we aren't even big consumer spenders - but when the kids needs stuff for school, or specialized vitamins for us or pet food, or whatever?
We often find that we don't actually have time to run to the store so Prime it is. We've actually considered cancelling just due to amazon's reputation as an awful employer, but our alternative was using Walmart because it is the only store open after 10 pm. And Walmart is pretty bad with employment practices too - so - we've decided to stick with the devil we know.
I'm sort of shocked at all the people who don't need prime - I feel that it is a key player in my family's ability to get stuff done.
If you find it that hard to live without 2 day shipping and shopping before 10pm, you may want to rethink a bunch of decisions.
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I don't mean to derail and am happy to move this or remove it - but how do people buy the random items of life without amazon prime? I would say that we aren't even big consumer spenders - but when the kids needs stuff for school, or specialized vitamins for us or pet food, or whatever?
We often find that we don't actually have time to run to the store so Prime it is. We've actually considered cancelling just due to amazon's reputation as an awful employer, but our alternative was using Walmart because it is the only store open after 10 pm. And Walmart is pretty bad with employment practices too - so - we've decided to stick with the devil we know.
I'm sort of shocked at all the people who don't need prime - I feel that it is a key player in my family's ability to get stuff done.
We have Prime for the video game discounts, but other than video games and the occasional weird thing that nobody sells locally, we don't really buy stuff from Amazon. Not that we have anything against them, but we just don't really buy physical stuff in general. Groceries come from the grocery store. Personal care stuff comes from the drug store. Kitchen stuff comes from the awesome nearby restaurant supply store where everything is basically indestructible. Neither of us is comfortable buying shoes or clothes without trying it on, so that's out. It's actually surprising sometimes just how little we actually buy.
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I don't mean to derail and am happy to move this or remove it - but how do people buy the random items of life without amazon prime? I would say that we aren't even big consumer spenders - but when the kids needs stuff for school, or specialized vitamins for us or pet food, or whatever?
We often find that we don't actually have time to run to the store so Prime it is. We've actually considered cancelling just due to amazon's reputation as an awful employer, but our alternative was using Walmart because it is the only store open after 10 pm. And Walmart is pretty bad with employment practices too - so - we've decided to stick with the devil we know.
I'm sort of shocked at all the people who don't need prime - I feel that it is a key player in my family's ability to get stuff done.
I understand your Amazon reputation dilemma because it bothers me too; I don't shop at Walmart (unless I am truly desperate on a road trip) for the same reason.
We stick with Amazon Prime because it saves us a lot of time and money for exactly the random stuff you mentioned. There are SO many things I can get cheaper on Amazon than anywhere else, and with Prime I buy only what I need when I need it, since there's no longer the temptation to add stuff for "free shipping." I wouldn't say it is truly a NEED, but it's definitely an optimizer and actual money saver for my family. Plus, I truly hate shopping in person, so it is a big stress reducer for me as well.
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I don't mean to derail and am happy to move this or remove it - but how do people buy the random items of life without amazon prime? I would say that we aren't even big consumer spenders - but when the kids needs stuff for school, or specialized vitamins for us or pet food, or whatever?
We often find that we don't actually have time to run to the store so Prime it is. We've actually considered cancelling just due to amazon's reputation as an awful employer, but our alternative was using Walmart because it is the only store open after 10 pm. And Walmart is pretty bad with employment practices too - so - we've decided to stick with the devil we know.
I'm sort of shocked at all the people who don't need prime - I feel that it is a key player in my family's ability to get stuff done.
I understand your Amazon reputation dilemma because it bothers me too; I don't shop at Walmart (unless I am truly desperate on a road trip) for the same reason.
We stick with Amazon Prime because it saves us a lot of time and money for exactly the random stuff you mentioned. There are SO many things I can get cheaper on Amazon than anywhere else, and with Prime I buy only what I need when I need it, since there's no longer the temptation to add stuff for "free shipping." I wouldn't say it is truly a NEED, but it's definitely an optimizer and actual money saver for my family. Plus, I truly hate shopping in person, so it is a big stress reducer for me as well.
This. Plus the fact that you don't have the costs of, not just time, but the money involved in getting in the car and going to a retail location, which often doesn't have the right product. So you wind up driving around a bunch, possibly even paying for parking or tolls, possibly getting hungry or thirsty and having to buy food or drinks while out if it takes long to find the right thing. And Amazon prime eliminates all those costs, has the best selection anywhere where you can see if something is discontinued or out of stock, and guarantees free 2 day delivery. There is nothing more frustrating than going to a store that doesn't have what you want, so you are sitting in the store and the salesperson tells you to go to their app or website to browse the "full selection" online, and they have a convenient feature that allows you to ship the item to the store for future pickup. Amazon avoids all that.
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I haven't used ynab before. Is it worth $50 a year? I use Mint (free) to get all my transactions in one place and categorize expenditures. Then I export to excel and copy totals into my categories. It's a little bit of effort, but not too bad. I total it up quarterly and it takes about an hour.
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I don't mean to derail and am happy to move this or remove it - but how do people buy the random items of life without amazon prime? I would say that we aren't even big consumer spenders - but when the kids needs stuff for school, or specialized vitamins for us or pet food, or whatever?
We often find that we don't actually have time to run to the store so Prime it is. We've actually considered cancelling just due to amazon's reputation as an awful employer, but our alternative was using Walmart because it is the only store open after 10 pm. And Walmart is pretty bad with employment practices too - so - we've decided to stick with the devil we know.
I'm sort of shocked at all the people who don't need prime - I feel that it is a key player in my family's ability to get stuff done.
If it's something where running out and not being able to get more immediately is a disaster, we plan for it. e.g. my son is still wearing diapers, I keep an eye on how many we have and when we're within ~2 weeks of running out, I order a batch from Target. Things like pet food should also fall in this category--presumably your pet eats about the same amount and type of food daily? Other stuff, I try to anticipate the need, but if I don't...we just go without it until we have a chance to pick up the item we need locally, or until there are enough other items on our "need to purchase online" list to bundle together for free shipping from Amazon or elsewhere. Most people aren't going to die from missing a week or two of vitamins. My kid is still in daycare, but if he were school age and I got a demand from the school to supply XYZ item within less than a week, I'd probably tell them sorry...you'll just have to wait until next week because we won't be able to pick it up until the weekend. I had so many teachers in school display that slogan "poor planning on your part does not constitute an emergency on my part." It would be a pleasure to throw it back in their faces.
We have never had Prime so have never had to acclimate to NOT having fast shipping available. It's possible we spend a bit more on some items but I think between not paying the annual fee and also probably buying slightly less stuff, our overall spending is slightly lower without it than with. And while we aren't an Amazon free household, not having Prime I think also makes us more likely to price compare and make sure the Amazon option really is the best option when we are looking to buy something.
I don't think Amazon would offer Prime if it didn't result in overall increases in sales--something to keep in mind when considering whether or not your subscription is really saving you anything.
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I don't mean to derail and am happy to move this or remove it - but how do people buy the random items of life without amazon prime? I would say that we aren't even big consumer spenders - but when the kids needs stuff for school, or specialized vitamins for us or pet food, or whatever?
We often find that we don't actually have time to run to the store so Prime it is. We've actually considered cancelling just due to amazon's reputation as an awful employer, but our alternative was using Walmart because it is the only store open after 10 pm. And Walmart is pretty bad with employment practices too - so - we've decided to stick with the devil we know.
I'm sort of shocked at all the people who don't need prime - I feel that it is a key player in my family's ability to get stuff done.
If you find it that hard to live without 2 day shipping and shopping before 10pm, you may want to rethink a bunch of decisions.
Why do you think I frequent an early retirement forum ?:)
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I don't mean to derail and am happy to move this or remove it - but how do people buy the random items of life without amazon prime? I would say that we aren't even big consumer spenders - but when the kids needs stuff for school, or specialized vitamins for us or pet food, or whatever?
We often find that we don't actually have time to run to the store so Prime it is. We've actually considered cancelling just due to amazon's reputation as an awful employer, but our alternative was using Walmart because it is the only store open after 10 pm. And Walmart is pretty bad with employment practices too - so - we've decided to stick with the devil we know.
I'm sort of shocked at all the people who don't need prime - I feel that it is a key player in my family's ability to get stuff done.
1. I'm trying to buy less, and
2. I'm trying to buy more from local places, and
3. You can still shop at Amazon without Prime!
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I don't think Amazon would offer Prime if it didn't result in overall increases in sales--something to keep in mind when considering whether or not your subscription is really saving you anything.
I think this too. Prime makes it so very easy to buy things. I'd like to add a little more emotional distance to our purchases.
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We dropped all magazine and newspaper subscriptions a while ago. There is plenty of interesting, free content out there, and the costs of subscriptions are almost never justified. For every interesting event we hear of through a magazine, it could be just as easily discovered through Facebook or other means, and there is tons of free content out there if you want to pick up knowledge or skills, so learning from a paper or magazine is almost never worth the cost because the majority of what comes in doesn't get read anyway.
I don't read any news -- makes me too depressed -- but I recently started paying for an online subscription to the NY Times.
Why? If we want to have a functioning democracy, then someone has to pay for investigative journalism. Last time I checked, FB isn't doing that yet -- although they're happy to make money off someone else's work. We're in quite a quandary: nobody wants to pay for actual journalism, everybody wants news and analysis for free... but then folks complain when news outlets start putting out click-baity articles to make money.
Maybe I'm a sucker. I don't have to pay for the news. I could let someone else do it. I suppose I also don't have to recycle either... I am just one person; should I let someone else do that, too?
Bolded relevant parts. Yep. Count me in as another person who used to hack around to read news and who has decided to pay for my share. I have no problems with those who truly can't afford to pay subscription fees doing whatever necessary to access high quality news. But I do think I can afford to pay for news--even if it might look like an easy expense to cut in my overall budget, even though I know how to get around the subscription counters--and therefore make sure I have the funds to do so.
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I've had a Spotify subscription for years ($11.99 a month), signed up to Amazon Prime when it recently launched here (free trial for now), and yesterday signed up to Stan ($10 a month). I've been purchasing extra Google Drive storage as well, but I've got two years with a bonus 100GB storage, so I won't be paying the $2.49 for a while.
I'll eventually make a choice whether to keep Amazon Prime or Stan. I should enforce a 'one video streaming service only' rule. With Prime, I've found that prices and the range tend to be better on eBay than on Amazon.
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I don't mean to derail and am happy to move this or remove it - but how do people buy the random items of life without amazon prime? I would say that we aren't even big consumer spenders - but when the kids needs stuff for school, or specialized vitamins for us or pet food, or whatever?
We often find that we don't actually have time to run to the store so Prime it is. We've actually considered cancelling just due to amazon's reputation as an awful employer, but our alternative was using Walmart because it is the only store open after 10 pm. And Walmart is pretty bad with employment practices too - so - we've decided to stick with the devil we know.
I'm sort of shocked at all the people who don't need prime - I feel that it is a key player in my family's ability to get stuff done.
How did you manage before Amazon Prime?
It's not like it's been around forever.
We order almost nothing online other than very rare specific things, like discontinued items that are still available online.
We also prioritize shopping at local smaller stores. We avoid large chains for the most part, except for Costco.
Good question! We've had prime for a long time (more than 10 years? so most of our post college lives) and I have to really think about it. Before we had prime we didn't have kids and my husband was still a student so we had time to go out and get things when we needed them. Because my husband was a grad student we got the student price until about three years ago.
I just looked over my last twenty orders or so and they included:
-sensitive skin sunscreen for my daughter that I can't find in any nearby stores, but 5 dollars cheaper than it is at sephora online
-dog chews (half the price of what they'd be at petsmart)
-a specialized vitamin for me that can only be ordered online or through my doc
- a replacement divider for my son's lunchbox
-bulk cat food
-bulk dog food
- a long sleeved swimsuit (this one killed me because I actually hired a babysitter to give myself a few hours to go out and find a swimsuit and I ended up ordering it from amazon).
-t shirts for my son's tie-dye day at summer camp (because the grocery was out of shirts in his size that week)
Prime is also our main source of entertainment between the tv streaming and free kindle borrows.
Both DH and I have jobs that really require a lot of hours which makes evening and weekend time precious family time. I give myself an hour and a half to get my shopping done on weekends and otherwise we are spending time together. Likewise, weekday evenings are sacred times for the family sitting down to dinner together, cleaning up together and then getting the kids ready for bed. Dog gets a long walk after kids are in bed and then that's that.
I love that people don't seem to need their amazon - I'm just kind of shocked. I really assumed that more people were like us than not.
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@alsoknownasDean While you have your prime free trial, check out the prime music. If it's only one person using it at a time, it's included with prime. If you're happy with it you could cut Spotify.
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Good question! We've had prime for a long time (more than 10 years? so most of our post college lives) and I have to really think about it. Before we had prime we didn't have kids and my husband was still a student so we had time to go out and get things when we needed them. Because my husband was a grad student we got the student price until about three years ago.
I just looked over my last twenty orders or so and they included:
-sensitive skin sunscreen for my daughter that I can't find in any nearby stores, but 5 dollars cheaper than it is at sephora online
-dog chews (half the price of what they'd be at petsmart)
-a specialized vitamin for me that can only be ordered online or through my doc
- a replacement divider for my son's lunchbox
-bulk cat food
-bulk dog food
- a long sleeved swimsuit (this one killed me because I actually hired a babysitter to give myself a few hours to go out and find a swimsuit and I ended up ordering it from amazon).
-t shirts for my son's tie-dye day at summer camp (because the grocery was out of shirts in his size that week)
So just to nitpick, here is how I would probably handle this kind of stuff without having Prime:
-cat food, dog food, dog chews, sunscreen, and vitamins: I'd add these to our "recurring online order" spreadsheet with the approximate reorder frequency and last date ordered, which would then tell me the date I need to reorder by. If individual items are less than what's needed to get to the minimum, I'd probably consider ordering more and reducing the order frequency (i.e. if your vitamins are normally $20 and you order a 3 month supply, get 2 and order on a 6 month frequency), or ordering something a bit early to bundle it in with another item (e.g. if sunscreen is due to be ordered in April but dog food is being ordered in March, just get the sunscreen in March and have it ready). Normally I am against "stocking up" but for these kinds of items I don't think it is going to change your rate of use (you aren't going to start taking 2 vitamins a day instead of 1, right?). Just keep an eye on supplies to make sure you aren't stocking up on something that you already have a backup on.
-Lunchbox divider: is this really a necessary item? I would probably try to do without or DIY a solution with something already on hand
-Swimsuit: I've also been wanting to get a LS swimsuit and have been DIYing it with old swimsuit bottoms and a LS athletic top. If you swim laps or do something else that really requires a one-piece, okay I give you a pass on this item...but it was probably more than $35 and so qualified for free standard shipping, and doesn't sound like something you HAVE to have in the next two days? So you don't need Prime to get it.
-summer camp t-shirts: Pull some of his relatively solid color current t-shirts that he isn't too attached to or that are soon to be outgrown/tossed, and send them off to be tie-dyed.
So with that, you save the fee for Prime, skip buying 2-3 items, and don't have to make any extra shopping trips.
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We use Amazon Prime a lot. I read the included books, DH listens to the included music at his desk to get though the day, we watch the video. Last year we reviewed what we bought and the cost and figured out we were right at the amount that if we got the amazon credit card that the rebate/points thing would pay for the prime membership. I hate going to the store and trying to find what I want. The stores around here never seem to have what I want. So we order quite a bit from Amazon. It makes our life simpler.
The other subscriptions we have are Netflix and XM radio. Netflix gets used randomly but the XM is on all day every day.
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It's been mentioned, but I wanted to plug Amazon Prime Student. You don't have to show proof of credits, just have a .edu email address (which doesn't even have to be your main address on your account).
This includes a 6 month free trial, then $59 per month, and streaming video/music is available after the free trial.
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- Dropbox: $100/yr: super worth it for grad school. Basically automatically backs up my work AND transfers it to other computers. Fortunately, no security concerns with my project...
Fitness-related:
- Spotify: $15/mo for "family plan" shared with bf. It's $5 more than sharing one account, but we already had our own accounts and this lets us keep using them for less than actually paying for our own separate ones...
- AllTrails: $40/year; you can use it free but this lets you download or print maps. I find it a great tool/service for finding hikes; and the DL feature is key if you hike places without cell service...
- Food tracking app: $40/year. I have tried a bunch of free ones and didn't like them. This has the best recipe tool and nutrient-tracking features I've seen. Informed me I was consistently low on calcium and iron...
Media: We have too many and probably use them too much :( But even if I gave up watching as a leisure activity, I find it a great companion for certain kinds of stationary chores (washing dishes, laundry, mending, other cleaning/sorting in one room...)
- Netflix: would probably be the hardest for me to get rid of; I find their overall selection the best.
- Amazon: I could take or leave the video, although sometimes they have good movies and we enjoyed Marvelous Mrs. Maisel and I'm looking forward to more. At the moment, bf pays for it and I think he uses the shipping benefit more. Tip: You can get credits for various Amazon services (digital content, pantry, etc) if you choose slower shipping at checkout; it's also environmentally friendly.
- Hulu: If I was strategic, I could watch the ~3 shows I want to watch on Hulu in like 2 months of paying for it...We probably don't use it enough to justify having it all the time, but this is another bf pays for and he doesn't want to deal with the hassle of turning it on and off.
- We get HBO and CBS when Game of Thrones or Star Trek comes out. Definitely could alternate those with Hulu. Convinced bf to not keep up HBO indefinitely! CBS is the other one I have paid for. And canceled on time.
- An app about $3/mo that has a huge library in my native language. It can be hard to find foreign-language books in the library, and out-of-copyright classics don't draw me in, heh.
Magazines/News: We don't buy any with actual money, but has anyone heard of MagsForMiles? You can use airline miles to subscribe to magazines. Quite cheaply...some are only 100-200 miles (pretty junky ones though). I mostly fly Southwest, so I never get enough mainstream airline miles (AA, United, etc) to use for flights before they expire...Of course, many magazines are just advertising booklets (TM) but I've received Time through this (it's on the "pricey" side of 1000-1200 mi), and their articles are paywalled... ETA: You don't need to enter a credit card/payment info and they don't get auto-renewed. They do spam you with requests/"deals".
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Monthly subscriptions:
- Internet: $20 (Xfinity)
- Mobile phone: $14 (Republic Wireless, includes refund on unused data)
I'm fortunate enough to be added to my Dad's plan on Amazon Prime, as I would
not pay for it otherwise. Youtube and books handle most of my sedentary entertainment
needs wants.
Oops, I forgot Digital Ocean (https://www.digitalocean.com/).
I've got a server instance running for my data backups, $5/month. I use
it to sync up my laptops. At one point I was using a micro instance on
AWS for approximately $1/month.
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It's been mentioned, but I wanted to plug Amazon Prime Student. You don't have to show proof of credits, just have a .edu email address (which doesn't even have to be your main address on your account).
This includes a 6 month free trial, then $59 per month, and streaming video/music is available after the free trial.
Just to clarify, that's $59/yr, not per month.
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I refuse to buy Prime. I use lots of different websites and use Walmart a lot and get free shipping if I buy $35 or more. HOWEVER, I am getting really disgusted with the way Walmart ships stuff. Just got a delivery two days ago and they packed about 70 lbs in one box. Very little packing materials. One thing was a carpet deodorizer that was smushed by a heavy item and the powder escaped out of the box and was all over everything. There were crushed smaller boxes and things were just beat up. Not specifically due to shipping but the package was too heavy, not packed right and lack of packing materials. I am really furious with this and this is not the first time. I ordered a lap top from them a couple of years ago and absolutely no packaging materials and the computer in its cardboard box was flopping around and a miracle it didn't get busted. They are going to hear from me soon. I am writing a letter and sending it to corporate headquarters.
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sneaky subscriptions....
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. . .
I just looked over my last twenty orders or so and they included:
-sensitive skin sunscreen for my daughter that I can't find in any nearby stores, but 5 dollars cheaper than it is at sephora online
-dog chews (half the price of what they'd be at petsmart)
-a specialized vitamin for me that can only be ordered online or through my doc
- a replacement divider for my son's lunchbox
-bulk cat food
-bulk dog food
- a long sleeved swimsuit (this one killed me because I actually hired a babysitter to give myself a few hours to go out and find a swimsuit and I ended up ordering it from amazon).
-t shirts for my son's tie-dye day at summer camp (because the grocery was out of shirts in his size that week)
So just to nitpick, here is how I would probably handle this kind of stuff without having Prime:
-cat food, dog food, dog chews, sunscreen, and vitamins: I'd add these to our "recurring online order" spreadsheet with the approximate reorder frequency and last date ordered, which would then tell me the date I need to reorder by. If individual items are less than what's needed to get to the minimum, I'd probably consider ordering more and reducing the order frequency (i.e. if your vitamins are normally $20 and you order a 3 month supply, get 2 and order on a 6 month frequency), or ordering something a bit early to bundle it in with another item (e.g. if sunscreen is due to be ordered in April but dog food is being ordered in March, just get the sunscreen in March and have it ready). Normally I am against "stocking up" but for these kinds of items I don't think it is going to change your rate of use (you aren't going to start taking 2 vitamins a day instead of 1, right?). Just keep an eye on supplies to make sure you aren't stocking up on something that you already have a backup on.
-Lunchbox divider: is this really a necessary item? I would probably try to do without or DIY a solution with something already on hand
-Swimsuit: I've also been wanting to get a LS swimsuit and have been DIYing it with old swimsuit bottoms and a LS athletic top. If you swim laps or do something else that really requires a one-piece, okay I give you a pass on this item...but it was probably more than $35 and so qualified for free standard shipping, and doesn't sound like something you HAVE to have in the next two days? So you don't need Prime to get it.
-summer camp t-shirts: Pull some of his relatively solid color current t-shirts that he isn't too attached to or that are soon to be outgrown/tossed, and send them off to be tie-dyed.
So with that, you save the fee for Prime, skip buying 2-3 items, and don't have to make any extra shopping trips.
Those are all excellent points and I agree that if someone felt strongly about skipping Prime that that would be a good way to do it! I have to admit that I really do enjoy the convenience of not having to track when I need to reorder something (particularly sunscreen and vitamins).
Just for completion: Regarding your specific nitpicks - other than the spreadsheet on regular items, the other suggestions (while excellent) wouldn't have worked for us. DS has OCD so the correct food divider is a matter of making it through the day for him and most of his shirts are hand-me downs from cousins and there absolutely wasn't anything that would have worked for the project. Also, since he is a child that stands out for many reasons that people perceive as negative, I'm often willing to spend a bit of money if it makes him feel like a normal kid. We could have tie-dyed a striped hand me down but it would have made him feel like he didn't belong. The swimsuit was the cheapest one I could get on amazon ($48 bucks) and I didn't have anything to re-purpose. I would have to have bought a suit anyways- so may as well buy what I was looking for)
I will say the other thing that I think makes it worth it to us is that we don't live anywhere near any of our family so free shipping presents to various locations all across the country at holidays and birthdays basically makes this a win for us. I will never forget the first time I shipped a box of presents pre-prime (shipping was more than what I spent on the gifts themselves).
To add to the rest of this conversation our subscriptions are as follows:
Prime
NYT Digital
Past subscriptions that are now cancelled:
-On years when my parents gave me a giftcard for my birthday I used to use it on a monthly sephora play subscription. I cancelled when it stopped giving me joy.
-Washington Post - cancelled once they got rid of teacher discounted subscriptions
-Netflix - I had netflix from 2002 until last year. we decided we didn't need Prime and Netflix. We get most movies from our library anyway so were only streaming shows.
- Meal Prep sub (like Dream Dinners) - When we've gone through particularly hard and busy parts of life using a sub saved my sanity and had us eating healthier than the canned crap that I tend to throw on the table when I'm stressed. Haven't used one in over a year but am always willing to go back if it helps.
Writing my list makes me realize that I really value convenience a lot more than I used to (I suspect I can attribute that to small children :))
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Looks like right now I have Pandora for $30/year and TunnelBear for I think $50 per year. I got tunnelbear to use google in China, but it wasn't very effective. I need to cancel now. We did have Netflix, but the card used to pay it was involved in fraudulent transactions and we didn't update the number with Netflix after getting a new one.
Starbright:
wow, I just signed up for Prime to get a lower cost cell phone, and then changed my mind about the phone. There was not a single thing I wanted in all of Prime Day to my disappointment, or even otherwise that would benefit from Prime, so I wasted my only Prime trial for a long time on nothing.
Your life sounds pretty complicated. You might want to examine your priorities for your time as well as your money. How can you even spend more than 1.5 hours a week shopping? How much of the stuff do you really need? Can you live closer to where you work and shop? Are both cats and dogs necessary, or can you not replace them as they age and focus on only either cats or dogs going forward to keep things simpler? Now, not saying Prime will work out to be a bad deal for you personally. But you do seem to spend a lot of time on consumerist items that may not actually improve your life.
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Don't forget that companies are trying to get you hooked on machines like Keurig so you have to keep buying the specific pods they bless. Or the Soda Stream where you have to buy the CO2 cartridges and flavors. Ink cartridges for printers. Xyron sticker maker machine refills. Air freshener refills. Mop and duster refills. Dymo label maker labels.
Sometimes it is annoying to get locked into these 'systems' because they raise the price on the refills and know you have to buy their specific product to fit their machine. Ink for printers is outrageous!
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I try to avoid subscriptions. However, there are a few that we have and currently value at or above their price.
Amazon Prime - now $119.99/year after another price increase? - perhaps we rely too heavily on them, but it is what it is. We rarely shop in-person nowadays, aside from groceries, Target, and kids' shoes. We do use the TV, online storage, free e-books, music, and some other features as well. Also buy some food items from Amazon.
Amazon Music Unlimited - Echo - $3.99/month. Kids love it, and we make ample use of it. A luxury item, perhaps, but 4 bucks, and it's not wasted.
Netflix - $10.99/month - helped us cut the cord.
Xbox Live - $35-45/year. List price is $60, but you can always find cheaper subscription cards. I play plenty, but spend very little on games thanks to patience for sales and the many free games offered through XBL. Also use this to socialize regularly with long-distance friends.
A couple of mistakes that I wasn't pleased with:
DW subscribed to "Starfall" for the kids based upon what was being used in school. Cost us something like $30 for a year, and they used it for a month or so. She then forgot about it, and we were charged for a second year.
DW has subscriptions to some kids' Fire tablet service. The tablets were gifts to us, but the service has a fee after one year. Don't want to pay this, but I don't think I have her convinced.
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Those are all excellent points and I agree that if someone felt strongly about skipping Prime that that would be a good way to do it! I have to admit that I really do enjoy the convenience of not having to track when I need to reorder something (particularly sunscreen and vitamins).
For the tracking aspect--we were already keeping a spreadsheet of nonrecurring "stuff we need at some point", both as a means of curbing impulse purchases and also as a means of more efficiently combining online orders. So adding a few lines for our recurring items wasn't really a big deal. Anytime I add something to the list, I can check if we're coming due on items. Or I usually notice that some item is running low and then can refer to the list to see if there are other items that need attention also. I'm sure it would be more convenient not to have to think about it, but I don't feel it adds a huge burden to my life either.
We have enough family living internationally that we have mostly stopped with presents unless they are small enough to fit in with a card :) We expect the same treatment in return, results have been mixed...
At any rate, it sounds like you're pretty set on keeping Prime for now. Just make sure you reconsider your decision periodically and make sure it's still the best decision for your family!
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Thrive Market is notorious for making it difficult to cancel. A while back it took me three emails, a complaint to BBB and the Attorney General's Office to get it fixed. Document your efforts.
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I'm all for cutting subscriptions and services you don't really need, don't use, or can't afford. But I am proud to subscribe to certain newspapers, and consider supporting good journalism an important piece of citizenship, if you can afford to do it. For me, it's a priority, and if my subscriptions payments help subsidize free access for those who can't pay, that's great. I subscribe to:
NYT (online)
Washington Post (online)
two local papers (online & print)
The Nation (online & print)
The New Yorker (online & print)
I also have automated monthly contributions to several news sources:
Truthout
Reader Supported News
Democracy Now!
Intercepted (podcast from The Intercept)
local public radio station
And I occasionally contribute to Mother Jones and The Guardian.
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Reoccuring:
Washington Post (online, annual)
Reader's Digest (paid 2 years at a time)
3 professional memberships (at least one is paid by employer, annual). I keep them for resume, and free/reduced price CPE purposes but otherwise they're honestly kinda annoying.
I don't really like reoccuring services. I feel like it messes up my budget, which is silly because most of my bills are autopay.
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As of July first I'm part time at work so I cancelled some subscriptions -
Hulu
HBO Now
Pandora
(We have Amazon Prime and Netfilx and cable.)
MeUndies socks - I needed more socks and they are good quality but I have enough now.
I also reduced my monthly donations to podcasts and web series that I enjoy. I didn't delete all of them because while yes there is free content I think it's a good idea to compensate people making art and creating educational shows I enjoy and learn from.
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I have Hulu and Netflix and just bought a month of HBO but probably won't use after month is over so binging on all the shows now. HBO is just too expensive for me at $15.
I will probably cancel hulu since Rick and Morty is what I subscribed for. I use my mom's amazon prime account and it has brought me great joy. Amazon prime is just so easy. Also, I watch a lot of shows on it. From old HBO shoes to new content.
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What have you found interesting on Netflix lately? I just scrolled thru 1,000 movies and shows and nothing appealed to me! Recently I watched 1922 and The Road and also a while back I watched Hell on Wheels mini series and LOVED it. Watched Godless too. Meeks cutoff...BLEH! Currently watching Arrested Development.
Seems every time I hear about a movie I might like to watch, Netflix doesn't have it but HULU does. I don't want to subscribe to both!
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Just cancelled Netflix myself. I will probably bring it back occasionally for a month or two.
P.S. Didn't they used to have an option to "freeze" your NF sub? I was looking for that option initially.
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As of July first I'm part time at work so I cancelled some subscriptions -
Hulu
HBO Now
Pandora
(We have Amazon Prime and Netfilx and cable.)
I never understood why people subscribed to Pandora. You can get it for free without the ads by just installing the ad-block plus extension on your browser. I've been listening to Pandora ad free daily for years now. You still do have your skips limited, but you can just change your "station" if you don't like the song and run out of skips (very rare for me).
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Just out of interest, how many people listen to radio programmes rather than watching screens (tv, netfix etc)? I enjoy listening while I work around the house. Mainly the local public broadcaster on the actual radio, but have been exploring an amazing variety via the internet as well.
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Just out of interest, how many people listen to radio programmes rather than watching screens (tv, netfix etc)? I enjoy listening while I work around the house. Mainly the local public broadcaster on the actual radio, but have been exploring an amazing variety via the internet as well.
+1
I like to listen to podcasts or NPR when I'm cooking.
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I listen to podcasts all the time too. At this point, I almost think I would give up video before I would give up podcasts, if I had to choose. I am strongly considering cutting off Amazon Prime before they raise my rate next time. I'll probably hook Hulu back up for a month or two so I can binge Handmaid's Tale after the weather gets dark and cold this fall. I know there's a lot of great TV out there, but I'm feeling sort of bored with it all lately. I'm trying to read more and spend time outside instead.
I don't have a lot of other subscriptions. I get the educator rate for the New Yorker. At a buck a week, it's worth it. My mom gives me a gift subscription to Consumer Reports, which is kind of funny since I don't buy a lot of stuff.
Does anybody do PBS Passport? Is that worth it?
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Recurring bills:
Rent ($975/mo)
Car insurance (just added a second car a couple months ago, don't remember where our rate landed exactly, but about $400/6mo I think?)
Electricity ($60-140 depending on usage, electric stove/dryer, no gas except propane for furnace, no water/sewer since we're on a well)
Trash/recycling ($77/3mo)
Molasses DSL from AT&T ($50/mo)
Motherflippin' DirecTV satellite TV ($23/mo if they don't botch our bill this time... cheaper than buying the episodes of non-Netflix/non-Amazon shows we care about)
Two unlimited lines on T-mobile ($93/mo)
Amazon Prime ($119/yr)
Netflix ($0, included with T-mobile)
HBO Now ($15/mo) when Game of Thrones is on (not now)
Business services for GF's photography business:
Google Drive ($10/mo)
MS Office 365 ($100/yr I think)
Shootproof ($30/mo)
Web hosting/email ($12/mo)
Since Amazon Prime seems to be the main controversial one in this thread:
- Yes, we spend more on Amazon since we have Prime... because we get less stuff elsewhere. That comes out in the wash and I'm not sure why it's such a talking point against Prime.
- It's many fewer trips to "the store" and no scouring stores for random nonsense. Every "shopping trip" these days is either groceries, Home Depot, or Costco. Truly no reason to go anywhere else when Amazon (and elsewhere online) have pretty much everything you could ever need. Last few orders on Amazon were a mousepad, a flat weight bench, 100ft network cable, ice cube trays, 10x10x6 outdoor dog kennel, hand soap, feeler gauges, oil filters, and fish oil for dogs. Where the hell am I going to find all that under one brick and mortar roof?
- The Expanse
- The Expanse
Punch me in the face for our goddamn DirecTV (still hurts to even admit we have it), but keep your claws off my Amazon Prime.
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So this thread just got me thinking about my subscriptions;
NetFlix -$119 /year (renews in Jan and I have a calendar reminder set for Jan 1st to cancel thanks to this thread)
Hulu - $7.99 /month
Netflix - $10.99 / month
ZGym $9.99 / month (reimbursed fully by my work)
That should be all so once Prime is all done it'll just be $18.98 per month.
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About 18 months ago I also took inventory of sorts of my subscriptions and it was insane! INSANE! I had Birchbox, Ipsy, several other monthly subscriptions, Gwynnie Bee, husband had Sirius, some sort of ad free Pandora, Audible etc. We basically have it down to Amazon Prime ( yearly) , and Roku. It has saved us a lot and I've honestly not missed any of the items.
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I have the usual ones, Netflix, Amazon Prime, and XM Radio. We also get the Wall Street Journal once a week for about $250 per year, and I have Avast security on my laptop for I think $30 bucks a year.
I want to know if anyone has BritBox and what do you think of it? Is that hijacking the thread? Sorry, if so
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No one's disclosed their porn site subscription yet. I'm amused, and thinking this thread suffers from a few strategic omissions.
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People pay for Porn??? I get all mine for free.
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No one's disclosed their porn site subscription yet. I'm amused, and thinking this thread suffers from a few strategic omissions.
Real mustachians don't pay for porn.
Why pay a pro when you can DIY?
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People pay for Porn??? I get all mine for free.
Reminds me of the joke:
"Back in my day, you paid for porn and got your water for free."
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As of July first I'm part time at work so I cancelled some subscriptions -
Hulu
HBO Now
Pandora
(We have Amazon Prime and Netfilx and cable.)
I never understood why people subscribed to Pandora. You can get it for free without the ads by just installing the ad-block plus extension on your browser. I've been listening to Pandora ad free daily for years now. You still do have your skips limited, but you can just change your "station" if you don't like the song and run out of skips (very rare for me).
TBH for the past few years I have been subscribing for one month a year. My family enjoys Christmas carols and Pandora has over 30 different Christmas stations, it's amazing. We listen to the jazz, instrumental, chorale, celtic, and traditional and oldies sometimes too. I help my mom and dad decorate their trees (divorced and living apart) do our own tree, write cards, put up lights, wrap presents etc. And my mom usually has one or two parties at her house, so there's a lot of occasions where I'm streaming one of the stations and then playing it through my speaker. (I won a Bose soundlink color speaker in an office Holiday Party raffle a few years ago, it was the first year they were on the market and they were more than 2x what they cost now. It sounds great but I'm not really an audiophile and wouldn't spend that much on a speaker.) So it's worth the $5 to get my Christmas music ad free for a whole month of listening.
In January I was going to cancel but I had started meditating and was listening to the spa and yoga channels, and you don't really want a commercial in the middle of your meditation. So I decided to keep it because for a few weeks I was meditating every night.
Then I got out of the habit and forgot to cancel it.
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I don't really understand the free 2-day shipping either. My purchases fall into two categories:
1) need RIGHT BLOODY NOW, or
2) would be nice to have at some point in the next two-three weeks
Category 1 is basically just fresh food, the odd household item that I just ran out of (TP, dish soap, etc.), and medical attention. Everything else is in category 2 and can be planned for, which means it can be consolidated in a larger order that gets free shipping anyway.
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Since Amazon Prime seems to be the main controversial one in this thread:
- Yes, we spend more on Amazon since we have Prime... because we get less stuff elsewhere. That comes out in the wash and I'm not sure why it's such a talking point against Prime.
- It's many fewer trips to "the store" and no scouring stores for random nonsense. Every "shopping trip" these days is either groceries, Home Depot, or Costco. Truly no reason to go anywhere else when Amazon (and elsewhere online) have pretty much everything you could ever need. Last few orders on Amazon were a mousepad, a flat weight bench, 100ft network cable, ice cube trays, 10x10x6 outdoor dog kennel, hand soap, feeler gauges, oil filters, and fish oil for dogs. Where the hell am I going to find all that under one brick and mortar roof?
- The Expanse
- The Expanse
Punch me in the face for our goddamn DirecTV (still hurts to even admit we have it), but keep your claws off my Amazon Prime.
I'll bite on this one, since I seem to be the resident Prime curmudgeon :)
You say you spend more on Amazon b/c you buy less elsewhere. I say that having Prime lulls you into buying more stuff overall because it's just so convenient. Most of the stuff on your recent purchases list I either don't own or would purchase so infrequently that they're hardly worth a subscription service.
As far as fewer trips to other places, I'd take the angle that having to get off your ass and walk/bike/drive somewhere will at least sometimes cause you not to purchase an item. So for most people I don't think not buying an item via Amazon automatically means buying the item elsewhere. Sometimes it means not buying the item at all. You say it's no more scouring stores for "random nonsense". Why are you interested in buying random nonsense in the first place?
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Since Amazon Prime seems to be the main controversial one in this thread:
- Yes, we spend more on Amazon since we have Prime... because we get less stuff elsewhere. That comes out in the wash and I'm not sure why it's such a talking point against Prime.
- It's many fewer trips to "the store" and no scouring stores for random nonsense. Every "shopping trip" these days is either groceries, Home Depot, or Costco. Truly no reason to go anywhere else when Amazon (and elsewhere online) have pretty much everything you could ever need. Last few orders on Amazon were a mousepad, a flat weight bench, 100ft network cable, ice cube trays, 10x10x6 outdoor dog kennel, hand soap, feeler gauges, oil filters, and fish oil for dogs. Where the hell am I going to find all that under one brick and mortar roof?
- The Expanse
- The Expanse
Punch me in the face for our goddamn DirecTV (still hurts to even admit we have it), but keep your claws off my Amazon Prime.
I'll bite on this one, since I seem to be the resident Prime curmudgeon :)
You say you spend more on Amazon b/c you buy less elsewhere. I say that having Prime lulls you into buying more stuff overall because it's just so convenient. Most of the stuff on your recent purchases list I either don't own or would purchase so infrequently that they're hardly worth a subscription service.
As far as fewer trips to other places, I'd take the angle that having to get off your ass and walk/bike/drive somewhere will at least sometimes cause you not to purchase an item. So for most people I don't think not buying an item via Amazon automatically means buying the item elsewhere. Sometimes it means not buying the item at all. You say it's no more scouring stores for "random nonsense". Why are you interested in buying random nonsense in the first place?
By "random nonsense" I suppose I mean odd one-off things that I need for something. If it read as "stupid bullshit" instead that's my bad. From my list, we'll go with the oil filters. More than once I've walked into Walmart or wherever, poked at the little display to tell me which oil filter I need for my, only to find they don't have one. Maybe I'll be at Meijer and go hunting through the "tools" section just to find that they don't have feeler gauges that I need to fix the AC in my car for $7 instead of $1000 (true story). I'd rather order the new igniter for my stove on Amazon than go trudging around looking for appliance part stores. It's just a waste.
And that stuff was just examples. I moved recently, so there are more one-off things there than typical.
My GF refinished her wooden desk during the move, and now needs a mousepad since it's too shiny to use a mouse without one.
I replaced our weight bench since the old one is too big for where it was going in the new house, and was also falling apart. Ordering online I was able to compare a bunch of different models to compare the exact dimensions.
I bought a 100ft network cable since in the new setup GF's work desktop is in a different room than the router and modem, and wired is always better than wireless, which was tolerable but not worth the hassle. These are either impossible to find in stores or hilariously overpriced.
Our fridge in the new house didn't have ice cube trays, and I left the old ones with the fridge at the old house. I prefer mini-ice-cubes, and I could only find those on Amazon.
The outdoor dog kennel makes life way easier here, as the property is not fenced in.
I hope I don't need to explain hand soap.
We give our dogs fish oil since their diet biases omega-6 heavy. Prices for that stuff are outrageous in brick-and-mortar stores since people love overpaying for pet supplies.
None of this shit is frivolous or impulse-bought if that's where you're going. Closest thing to impulse would be the hand soap, which I ordered minutes after noticing we were getting low, and I ordered around a year's supply.
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Fine, but none of these seem like things you HAVE to have within two days, so what's wrong with standard shipping (which often seems to arrive within 2 days anyway these days). And if these are all purchases associated with moving, could you not make a list as you are moving/unpacking, and then order all the stuff in one go so you qualify for free shipping?
Amazon may be the best source for the stuff you are buying but I'm still not seeing a convincing case for a Prime membership.
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Saw this thread and was reminded that BrainHQ was about to renew my subscription--just cancelled and saved $120 :)
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^ There are shows.
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And the free Kindle books and magazines, and music. All in all, it's a pretty good value if you are watching programs and reading books. The free shipping probably is not cost effective.
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And the free Kindle books and magazines, and music. All in all, it's a pretty good value if you are watching programs and reading books. The free shipping probably is not cost effective.
^this - it is our TV, reading and music listening.
And I also like the shipping. I will admit the two day is actually handy for getting b-day and holiday gifts for our families for whom gifts are very important. I'd love to forgo gift giving, but if I want to be in good with the family (and it is important to me) then gift giving it is. But because I'm not a big present person I never think of it until I see their Bday pop up on the calendar that week. Voila! Amazon prime gets the present there in time.
But also for the reasons Ketchup stated, amazon is a pretty key component to our personal mustachian way. We try to make all of our free time family time. Not having to spend time shopping for random one offs (of which there are more than you'd think between DIYing and small children) is VERY valuable to us and gives us our weekends.
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I don't know if anyone else has noticed this, but a few times when I made non-Prime purchases on Amazon recently (DS has the Prime subscription in our house to get the student rate, I don't always feel like bothering him with the order) the shipping windows given have been quite long and the items were not shipped until the last possible day. I suspect this is deliberate, in order to encourage people to spring for Prime.
Yes, I have also experienced slow shipping too. Plus, all these companies are using partner shippers and that delays delivery too. Some stuff I order takes at least a week or more. I get deliveries in the very late evening too, like 9 pm. I have had deliveries by oddball companies with unmarked vans. I really hate what these companies are doing. I try not to use Amazon at all. Some of their prices are way too high compared to other websites.
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I don't know if anyone else has noticed this, but a few times when I made non-Prime purchases on Amazon recently (DS has the Prime subscription in our house to get the student rate, I don't always feel like bothering him with the order) the shipping windows given have been quite long and the items were not shipped until the last possible day. I suspect this is deliberate, in order to encourage people to spring for Prime.
I would expect this to happen but in the few purchases I've made in the past year or so, it generally hasn't been the case. I actually typically have things arrive within 2-3 days (I think...as mentioned above, I also don't use Amazon for time sensitive purchases so...I may have lost track).
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We have a few:
Prime - which we use for the streaming and reading benefits way more than the shipping
Sirius XM - I live in a part of the world where the only over-the-air radio stations are ones that play country or "classic" rock (read: Southern rock from the 70s)
Netflix - currently sharing a subscription with the parental units
Boomerang - at $40/year this one easily has the best entertainment-to-dollar value of all of them when it comes to keeping the kid entertained
I think overall we are spending $340/year on subscriptions. The Sirius is a killer at $200/year. It's usually my birthday present to myself (i.e. paid for with birthday money). Amazon is a little more than I'd like to pay, but we do use the TV streaming a lot and I use the Kindle reading benefits a good bit. We had considered Hulu, especially Hulu live for football games, but both my teams suck this year so we're holding off for right now. We're also getting used to data limits (DH is bad about walking off or falling asleep and leaving the Firestick running).
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To OP, have your husband check out serif/affinity for photo editing. Pay once rather than subscription based
I have Amazon prime, but between myself and DW we've been feeding it different .edu email address for 4 years to get student rates
$14.99/mo for Google play music, which also gives you YouTube premium, so that's all of our music and TV
I do keep around the stupidest $6/mo phone bill just to keep a phone number in my name, just because it is 321-***-0001 and i might do something with it someday...
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Amazon Prime $120/yr. But I do think we will cancel after this term ends.
SiriusXM $30/yr. Having an older (8-10yo) car that warrants the deal is great! $120 for 4 years!
Google Fiber $600/yr. Pricey, but have to have decent speed internet.
TV/Netflix/Hulu.. $0. Don't have any.
MLB TV $5/yr. I always buy from someone selling their Tmobile free access. Maybe not ethical, but they don't use it, so why not me?
Cell Phone $84/yr. On second year of Sprint Free Unlimited. Gotta love $3.50 total per phone per month. Granted you have to bring your own phones so you could factor in the upfront cost of those.
Gym $360/yr. Sadly, I've not found a cheaper place that offers Racquetball Courts. I won't ever likely be building one of those myself. Pay-to-play...
$50/yr State Park Pass. I will not be giving up trail riding or hiking.
That puts us at about $105/mo for subscription stuff. I can live with that. Its a very small fraction compared to mortgage/rent/insurance/etc.
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Google Fiber $600/yr. Pricey, but have to have decent speed internet.
Cries in $600/yr 6mbps DSL
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I believe my only "subscription" right now is my phone. In the past, I've had Hulu, my local gym, Audible, and $5/mo for Habitica. I do have access to Netflix through my parents, though I use it maybe every other month -- I wouldn't pay for that on my own.
Boyfriend has Amazon Prime, HBO, and Audible. I think Audible and Prime both work well for him; he has very little in his audio library that he hasn't read (although I'm going to see if I can better introduce him to some of our library's audiobook services), and since he has student Prime and shares the bennies with me and his parents, we probably recoup the cost of that between all of us. He should drop HBO (and knows it), but just hasn't done it.
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Netflix is a bargain if you ask me! There is so much they offer! I don't even watch it that much but I won't get rid of it. We get on kicks where we watch mini series and watch Netflix for days.
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Shoutout to all the people with newspaper and magazine subscriptions. We have a good number and aren't cutting. Someone has to pay for real journalism, or we're all screwed!
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Traveling Mailbox for US address services - $200/year
US phone to use consistent # while in the States and be able to receive calls: $3/month
1 Patreon: $5/mo
Address/phone are to keep a presence in the US. Traveling Mailbox charges a fee for receiving packages so I've been using Stackry.com. May look into them for mail as well and save the annual fee.
Been looking into supportinf different journals via subscription, a friend works for Civil (blockchain platform) which just got Forbes on board.
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I have:
One newspaper subscription, which is voluntary (The Guardian) as none of the content is paywalled; I plan to take out a subscription to an additional publication after retiring when I expect to have more time to read newspapers and journals. As others have said, quality journalism needs to be supported financially.
A £10 a year subscription to a national garden centre chain. This more than pays for itself in free coffees and subscriber discounts.
£18 per month for my SIM-only phone contract.
My husband also has a phone, and Netflix.
I cancelled a couple of magazine subscriptions last year because the content was mostly fluff and advertising. I stopped non-compulsory professional subscriptions over 10 years ago on the grounds of them giving me poor value for money.
It has never even occurred to me that I might need Amazon Prime. Or Graze boxes, yarn club subscriptions, or a monthly delivery of cheese, coffee, or any form of alcoholic drink.