The Money Mustache Community
Learning, Sharing, and Teaching => Ask a Mustachian => Topic started by: jeromedawg on February 03, 2022, 03:06:40 PM
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Anyone here currently a Prime member and planning to renew despite the increase?
"Oh boy, I'm going to have to order a bunch of crap off Amazon to make this worth it..." --most Amazon Prime members currently
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I've never been a paying Prime member. I don't shop very much to begin with, and hate trying to find what I want on Amazon. But it's a necessary evil at times if they have the best price for something - I just wait until I have enough in my cart to get free shipping.
They usually offer me a month free every year or so. I'm waiting a few weeks to cash in this year's free month so that I can watch the new season of The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel.
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I use it primarily for the unlimited photo storage, include RAW photos. The Prime shipping was a bonus that I only use maybe once or twice a month. They do have me really spoiled with easy returns though. I'll probably look around to ensure its still the most appropriate for our photo storage. But I think we'll end up paying the increase.
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This might be the last straw for me
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I hadn't heard. That really sucks. I'll have to think about it. That's our only streaming service and the only way to get a whole lot of things without driving up to 100 miles each way, so maybe. Will there still be free shipping over a certain purchase amount?
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We received it as a baby shower gift and paid for it the next year, but I couldn’t stomach the increase to $119 as it was. I use the free month they offer me sometimes, but otherwise wait till I have enough in my cart for free shipping. I definitely won’t be coming back at $139.
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We've used it for streaming TV and music - but try not to order retail because of their labor issues.
At dinner we just decided this is a great reason to cancel and do the right thing (for us) that we've been avoiding.
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Of course they are, haven't you heard, Amazon is broke and going out of business. /s
I don't have Prime. My sister does. If she wants to keep it, its her money.
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I use it primarily for the unlimited photo storage, include RAW photos. The Prime shipping was a bonus that I only use maybe once or twice a month. They do have me really spoiled with easy returns though. I'll probably look around to ensure its still the most appropriate for our photo storage. But I think we'll end up paying the increase.
Wow I pay for Prime and I didn't know they let you store unlimited RAW photos. That's kind of weird though, as I assume they have access to view them. I use AWS glacial storage to store many terabytes of my computer backups (mostly photos in RAW format) and it costs about $2 a month. There's also a free Windows program you can download to easily upload and download your files to it.
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I'm lucky that my subscription will renew right before the price increase (March 25th for existing customers) so I get 1 more year at $119.
I order quite a bit at Amazon and use the Prime credit card. The cashback on the card normally pays for the subscription. I also used to use quite a bit of Prime Video but I haven't watched TV much this past year, and I use my sister's Netflix account.
So well, that's a question for next year I guess.
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I order a lot of stuff off of Amazon instead of going to any local chain stores and have it delivered on my "prime day." I'll probably continue to pay.
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Damn, that's not awesome. I could see my family taking an extended break from Prime and seeing how much we really miss it. I've ordered maybe one thing off Amazon in the last 2 months. And the Prime Video is mostly worthless if you have Netflix or Disney+.
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I canceled my mothers prime and was surprised that Alexa still works without it. I may be able to play
Music but not particular songs. I can test that out. I am NOT paying 139 for prime, that’s ridiculous. I don’t like shopping on Amazon and the excessive packaging drives me crazy, the labor practices, and just hate the gorging of us with price of prime. I can watch Netflix or someone else Hulu.
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Hmm, I didn't know about the photo storage either. I use it for streaming and the free kindle books I get every month, plus the fast, free shipping. We will probably renew.
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If I can remember to do so, we'll be cancelling next year. Our re-up already hit so we got the $120 for a final year.
I've noticed that our orders from Amazon have dropped pretty substantially, to the point now where we're just buying odds and ends that you can't get in a local store (screen protectors for our 3 year old phones, for example). When we do order something, it's on our Prime day or later.
We never watch anything on Prime Video. I loathe the interface and do what i can to stay away from it. Same with Music.
We don't own (and probably never will) own a single Alexa device. We have one surviving Kindle tablet that will surely be mercilessly killed by our kids, and then we can get a cheap Android tablet if needed.
Honestly, the only true benefit we use is the photo storage, but I'd rather pay a couple bucks a month to keep that going. We can still buy from Amazon with longer shipping, and that will be just fine for us. Prime used to have much better benefits back when we first started subscribing - anyone remember/use Amazon Underground? There was a huge library of normally paid Android apps that Amazon offered (including any DLC and in-app purchases) for free. I was sad to see that go, as well as Amazon's very good quality Fire HDX tablet line.
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Wow I pay for Prime and I didn't know they let you store uI use AWS glacial storage to store many terabytes of my computer backups (mostly photos in RAW format) and it costs about $2 a month. There's also a free Windows program you can download to easily upload and download your files to it.
Wow. Are you able to share any info/ resources on how to get started with this? Consumer cloud product pricing has generally led me to believe that cloud backups are out of reach due to cost. But it would be nice to have off site backup.
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I've never had it. If you order over like $25 of stuff shipping is free anyway and in my experience they've gotten so used to shipping 2 day delivery they are darn close to 2 days most times even without prime.
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It's partially a math question and partially a value question. According to my order report, I placed 47 orders in 2021. Most of them were in Oct-Dec and of those there were several that I specifically broke up into separate orders in order to get extra digital credits (I use those to buy myself a book every year after xmas...I got Quit Like a Millionaire this year). Of those 47, there were 21 that were under $25 total and I would have had to pay for shipping without Prime. Assuming shipping costs $5 per shipment that is $105*. So now the question becomes "Are all of the other Prime benefits worth $35-$75/year?" We're fairly entrenched in the Amazon ecosystem at this point. Echo devices, Fire TVs, etc. My husband also really likes several of the Prime video shows. Because of that we'll probably bite the bullet and stay another year. But we'll be taking a hard look at it next year depending on what the numbers say.
*Yes, I'm aware that those shipments that I intentionally split up would probably qualify for free shipping without Prime if I combined them. Using that metric, I placed orders on 35 separate days and there were 13 days where I ordered less than $25 so my shipping costs would have been $65 instead of $105. That makes a difference.
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When Prime went from $79 to $99 I canceled it. Shortly after that I started getting messages about Prime Student when checking out and I had to click no I don't want to save with free shipping. Finally I said screw it and clicked yes and paid $59 for Prime Student.
After 4 years I guess they decided I graduated and said I had to renew at the normal rate so I canceled it again. Next time I checked out they offered me Prime Student again. So I am back to $59 again...
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I've never had it. If you order over like $25 of stuff shipping is free anyway and in my experience they've gotten so used to shipping 2 day delivery they are darn close to 2 days most times even without prime.
Same here. I don't order that much so it's cheaper for me to occasionally buy a filler item to get the free shipping.
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My bank reimburses my prime membership (along with other stuff like a costco membership, up to $400/yr) for having a certain amount of assets there... it's a pretty good yearly perk (check out Citibank subscription rebate benefits).
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Has anyone in two-person FIRE households had success agreeing to split a Prime Membership with family or friends to defray the cost? If so, how'd you work it?
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An extra $1.66 a month is not a deal breaker for me. Between the streaming, photo storage, shipping (with super easy returns), and 5% back both at Amazon and Whole Foods (with Prime credit card) it's all still well worth $11.58 a month.
Granted, I live a 4 minute walk from a Whole Foods and shop there regularly for perishables between bigger stock up grocery trips. They also take returns there now without even having to box the stuff up.
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An extra $1.66 a month is not a deal breaker for me. Between the streaming, photo storage, shipping (with super easy returns), and 5% back both at Amazon and Whole Foods (with Prime credit card) it's all still well worth $11.58 a month.
Granted, I live a 4 minute walk from a Whole Foods and shop there regularly for perishables between bigger stock up grocery trips. They also take returns there now without even having to box the stuff up.
Are returns different for Prime members? I get very easy returns without being a member - with several options for free drop-off locations without having to package anything up.
You get 3% CB at Amazon and Whole Foods with the Amazon credit card if you aren't a prime member (and in the past, it has immediately "converted" to the 5% cash back when on the free trial month).
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Amazon prime doesn't seem to have any benefits to me. If we need something from Amazon, we just wait until we need enough stuff in an order to get free shipping. I can tolerate waiting three days for delivery instead of 1.
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Amazon prime doesn't seem to have any benefits to me. If we need something from Amazon, we just wait until we need enough stuff in an order to get free shipping. I can tolerate waiting three days for delivery instead of 1.
Agree on being able to wait, but unlike y'all it really does take a week or two for my items to arrive, and I live in a large metro area. Sometimes they come faster but it's definitely not an average of 3 days.
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Amazon prime doesn't seem to have any benefits to me. If we need something from Amazon, we just wait until we need enough stuff in an order to get free shipping. I can tolerate waiting three days for delivery instead of 1.
Agree on being able to wait, but unlike y'all it really does take a week or two for my items to arrive, and I live in a large metro area. Sometimes they come faster but it's definitely not an average of 3 days.
I grew up in an isolated Northern community with no real stores to speak of. We'd order our clothes from the Sears catalogue in the fall and get it 4-5 months later. Anything under 3 months still feels pretty quick for delivery to me.
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Wow I pay for Prime and I didn't know they let you store uI use AWS glacial storage to store many terabytes of my computer backups (mostly photos in RAW format) and it costs about $2 a month. There's also a free Windows program you can download to easily upload and download your files to it.
Wow. Are you able to share any info/ resources on how to get started with this? Consumer cloud product pricing has generally led me to believe that cloud backups are out of reach due to cost. But it would be nice to have off site backup.
AWS Glacial storage has some drawbacks. In general I find BackBlaze cloud storage cheaper the AWS S3, but maybe Amazon has adjusted their prices to be more competitive...
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My CU offered a perk last year - free annual Prime membership. Instant reimbursement.
Between the digital credits, free or reduced prime book deals, the free shipping and some extra cash rewards throughout the year (mostly $1, $3, $5 cash) and near $120 (total) purchase discounts on GCs and random items - it was an awesome deal.
The year before I got 90-days free and similar cash rewards and discounts and scored on Prime Day.
The doctorofcredit site keeps me informed whenever there are discounts on GCs or other deals and rewards to be had - that alone saved us plenty over time.
I never expected it to be as good a bargain as it turned out to be, especially since except for books, we don't buy all that much. I did not even know I could borrow books for free with my Prime Account until a few months ago.
At X-mas time I order from the young ones Amazon wishlist wondering what the hell some of the items are and I scored on Cyber Monday with a laptop purchase. I like the free Prime Video but we have Netflix already.
For now, it continues to be a good deal.
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For those of you renewing (or getting for the first time) after the increase, you can still buy a "Year of Prime (https://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=G99UKDNNS49783KE&tag=cnbc013-20)" as a gift to yourself at the current price (send it to whatever email address you're using at Amazon). Then remove auto-renew on your current subs, and when it expires, use the gifted one.
I'm guessing this will increase on 02/28, like the price for new members.
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Think I might be looking to not renew, never watch the prime video (The Grand Tour was mostly meh). If I can get free delivery with just waiting to be over the $ min that is probably easy enough. Never look to use the image storage option, dont have that many pictures. Dont have there CC or get the membership refunded.
Maybe will check out the videos one last time but nothing ever grabbed me before, or it seemed like all the good stuff had an extra fee on top of prime membership.
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Prime is totally worth it to me. Saves me time going to department stores. i can buy items used on amazon as well. it also saves auto fuel, wear and tear on vehicle. it also reduces the chance id be in an auto accident. I usually get better quality items at better prices than I would from a local dept store. I always hate having to drive to store, find a parking space, hunt through store to find item..wait in line forever. or worse get there and the item you need is out of stock.
I also use my prime sub for streaming videos.. they offer a lot. also prime video offers cinemax and showtime subs for 99 cents per month at times. i subscribe then immediately cancel and binge watch shows for 99 cents.
i didnt know about photo storage, gonna start making use of that.
Also, every year or so they offer me a couple free audiobooks to sign up again to audible. i sign up, get my two books and then immediately cancel. I recently got two new $25 audio books for free.
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We are heavy Amazon users, from kindles to Prime Videos (anyone watch the new Reacher series?) to most of our online shopping.
It is well worth the cost to us. I did just purchase a membership at the current price that I will use to get another year at $119 (thanks for that tip!), but it is worth is to us even with the price increase.
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It’s good value for us. We do watch the tv stuff, and the music streaming, and there are lots of freebies in terms of kindle books.
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(https://c.tenor.com/Uoh5CrkplOQAAAAd/smh-laugh.gif)
Are you guys for real??
MMMers: We want to live frugally and avoid excessive consumption in order to live more fulfilling lives and avoid ruining our planet.
Also MMMers: We pay over $100/mo to a mega corp that treats their workers poorly for a service that's sole purpose is to encourage us to consume more crap and have it conveniently delivered to our door from across the planet in planes, ships and inefficient trucks.
"It means I don't have to drive to the store and use fuel"-- You're skipping a trip to the store in a vehicle that probably gets 25+mpg to have things delivered by a truck that's lucky to get 10mpg.
"We pay this fee because they've got lots of free Kindle books or shipping is free"-- Uhh, guys... it's not free if you have to pay over $100/mo for the privilege. If you're buying enough shit that the free shipping justifies the price of Prime then you're buying too much crap that's very likely to end up in a landfill in pretty short order. You can get truly free books, ebooks, movies, etc from your local library.
We've truly lost the plot haven't we?
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"We pay this fee because they've got lots of free Kindle books or shipping is free"-- Uhh, guys... it's not free if you have to pay over $100/mo for the privilege. If you're buying enough shit that the free shipping justifies the price of Prime then you're buying too much crap that's very likely to end up in a landfill in pretty short order. You can get truly free books, ebooks, movies, etc from your local library.
We've truly lost the plot haven't we?
Right?
My library has all the free ebooks and audiobooks I could ever want (also not really free because I pay taxes and donate each year, but still...)
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What's confusing to me is anyone saying it's worth it because you shop at Amazon. Um, it's not a membership. It's pre-paying on expedited shipping. I shop there. They ship me stuff. I don't pay the membership!
I never pay for expedited shipping. It's never worth it. The vast majority of free shipping from Amazon and other online retailers is plenty fast.
Also if you think the 5% vs 3% is worth $140 / year, you're suggesting you spend more than $6999.50 / year at Amazon.com. You might want to post a case study of your purchases, and find ways to reduce that spending.
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(https://c.tenor.com/Uoh5CrkplOQAAAAd/smh-laugh.gif)
Are you guys for real??
MMMers: We want to live frugally and avoid excessive consumption in order to live more fulfilling lives and avoid ruining our planet.
Also MMMers: We pay over $100/mo to a mega corp that treats their workers poorly for a service that's sole purpose is to encourage us to consume more crap and have it conveniently delivered to our door from across the planet in planes, ships and inefficient trucks.
"It means I don't have to drive to the store and use fuel"-- You're skipping a trip to the store in a vehicle that probably gets 25+mpg to have things delivered by a truck that's lucky to get 10mpg.
"We pay this fee because they've got lots of free Kindle books or shipping is free"-- Uhh, guys... it's not free if you have to pay over $100/mo for the privilege. If you're buying enough shit that the free shipping justifies the price of Prime then you're buying too much crap that's very likely to end up in a landfill in pretty short order. You can get truly free books, ebooks, movies, etc from your local library.
We've truly lost the plot haven't we?
It's not over $100/mo it's per year.
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@Paper Chaser
Haha, I had the exact Convo with my wife Friday night about this very thread. I was wondering if the discussion should have been in the anti-mustachian section.
The forum has clearly changed a bit over the years.
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(https://c.tenor.com/Uoh5CrkplOQAAAAd/smh-laugh.gif)
Are you guys for real??
MMMers: We want to live frugally and avoid excessive consumption in order to live more fulfilling lives and avoid ruining our planet.
Also MMMers: We pay over $100/mo to a mega corp that treats their workers poorly for a service that's sole purpose is to encourage us to consume more crap and have it conveniently delivered to our door from across the planet in planes, ships and inefficient trucks.
"It means I don't have to drive to the store and use fuel"-- You're skipping a trip to the store in a vehicle that probably gets 25+mpg to have things delivered by a truck that's lucky to get 10mpg.
"We pay this fee because they've got lots of free Kindle books or shipping is free"-- Uhh, guys... it's not free if you have to pay over $100/mo for the privilege. If you're buying enough shit that the free shipping justifies the price of Prime then you're buying too much crap that's very likely to end up in a landfill in pretty short order. You can get truly free books, ebooks, movies, etc from your local library.
We've truly lost the plot haven't we?
It's not over $100/mo it's per year.
Shows how likely I am to pay for this service I guess. It's never made any sense to me. It's only reason to exist is to normalize consumption by selling convenience.
The price has gone up to $140 if you pay annually, but for the 52% of Prime users that pay monthly, it ends up being $180/yr:
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/amazon-prime-fee-rise-180-175155725.html
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(https://c.tenor.com/Uoh5CrkplOQAAAAd/smh-laugh.gif)
Are you guys for real??
MMMers: We want to live frugally and avoid excessive consumption in order to live more fulfilling lives and avoid ruining our planet.
Also MMMers: We pay over $100/mo to a mega corp that treats their workers poorly for a service that's sole purpose is to encourage us to consume more crap and have it conveniently delivered to our door from across the planet in planes, ships and inefficient trucks.
"It means I don't have to drive to the store and use fuel"-- You're skipping a trip to the store in a vehicle that probably gets 25+mpg to have things delivered by a truck that's lucky to get 10mpg.
"We pay this fee because they've got lots of free Kindle books or shipping is free"-- Uhh, guys... it's not free if you have to pay over $100/mo for the privilege. If you're buying enough shit that the free shipping justifies the price of Prime then you're buying too much crap that's very likely to end up in a landfill in pretty short order. You can get truly free books, ebooks, movies, etc from your local library.
We've truly lost the plot haven't we?
It's not over $100/mo it's per year.
Shows how likely I am to pay for this service I guess. It's never made any sense to me. It's only reason to exist is to normalize consumption by selling convenience.
The price has gone up to $140 if you pay annually, but for the 52% of Prime users that pay monthly, it ends up being $180/yr:
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/amazon-prime-fee-rise-180-175155725.html
Yeah, I'm on the fence about it. It's actually the only subscription service I pay for. I watch some video now and then and I don't order a ton of stuff so I'm sure I could live without it but at ten bucks per month it's been acceptable.
Good reminder overall to check what you're paying out per month on subscriptions.
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Husband uses it a lot, even has an Amazon CC. He mostly buys stuff to fix things, not piles of shiny shit. We're FI/RE. I'm not gonna die on this hill.
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I was gonna call it out but I was finding it interesting to see what people use and find value in.
Is Amazon music unlimited/add free included with prime membership? Or an add on for fee??
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I am grandfathered into a prime membership my brother pays for as a second household? Something like that. He gets all the prime benefits, I don’t get full benefits, no access to movies or free kindle books (they actually have a fair amount of free content without subscription frees…). The big benefit that I get is the free two day shipping… ten years ago it was amazing. I live really rurally so tend to order things that can’t be found locally. But that has changed dramatically in the past several years, especially since covid. I still get “two day shipping” but things don’t actually ship until 5-7 or more days after I order. Would I get better shipping if I actually had a paying subscription?!
Then there is ethics to consider. I’ve weaned myself mostly off amz, slow shipping helps. Target fills a lot of gaps (only slightly better ethics) good variety, good prices on some our staples, ships quickly, super good return policy and 5% discount via their card. Target has been a godsend during covid when we’ve had to avoid stores due to high risk factors. Our local Walmart just became the first store in town to offer pick up (super rural, remember). So we’re switching some of our shopping there. Questionable ethics, but it cuts out the individual shipping and keeps more resources locally than amz for sure.
For movies and tv we do have a fire stick… which makes it easy to access a ton of free content. We do rotate subscriptions. Right now we have our local pbs and 99c ad-based Hulu. We also have an Ecco show Alexa device mostly to video call grandma. It’s creepy. We consider selling it, but it is the best sounding music speaker we have and I love it. We did a three month trial of the amz unlimited music and really enjoyed it but don’t find it worth paying for. They still offer a lot of free/ad based channels. I tend toward classical and those are ad-lite. We also use it for podcasts, YouTube listening and npr. But if you were my friend I’d tell you to avoid buying it due to the creep factor.
To sum it up, I’ve enjoyed some Amazon prime in the past but I cannot fathom it being worth such a hefty subscription fee when there are so many other options available.
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"It means I don't have to drive to the store and use fuel"-- You're skipping a trip to the store in a vehicle that probably gets 25+mpg to have things delivered by a truck that's lucky to get 10mpg.
This doesn't seem like a solid argument. The delivery van is already on my suburban street every day. My car is sitting at my house b/c I don't have a commute any more. I have to go much further out of my way (a couple miles) to get to the grocery store (or further for other sorts of retail) than the delivery driver has to go out of their way to get to my house.
Also, citation required on the fleet fuel efficiency. I didn't find the number in the 2 minutes I searched.
I'm not saying Prime is the best thing ever.
I'm saying your argument presents as inaccurate and unsupported.
The moral arguments around business practices and supporting competition are much more convincing, I find. I suspect it'll be hard to present an efficiency-based argument when Amazon has scale and incentive to improve.
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The last I heard of any research on if delivery was more efficient than people going out and picking up directly was mixed. The delivery van is more efficient over all when you consider it is taking 100's of things to people in a moderate sized area but those people are no longer going out shopping and have more free time so maybe they are driving to a friends house instead. Never mind urban/suburban/rural/etc or if you can pick up the item during some other outing. So apples to apples is hard, dont know if it is even possible to say if delivery uses less gas or not, but then what is the question: "gas use over all by all people in my area" or "my personal use of gas". Then amazon is testing out electric delivery vans and what if you own a ICE car... so yeah. The problem statement is not well defined and any possible answers are hard to generalize.
I think I have made up my mind to cancel prime and see how it goes.
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I was gonna call it out but I was finding it interesting to see what people use and find value in.
Is Amazon music unlimited/add free included with prime membership? Or an add on for fee??
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I am grandfathered into a prime membership my brother pays for as a second household? Something like that. He gets all the prime benefits, I don’t get full benefits, no access to movies or free kindle books (they actually have a fair amount of free content without subscription frees…). The big benefit that I get is the free two day shipping… ten years ago it was amazing. I live really rurally so tend to order things that can’t be found locally. But that has changed dramatically in the past several years, especially since covid. I still get “two day shipping” but things don’t actually ship until 5-7 or more days after I order. Would I get better shipping if I actually had a paying subscription?!
Then there is ethics to consider. I’ve weaned myself mostly off amz, slow shipping helps. Target fills a lot of gaps (only slightly better ethics) good variety, good prices on some our staples, ships quickly, super good return policy and 5% discount via their card. Target has been a godsend during covid when we’ve had to avoid stores due to high risk factors. Our local Walmart just became the first store in town to offer pick up (super rural, remember). So we’re switching some of our shopping there. Questionable ethics, but it cuts out the individual shipping and keeps more resources locally than amz for sure.
For movies and tv we do have a fire stick… which makes it easy to access a ton of free content. We do rotate subscriptions. Right now we have our local pbs and 99c ad-based Hulu. We also have an Ecco show Alexa device mostly to video call grandma. It’s creepy. We consider selling it, but it is the best sounding music speaker we have and I love it. We did a three month trial of the amz unlimited music and really enjoyed it but don’t find it worth paying for. They still offer a lot of free/ad based channels. I tend toward classical and those are ad-lite. We also use it for podcasts, YouTube listening and npr. But if you were my friend I’d tell you to avoid buying it due to the creep factor.
To sum it up, I’ve enjoyed some Amazon prime in the past but I cannot fathom it being worth such a hefty subscription fee when there are so many other options available.
Music is an extra $6/mo
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"It means I don't have to drive to the store and use fuel"-- You're skipping a trip to the store in a vehicle that probably gets 25+mpg to have things delivered by a truck that's lucky to get 10mpg.
This doesn't seem like a solid argument. The delivery van is already on my suburban street every day. My car is sitting at my house b/c I don't have a commute any more. I have to go much further out of my way (a couple miles) to get to the grocery store (or further for other sorts of retail) than the delivery driver has to go out of their way to get to my house.
Also, citation required on the fleet fuel efficiency. I didn't find the number in the 2 minutes I searched.
I'm not saying Prime is the best thing ever.
I'm saying your argument presents as inaccurate and unsupported.
The moral arguments around business practices and supporting competition are much more convincing, I find. I suspect it'll be hard to present an efficiency-based argument when Amazon has scale and incentive to improve.
I live in a fairly rural spot and see multiple Amazon trucks in my neighborhood on the same day pretty regularly. It's not like they're loading up everything for this area and just making one run and then doing it again the next day.
Delivery trucks are giant unaerodynamic boxes that get filled with heavy things and driven in lots of stop/go scenarios by drivers in a time crunch who like to use the accelerator pedal:
https://www.foxla.com/news/upcoming-fleet-of-usps-trucks-has-terrible-gas-mileage-epa-reports
Most of the Amazon trucks in my 'hood are Ram Promasters. 14mpg average in normal driving:
https://www.caranddriver.com/ram/promaster
Now fill it with packages, do lots of stop/go, and you're seeing 10mpg.
Average US fleet efficiency is right in the 25mpg ballpark. Surely a MMMer drives something that can do better than that right?
https://www.cnet.com/roadshow/news/average-fuel-economy-2019-epa-report/
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I don’t drive, so Amazon has made a big difference to me. It’s definitely worth the money for *me*.
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It is well worth the cost to us. I did just purchase a membership at the current price that I will use to get another year at $119 (thanks for that tip!), but it is worth is to us even with the price increase.
Wait I am not clear what you did? My prime auto-renewed for $119 last month, so I'm good for another 11 months. But I can buy an additonal year now at $119? I think i'd do that..t hat's a $20 return on $119 I'd spend anyways. The Amazon Prime fee pays for itself five-fold (or more) for how I use Amazon.
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"We pay this fee because they've got lots of free Kindle books or shipping is free"-- Uhh, guys... it's not free if you have to pay over $100/mo for the privilege. If you're buying enough shit that the free shipping justifies the price of Prime then you're buying too much crap that's very likely to end up in a landfill in pretty short order. You can get truly free books, ebooks, movies, etc from your local library.
We've truly lost the plot haven't we?
It's not $100/mo. It's $11.58. You are entitled to yoru opinion but with what I buy and need for this household on Amazon, it would cost me that much just in auto fuel. not considering the wear and tear on vehicle.. not including the 5% I get back with Amazin Prime Credit card. Also saves a lot of time as it is delivered to yoru door.. Wow you really like shopping at department stores for random items you can't even read a review on? At leat everythign I buy online I am making an informed decision instead of whatever is in stock on the shelves. The amazon prime videos, free audible books, kindle books, photo storage are just added freebies which many make use of. You risk your life driving around town several times per month instead of just payign $11.58 per month (whcih would barely cover yoru gas).
e.g. I bought a $6 audio cable from Amazon yesterday, which I'd have to drive 20 miles roudn trip for here locally. at 50 cents per mile that's $10 for gas and wear and tear on vehicle. You do the math :) That one trip for an audio cable pays for the prime subscription. Not to mention saving an hour of your time or more in traffic.. and lowering the risk you'd get in an auto accident. Auto accidents suck I've been in a couple.
Also returns are a breeze if I nee dto do one.. No driving to store and waiting in line. I jsut print out the label and sit on my porch for the UPS driver to come pick up.
I cant stand driving to stores only to find the item I want is out of stock after spendign 15 minutes looking for it with assistance of clueless helpers. Waiting in long lines suck too. So does parking sometimes.
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Music is an extra $6/mo
Yeah this is somethign I do not get. I dont buy any extras on Amazon except when they offer showtime or hbo or whatever at 99 cents per month. I get it for that one month and immediately cancel.
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I don’t drive, so Amazon has made a big difference to me. It’s definitely worth the money for *me*.
I'm unable to do a lot of my own shopping due to disability and I definitely order things from Amazon if it's something I can't order online from a local shop. But I don't subscribe to Prime and I try to use alternatives to Amazon if possible.
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"We pay this fee because they've got lots of free Kindle books or shipping is free"-- Uhh, guys... it's not free if you have to pay over $100/mo for the privilege. If you're buying enough shit that the free shipping justifies the price of Prime then you're buying too much crap that's very likely to end up in a landfill in pretty short order. You can get truly free books, ebooks, movies, etc from your local library.
We've truly lost the plot haven't we?
It's not $100/mo. It's $11.58. You are entitled to yoru opinion but with what I buy and need for this household on Amazon, it would cost me that much just in auto fuel. not considering the wear and tear on vehicle.. not including the 5% I get back with Amazin Prime Credit card. Also saves a lot of time as it is delivered to yoru door.. Wow you really like shopping at department stores for random items you can't even read a review on? At leat everythign I buy online I am making an informed decision instead of whatever is in stock on the shelves. The amazon prime videos, free audible books, kindle books, photo storage are just added freebies which many make use of. You risk your life driving around town several times per month instead of just payign $11.58 per month (whcih would barely cover yoru gas).
e.g. I bought a $6 audio cable from Amazon yesterday, which I'd have to drive 20 miles roudn trip for here locally. at 50 cents per mile that's $10 for gas and wear and tear on vehicle. You do the math :) That one trip for an audio cable pays for the prime subscription. Not to mention saving an hour of your time or more in traffic.. and lowering the risk you'd get in an auto accident. Auto accidents suck I've been in a couple.
Also returns are a breeze if I nee dto do one.. No driving to store and waiting in line. I jsut print out the label and sit on my porch for the UPS driver to come pick up.
I cant stand driving to stores only to find the item I want is out of stock after spendign 15 minutes looking for it with assistance of clueless helpers. Waiting in long lines suck too. So does parking sometimes.
Ok but like you understand you can sill shop online (including amazon) if you dont have prime, right? And without prime you get free shipping on orders over 25$. For small stuff without prime you can either bundle a few orders over a week or two or pay the 5$ for shipping. Prime may still be a good value if you think you reeeeelllly need lots of fairly cheep stuff right noooow(!!!!) on a regular basis or like the shows it includes or use the web storage etc.
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I don’t drive, so Amazon has made a big difference to me. It’s definitely worth the money for *me*.
I'm unable to do a lot of my own shopping due to disability and I definitely order things from Amazon if it's something I can't order online from a local shop. But I don't subscribe to Prime and I try to use alternatives to Amazon if possible.
This is what I was coming to say - everyone does know that you can order from Amazon without paying for Prime, right? You even still get free shipping on orders over $25, it's just not guaranteed to arrive in 2 days. Prime isn't a membership, or even free shipping, it's just faster shipping. Whether you should/do buy things from Amazon is an entirely separate question from whether you should pay for Prime.
The only reason we still had Prime was for Prime Video. Now that the price is going up, we've put an alert on the calendar to cancel before the next renewal. If there's something we want to watch in the future, we'll just pay for a single month.
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I don’t drive, so Amazon has made a big difference to me. It’s definitely worth the money for *me*.
I'm unable to do a lot of my own shopping due to disability and I definitely order things from Amazon if it's something I can't order online from a local shop. But I don't subscribe to Prime and I try to use alternatives to Amazon if possible.
This is what I was coming to say - everyone does know that you can order from Amazon without paying for Prime, right? You even still get free shipping on orders over $25, it's just not guaranteed to arrive in 2 days. Prime isn't a membership, or even free shipping, it's just faster shipping. Whether you should/do buy things from Amazon is an entirely separate question from whether you should pay for Prime.
The only reason we still had Prime was for Prime Video. Now that the price is going up, we've put an alert on the calendar to cancel before the next renewal. If there's something we want to watch in the future, we'll just pay for a single month.
Can you have a Chase Amazon Prime credit Card without the subscription? I get a whopping 5% back on everything I buy from Amazon. Looked at my recent ordcers for past couple months. Seems I order quite a bit of small items under $25. Would be sleightly annoying for me to have to wait on the order until I have $25 in cart.
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It is kind of annoying that they are increasing cost of Amazon Prime, when they dont' even often get your packge to you in 2 days ever since covid.
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Can you have a Chase Amazon Prime credit Card without the subscription? I get a whopping 5% back on everything I buy from Amazon. Looked at my recent ordcers for past couple months. Seems I order quite a bit of small items under $25. Would be sleightly annoying for me to have to wait on the order until I have $25 in cart.
I had the Amazon card before becoming a Prime member. As soon as I subscribed, they sent me a new card with the word "Prime" emblazoned on it. I assume the same thing would happen, but in reverse, if you dropped Prime:
https://www.chase.com/personal/credit-cards/amazon/earn-rewards
Note that the rebate rate drops down to 3% without a prime membership -- still pretty good.
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The Chase Amazon card gets 3% back on Amazon purchases if you don't have Prime. Also, if you have a Chase Freedom or Discover card with rotating categories, they sometimes have Amazon as a category for 5% cash back for 3 months of the year.
If you're only justifying the cost of Prime because of the extra 2% cash back, you'd have to spend $6950 to make up the $139 annual cost in cash back.
If you find value in using Prime Video as your streaming service, then it probably makes sense to have Prime. But you can still shop on Amazon, and get free shipping and returns, without having a membership.
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The Chase Amazon card gets 3% back on Amazon purchases if you don't have Prime. Also, if you have a Chase Freedom or Discover card with rotating categories, they sometimes have Amazon as a category for 5% cash back for 3 months of the year.
If you're only justifying the cost of Prime because of the extra 2% cash back, you'd have to spend $6950 to make up the $139 annual cost in cash back.
If you find value in using Prime Video as your streaming service, then it probably makes sense to have Prime. But you can still shop on Amazon, and get free shipping and returns, without having a membership.
I jsut read you can watch Amazon Prime videos alone for $8.99 per month. So I could start treating it like I do all other services.. Subscribe and cancel immediately for one month of service and just binge watch all the shows I am interested in, in that time.. mabye subscribing 1-2 months per year.
Yeah but you might wait 3 times longer to get something you can tolerate getting in 1 to 2 days instead. Also the inconvenience of having to wait a week more to get $25 in cart can be annoying. It starts to make it not worth it combined with the extra 2% back on the prime card.
That said, you guys got me re-evaluating. When I signed up for $99 per year I was outraged when it went to $119. Now I can't imagine noit having the service.. But now that's it's $140.. well that's greedy and I'm starting to consider not resubscribing lol. Can I get a prorated refund on my yearly subscription? I paid $119 like last month if I recall.
EDIT: Havign to wait a week or so to get cart full enough to purchase then wait another 5-8 days for delivery.. it can take like 2 weeks to get an item you could of gotten potentially the very next day. This is why I signed up for the Prime service in the first place, for $99 per year originally before they had (or I made use of) the video service. I'd end up driving to local dept stores for more things, things that cost less than $25 if I started having to wait 2 weeks to get something.. then a couple trips per month doing that will cost as much as the monthly membership fee.. and i then also waste time and risk life on road. I dunno, thinking about it more it seems worth it.. plus I recently got two $25 dollar audible books for free.. two health related books I would of had to spend $50 on otherwise.
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I often consider the wait a feature not a flaw. It ensures I really want/need something and it cuts down on frivolous purchases. Yes there are rare times I really need something faster and that’s when I accept their free offer (and for the rest of the month select slow shipping to collect up digital credits).
Btw, for all I don’t pay it, I don’t find shipping to be $5. It’s often more.
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There are items I get every month from Amazon. e.g. Liquid Stevia (8oz) and my Multivitamin. I suppose I could use those as add-on items if I need somethign a bit sooner. I also read if you buy an Amazon gift card you get free shipping? The cost of the card doesnt' count towards the $25, but allows you to get free one day shipping ont he order when combined.
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I dunno, thinking about it more it seems worth it.. plus I recently got two $25 dollar audible books for free.. two health related books I would of had to spend $50 on otherwise.
Does your library offer the same audiobooks online for free?
I have gotten free trial subscriptions for Audible in the past, and it's hard for me to find books to "purchase" that I can't get from the library (I eventually find some, but it's work). I do enjoy listening to their Audible Originals sometimes, but not enough to pay for them.
(I'm not trying to say Prime is a waste for you or anyone in particular, just throwing out options in case you don't know/forgot about them.)
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I just calculated how much on average I spend on Amazon and it's about $200 per month. So the difference between 3% and 5% Amazon Prime Cards amount to 2% of 200 = $4.00 per month. $139/12 = $11.58 per month. $11.58 - $4.00 = $7.58. So a good 1/3rd of the monthly fee is reduced just by the difference between the two Chase Amazon Store cards.
$7.58 per month for convenience of getting items in 1-2 days and avoiding having to travel to a local store when you need something sooner than 5-8 days... my car gets like 18 mpg in town btw. I actually think in the worst case I'd break even on average, becuase I know I'd end up having to drive locally to places because I wouldnt' be able to wait 8 days to get something. So basically the Amazon prime Video is free and I get to save time and not risk my life driving. Just gonna stick with it. It seems worth it to me. My savigns is about $1500 per month after I pay off this mortgage in 2.5 years. I am so frugal in every way.. most of the time anyways... I dont' think $7.50 amounts to much compared to the $1500 per month and again I think I'd break even in the worst case due to gas, time and mileage on car.
[That said another subscription is killing me.. the only one I have.. the Adobe Photography Plan. Use of Photoshop pro and Lightroom for $9.99 per month. I do phtoography and photo editing from tiem to time. Been usign it 8 years.. wow they got like $1000 from me these past years. I don't thinkt hey sell the actual software package alone anymore I am noit sure.. rather buy it because I never really would need to upgrade those pieces of software.. I can't think of any new features I've needed over the past 8 years.]
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Re: 5% cards, Affinity FCU has a 5% card good at bookstores, aka Amazon. I don't have it but I am considering it.
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I often consider the wait a feature not a flaw. It ensures I really want/need something and an cut down on frivolous purchases.
yes. I often put things in my wish list to let it cool off. Like if I really still want it in a few weeks or a month maybe but lets just not impulse buy shinny junk or books I wont read.
Canceled prime today. Looking over my history nearly all my orders were comfortably over 25$ anyway and I tend to mentally make lists over a week or two then sit down and order a few things all at once.
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AWS Glacial storage has some drawbacks. In general I find BackBlaze cloud storage cheaper the AWS S3, but maybe Amazon has adjusted their prices to be more competitive...
Ah, ok. I checked backblaze and it's about $6/ mo. I like the sound of $2!
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AWS Glacial storage has some drawbacks. In general I find BackBlaze cloud storage cheaper the AWS S3, but maybe Amazon has adjusted their prices to be more competitive...
Ah, ok. I checked backblaze and it's about $6/ mo. I like the sound of $2!
Understood. I hope you find what you need. I was not referring to the BackBlaze backup service @ $6.00/month but their cloud storage @ .5 cents per GB (or $5/TB) vs AWS S3 cloud which comes in at different price points that depending on particulars can be less, but generally is more (I'm ignoring for now certain ingress/egress/access fees). I see no way to get to get to < $2 per TB on AWS S3 unless you use S3 Glacier Deep Archive which for many users would not work well as backup, but I might be missing something and admittedly I have not look at this very careful.
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Would be cool if enough Amazon customers protested and cancelled because of the rate hike. Same with Netflix. The stock market is in it's largest bubble since 1999 and is approaching 1999 P/E Ratios (See Shiller PE Ratio chart).. way past black tuesday levels. These companies keep trying to increase growth by charging more etc so the bubble doesn't burst. I say let pop..and HARD.
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"We pay this fee because they've got lots of free Kindle books or shipping is free"-- Uhh, guys... it's not free if you have to pay over $100/mo for the privilege. If you're buying enough shit that the free shipping justifies the price of Prime then you're buying too much crap that's very likely to end up in a landfill in pretty short order. You can get truly free books, ebooks, movies, etc from your local library.
We've truly lost the plot haven't we?
It's not $100/mo. It's $11.58. You are entitled to yoru opinion but with what I buy and need for this household on Amazon, it would cost me that much just in auto fuel. not considering the wear and tear on vehicle.. not including the 5% I get back with Amazin Prime Credit card. Also saves a lot of time as it is delivered to yoru door.. Wow you really like shopping at department stores for random items you can't even read a review on? At leat everythign I buy online I am making an informed decision instead of whatever is in stock on the shelves. The amazon prime videos, free audible books, kindle books, photo storage are just added freebies which many make use of. You risk your life driving around town several times per month instead of just payign $11.58 per month (whcih would barely cover yoru gas).
e.g. I bought a $6 audio cable from Amazon yesterday, which I'd have to drive 20 miles roudn trip for here locally. at 50 cents per mile that's $10 for gas and wear and tear on vehicle. You do the math :) That one trip for an audio cable pays for the prime subscription. Not to mention saving an hour of your time or more in traffic.. and lowering the risk you'd get in an auto accident. Auto accidents suck I've been in a couple.
Also returns are a breeze if I nee dto do one.. No driving to store and waiting in line. I jsut print out the label and sit on my porch for the UPS driver to come pick up.
I cant stand driving to stores only to find the item I want is out of stock after spendign 15 minutes looking for it with assistance of clueless helpers. Waiting in long lines suck too. So does parking sometimes.
I don't go to department stores. I buy groceries once per week. I buy things from the hardware store and the auto parts store for projects/maintenance that comes up around the house. I'll occasionally visit a thrift shop. That's pretty much it for a normal week or month.
I live in a rural setting, but nearly all of the places that I shop are within 5 miles of my home. I drive a PHEV, so it costs tons less than your $0.50/mile estimate. Hopefully if you live someplace that's 20 miles from a charging cord, then you've got a vehicle that doesn't actually cost $0.50/mile to operate too. I'm skilled enough, experienced enough and aware enough behind the wheel that I trust myself to be able to safely handle most things that come up on the road. For the situations that I cannot control, I trust the safety and crash test ratings of my vehicle. Road safety is not something that deters me from making trips out. Time/money/environmental concerns are.
For those reasons, trips are combined as much as possible. I'm not buying things every day of the week. I'm not making random trips into town for trinkets unless I need a part to fix something.
Large purchases are planned well in advance, researched as much as possible online, and if it's something that I plan to take with me, I'll usually call ahead or verify online that the product is on hand before leaving.
I'm the type of person that wants to pick out their own produce, try on the clothes to make sure they're of decent quality and fitment before buying, handle the item that I'm about to exchange my hard earned money for, etc.
I understand that buying things online from time to time is necessary and can even be preferred. What I'm against, is paying extra for a service like Prime that makes consumption so easy. It sets the expectation that you can have whatever at your door in just a day or two. Then all of a sudden, you're having things delivered to your door several times per week instead of combining all of that into one trip for yourself. There's a huge environmental impact there. It comes from inefficient trucks making all of those trips. It comes from some $6 widget being packed into a massive cardboard box filled with plastic bubble wrap that's likely just thrown away.
There's also likely to be more financial waste. Besides paying an unnecessary $11.66/mo for Prime (when you can likely get free shipping on most orders in similar time anyway as you admit), paying for a service like that means it's more likely to be used. Then you start to justify why it's ok to have a $6 charging cord shipped 20 miles or whatever on Monday, and then some other cheap item show up on Tuesday, etc. The convenience of it all tends to lead to overspending (which impacts you as an individual) and overconsumption (which impacts us all).
Buying things should hurt a little bit. You're exchanging your hard earned money for something, and I think we all benefit if we are forced to stop and think about whether it's actually worth it or not. Is it a need or a want? Can it wait a few days until I run into town anyway, or is it an emergency? Services like Prime are there to make things so easy and convenient that you stop asking those types of questions and just mindlessly hit the checkout button. That mindless spending and consumption seems wildly un-Mustachian to me, even if you can seemingly justify it with gas prices, or safety, or convenience, or how easy it is to return something you shouldn't have bought.
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https://www.inc.com/kelly-main/amazon-primes-20-price-increase-comes-with-1-strange-perk-now-im-saving-over-1000-a-year.html
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https://www.inc.com/kelly-main/amazon-primes-20-price-increase-comes-with-1-strange-perk-now-im-saving-over-1000-a-year.html
Lol, we get the same algorithm inspired "news".
TL DR: go to Wal Mart
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I can't relate with the article and recent post about you buying more things becausse they are easier to buy. I have a lot of discipline and only buy things I really need. It doesn't matter how fast and convenient it is to get.
I have like $60k credit limit between all my credit cards and pay them off in full each month for years now. So credit cards are convenient, you can have anything you want, NOW.. and if I wasn't disciplined I'd at least max those cards which have 0% APR for 12-15 months before paying off. I don't even do that let alone carry a balance. I haven't been charged 1 cent of interest in years.
That said I think I might give cancelling the sub a shot before it's due next Jan.. I just paid $119 this past January. (I am not sure if they give prorated refunds or not or i'd cancel today.)
I am going to cancel my only other subscription as well: Adoboe Photoshop/Lightroom sub for $9.99 per month. Will be nice to be subscription free. I cant stand them.
I am not happy with the deliverty time in the past couple years. WHen I first signed up it was $79 and I'd get my packages TWICE as fast that way... Now they want TWICE as much to get the packages in almmost the same time as without the sub. Sick of it and I don't get their strategy -- I guess they think people likek Prime Video too much. I'll try to keep a wish list of commonly used items and just add-on those items if I need free shipping on a particular item. Ithink it might work. And if I need Prime Video, I'll get it 1 month per year at $8.99 and binge watch all the originals in that month.
EDIT: Looking back at the past 6 months of purchases on Amazon prime, I don't regret buying a single thing.. all items get used. I am not like that person int he article either, buying shampoo etc online .. we go to aldi / walmart for 99% of all our sundries and groceries. However there is a particular affordable multivitamin I like I get from Amazon as well as the best deals on liquid stevia (coming in 8 oz bottles).
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Amazon and Netflix have a simply strategy. Boil the frog!
Their price points don't necessarily work for someone who carefully considers their options (or their budget.)
But most people (150 million Amazon Prime members, 222 million Netflix subscribers) won't go through the effort to cancel the subscription (it takes quite a lot to navigate canceling Prime - the dark patterns here are atrocious!) or consider the Herculean efforts required to shop for things without Prime (or find entertainment without Netflix). They'll just leave "autopay" and "renew membership" checked and keep on paying, as the monthly/annual fees rise over time.
So it's hard to question their strategy. It works on enough people for it not to matter if it seems like a bad strategy for the few individuals who opt out.
(Netflix chafes my knickers, because we agreed to share it with our in-laws, which makes it much less trivial to cancel when it hits $19/month. Ugh! Not their fault - I should see if I can get my in-laws to agree to a cancellation...)
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But most people (150 million Amazon Prime members, 222 million Netflix subscribers) won't go through the effort to cancel the subscription (it takes quite a lot to navigate canceling Prime - the dark patterns here are atrocious!)
Amazon should be fined by the government for this abuse.
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But most people (150 million Amazon Prime members, 222 million Netflix subscribers) won't go through the effort to cancel the subscription (it takes quite a lot to navigate canceling Prime - the dark patterns here are atrocious!)
Amazon should be fined by the government for this abuse.
I've signed up for and cancelled free prime seven or eight times. It's just three clicks from the Amazon home page.
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Amazon and Netflix have a simply strategy. Boil the frog!
Sidenote: if you tried to actually do the "boil the frog" thing, the frog would jump out of the pot before it dies:
https://www.abc.net.au/science/articles/2010/12/07/3085614.htm
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I've signed up for and cancelled free prime seven or eight times. It's just three clicks from the Amazon home page.
Something being possible is part of the definition of it being a dark pattern. It's "three clicks" to get to the beginning of the cancellation process, and at least 3 screens where you have to read each button and make sure it's the one you want, because part of the dark pattern is changing the names and positions of the buttons around, and making it much easier to click anything except the button that takes you out of the maze, and to successful cancellation.
https://google.com/search?q=amazon+cancel+dark+pattern
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Something being possible is part of the definition of it being a dark pattern. It's "three clicks" to get to the beginning of the cancellation process, and at least 3 screens where you have to read each button and make sure it's the one you want, because part of the dark pattern is changing the names and positions of the buttons around, and making it much easier to click anything except the button that takes you out of the maze, and to successful cancellation.
https://google.com/search?q=amazon+cancel+dark+pattern
Yes. when I canceled yesterday at first it was not clear if the first action was all that was needed and the final determiner of my enrolment. But no each "cancel now" click got me one level deeper.
Is frustrating, I design gui's a bit at work and always try to make them as easy and intuitive as possible but amazon is making this part of the gui to not be easy so as to maximize profit. Amazon is after all a profit maximizing organization...
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Yes. when I canceled yesterday at first it was not clear if the first action was all that was needed and the final determiner of my enrolment. But no each "cancel now" click got me one level deeper.
Is frustrating, I design gui's a bit at work and always try to make them as easy and intuitive as possible but amazon is making this part of the gui to not be easy so as to maximize profit. Amazon is after all a profit maximizing organization...
Yup, now I'm sure I'm just a dense moron and not a super genius like others in this thread, but just this week... my spouse had a free trial week and asked me to cancel it for her. I "cancelled" it. 3 screens in. Then waited 2 days and noticed the fee was charged and not refunded for a month of Prime. Grabbed her phone and checked and the membership was still active. Went through a second time and made sure I was staring at the confirmation page, took a screenshot, and the next day the refund was there. Not even sure what I did wrong the first time, but probably wasn't reading the words on the page quite closely enough. Probably something like "You've cancelled PRIME! (if you scroll down and click one more button - or just leave this screen open and we'll undo cancelling it in case you didn't mean it.)"
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I can't relate with the article and recent post about you buying more things becausse they are easier to buy. I have a lot of discipline and only buy things I really need. It doesn't matter how fast and convenient it is to get.
You're either the exception, or you don't realize any overspending that's happening:
https://www.cnbc.com/2021/10/29/hooked-psychology-explains-why-you-spend-money-on-amazon-prime.html
https://qz.com/2004369/the-pandemic-made-prime-even-more-valuable-to-amazon/
https://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-prime-members-spend-more-money-sneaky-ways-2019-9
https://www.paystone.com/blog/do-loyalty-programs-cause-consumers-to-spend-more
https://blog.clover.com/study-shows-loyalty-programs-increase-purchases-by-20/
Prime (and nearly all loyalty programs) are just bait dangled in front of consumers by retailers to entice higher spending than would otherwise occur. Even if it's just buying things that you don't regret, or would normally use you may be spending more than you otherwise would.
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The last I heard of any research on if delivery was more efficient than people going out and picking up directly was mixed. The delivery van is more efficient over all when you consider it is taking 100's of things to people in a moderate sized area but those people are no longer going out shopping and have more free time so maybe they are driving to a friends house instead. Never mind urban/suburban/rural/etc or if you can pick up the item during some other outing. So apples to apples is hard, dont know if it is even possible to say if delivery uses less gas or not, but then what is the question: "gas use over all by all people in my area" or "my personal use of gas". Then amazon is testing out electric delivery vans and what if you own a ICE car... so yeah. The problem statement is not well defined and any possible answers are hard to generalize.
I think I have made up my mind to cancel prime and see how it goes.
There's a fairly thorough MIT study about shopping online vs driving around to get it yourself.
(This will be vague since I don't remember the study's exact numbers.)
1) Getting deliveries is better unless you're getting a lot at once (27? items). Delivery companies use software to group neighborhood deliveries together and using a 2+ ton vehicle to pick up milk and cereal is simply not efficient.
This, as you mentioned, gets squirrely if you pick up something on the way to work or a friend's house.
2) The above only applies to "regular" deliveries. If your stuff needs to get flown to the local distribution center to meet the 2 day guarantee, then it's way worse than you driving to the local store.
Getting deliveries via postal mail is the best eco option. The mail truck will already be in your neighborhood.
tl;dr If you're not using a "Prime day,"* you're likely using too much CO2 to get your shit (above and beyond whether you need said shit in the first place.)
* This begs the question: Why have Prime at all if you're using a Prime day? Unless it's for the media.
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An addendum to my post above:
https://ctl.mit.edu/sites/ctl.mit.edu/files/library/public/Dimitri-Weideli-Environmental-Analysis-of-US-Online-Shopping_0.pdf
Figure 1 shows the purchase of a toy in an urban area. The 2-day-shipping online shopper uses more CO2 than both the b&m shopper and the patient online shopper.
Figure 2 includes the return of the item purchased. The "impulse" b&m shopper (where 1 store is visited -- twice -- for the item and return) is better than all but the online (patient) shopper.
As we can see, it's the store visit in a 2-ton ICE vehicle that's the elephant in the room. If that can be decreased with an EV from renewables, or even better a bike, then even the traditional shopper is (probably) better than the online patient shopper, as far as emissions.
Packaging is the big CO2 cost for online shopping. Reduce the packaging, reduce the emissions.
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I can't relate with the article and recent post about you buying more things becausse they are easier to buy. I have a lot of discipline and only buy things I really need. It doesn't matter how fast and convenient it is to get.
You're either the exception, or you don't realize any overspending that's happening:
https://www.cnbc.com/2021/10/29/hooked-psychology-explains-why-you-spend-money-on-amazon-prime.html
https://qz.com/2004369/the-pandemic-made-prime-even-more-valuable-to-amazon/
https://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-prime-members-spend-more-money-sneaky-ways-2019-9
https://www.paystone.com/blog/do-loyalty-programs-cause-consumers-to-spend-more
https://blog.clover.com/study-shows-loyalty-programs-increase-purchases-by-20/
Prime (and nearly all loyalty programs) are just bait dangled in front of consumers by retailers to entice higher spending than would otherwise occur. Even if it's just buying things that you don't regret, or would normally use you may be spending more than you otherwise would.
And this is why I'll never have a Target Red Card, lol!
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The "loyalty" program I struggle with the most is my grocery store. You get "points" (recently got $14 off gas), free hams/turkeys, in-store discounts...
But of course it prints customized coupons just for you that almost certainly increase spending. It would probably be better to opt out, but I haven't yet... a decade of loyal membership so far!
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The "loyalty" program I struggle with the most is my grocery store. You get "points" (recently got $14 off gas), free hams/turkeys, in-store discounts...
But of course it prints customized coupons just for you that almost certainly increase spending. It would probably be better to opt out, but I haven't yet... a decade of loyal membership so far!
Pro Tip: Make your grocery list on paper, then review the coupon options. Only add coupons for things already on the list. If you are accustomed to splurging/impulse, allow for 1 off list purchase per trip. If you have already made your impulse choice and find something else, you must return the 1st item to the shelf you got it from first.
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The "loyalty" program I struggle with the most is my grocery store. You get "points" (recently got $14 off gas), free hams/turkeys, in-store discounts...
But of course it prints customized coupons just for you that almost certainly increase spending. It would probably be better to opt out, but I haven't yet... a decade of loyal membership so far!
Pro Tip: Make your grocery list on paper, then review the coupon options. Only add coupons for things already on the list. If you are accustomed to splurging/impulse, allow for 1 off list purchase per trip. If you have already made your impulse choice and find something else, you must return the 1st item to the shelf you got it from first.
This is my MO, albeit on iBotta and online ordering. Really, online ordering has been an absolute gamechanger in terms of cutting down on impulse purchases.
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I can't relate with the article and recent post about you buying more things becausse they are easier to buy. I have a lot of discipline and only buy things I really need. It doesn't matter how fast and convenient it is to get.
You're either the exception, or you don't realize any overspending that's happening:
https://www.cnbc.com/2021/10/29/hooked-psychology-explains-why-you-spend-money-on-amazon-prime.html
https://qz.com/2004369/the-pandemic-made-prime-even-more-valuable-to-amazon/
https://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-prime-members-spend-more-money-sneaky-ways-2019-9
https://www.paystone.com/blog/do-loyalty-programs-cause-consumers-to-spend-more
https://blog.clover.com/study-shows-loyalty-programs-increase-purchases-by-20/
Prime (and nearly all loyalty programs) are just bait dangled in front of consumers by retailers to entice higher spending than would otherwise occur. Even if it's just buying things that you don't regret, or would normally use you may be spending more than you otherwise would.
This logic reminds me of Dave Ramsey logic.. "by no means get a credit card.. you'll lose no matter what". I have like 6 and am making great money with them with sign up bonuses, cash back on purchases etc..and pay them off in full each month. I also dont' need the credit cards as a buffer as I have my entire emergency fund in my checking/savings account readily accessible.
I think most of us here on the forum are more responsible than the audience those articles are written about. We are probably < 5% of the population.
Dave Ramsey and those authors just think everyone is dumb.
I can't stand spending money, no matter how fast I can get an item shipped to me or the ability to purhcase anything I want on a credit (and pay later), I refrain. I really buy most things used and fully depreciated.. or under fair depreciated value, so I have the option later on to sell them if I need the money without a loss.
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Well this is the last straw! Amazon silently has done another annoying thing.
I always used "UPS Pickup" to return packages. They'd come to the door and pick up the package on the porch. It was free. They hid this return option for a long while; it was an option way at the bottom of the list, having to click extra times to see it.
Well they just changed their returns user interface, making it hard to see as option again. However when you do find it, the want to charge you $6 as a "convenience fee' for UPS pickup. (I have a shirt to return because it doesn't fit as expected -- they changed the formula or something.)
So now if i want to return something I have to drive across town, ten miles round trip. Bleh. I feel sorry for their customers who don't have a car or can't drive.
I think I will cancel this prime membership.
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Okay I found out the UPS Pickup option is free if you use "Inaccurate Website Description" instead of "Wrong Size". It really is not accurate because this top isn't the same as what I bought before.
I guess they wanted to charge the $6 pickup convenience fee since they think it is partially my fault because I "bought the wrong size". In this case it isn't.
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Understood. I hope you find what you need. I was not referring to the BackBlaze backup service @ $6.00/month but their cloud storage @ .5 cents per GB (or $5/TB) vs AWS S3 cloud which comes in at different price points that depending on particulars can be less, but generally is more (I'm ignoring for now certain ingress/egress/access fees). I see no way to get to get to < $2 per TB on AWS S3 unless you use S3 Glacier Deep Archive which for many users would not work well as backup, but I might be missing something and admittedly I have not look at this very careful.
This is helpful, thanks!
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Well this is the last straw! Amazon silently has done another annoying thing.
I always used "UPS Pickup" to return packages. They'd come to the door and pick up the package on the porch. It was free. They hid this return option for a long while; it was an option way at the bottom of the list, having to click extra times to see it.
Well they just changed their returns user interface, making it hard to see as option again. However when you do find it, the want to charge you $6 as a "convenience fee' for UPS pickup. (I have a shirt to return because it doesn't fit as expected -- they changed the formula or something.)
So now if i want to return something I have to drive across town, ten miles round trip. Bleh. I feel sorry for their customers who don't have a car or can't drive.
I think I will cancel this prime membership.
Such entitlement. This is how services like Prime have altered our thinking about how we buy/consume.
You're basically saying "How dare I be expected to pay for a company to make multiple trips to my remote home because I didn't like the thing that I now regret buying from my couch. Why should I have to deal with any negative aspects of my purchasing habits at all? That should be somebody else's problem!"
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Well this is the last straw! Amazon silently has done another annoying thing.
I always used "UPS Pickup" to return packages. They'd come to the door and pick up the package on the porch. It was free. They hid this return option for a long while; it was an option way at the bottom of the list, having to click extra times to see it.
Well they just changed their returns user interface, making it hard to see as option again. However when you do find it, the want to charge you $6 as a "convenience fee' for UPS pickup. (I have a shirt to return because it doesn't fit as expected -- they changed the formula or something.)
So now if i want to return something I have to drive across town, ten miles round trip. Bleh. I feel sorry for their customers who don't have a car or can't drive.
I think I will cancel this prime membership.
Such entitlement. This is how services like Prime have altered our thinking about how we buy/consume.
You're basically saying "How dare I be expected to pay for a company to make multiple trips to my remote home because I didn't like the thing that I now regret buying from my couch. Why should I have to deal with any negative aspects of my purchasing habits at all? That should be somebody else's problem!"
They sent me an item that was different than described. There is no entitlement. I rarely ever do returns with Amazon. And I never regret buying anything. Your comment is annoying.
I've purchased this same product many times over the years. And all of a sudden they changed it and claim it was the same as I bought before and it isn't. It doesn't fit at all the same. There was ZERO error or regret on my part. It was their error. (I still want the shirt and am really bummed about it.) In the past, as a part time ebay seller, I have made errors as well, although very rare. I had to pay shipping both ways. I never whined about it at all. It's all part of business which you learn from to improve your business. My return rate on ebay was 2%.
I also explained in a subsequent post they aren't charging me a "convenience fee" for UPS pickup after all because I had classified the return incorrectly. I agree they should charge a convenience fee for people who have regret, etc..
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Free 2-day or 1-day shipping is still worth it for me. Plus it's the only streaming service we have anymore (mostly because it is worth it for us on the free 2-day shipping).
We may or may not drop it at some point, and I just renewed at the old price, but when I've done the math historically, I benefit until about $200/year.
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I'm probably keeping it when I have to renew in June. I was super upset when they started charging for delivery, but still do Whole Foods pick up that doesn't have an additional charge.
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Free 2-day or 1-day shipping is still worth it for me.
What are you ordering that is so time sensitive it couldn't wait a couple days?
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Has anyone in two-person FIRE households had success agreeing to split a Prime Membership with family or friends to defray the cost? If so, how'd you work it?
I did this with my brother. We live in different houses. He has the membership. We each have separate credit cards with Amazon so anything we buy is charged to the right person. We each log into our own TVs using his account. Pretty good deal -- half the cost! We also do this with Hulu.
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Free 2-day or 1-day shipping is still worth it for me.
What are you ordering that is so time sensitive it couldn't wait a couple days?
Sometimes I order things so I don't have to go to the grocery store (where I would spend more). It also saves me a trip. This is mainly items <$10, so I would have to spend $25 more on stuff I likely don't need, to get free shipping. I'd almost argue I save $12 a month by not trying to meet the minimum for free shipping. I did this a ton more with Walmart+ orders than Amazon, but it's the same idea.
At least from my anecdotal experience, whenever I've ordered from Amazon not on Prime it takes nearly 1.5-2 weeks to get to me. It appears your order is placed at the bottom of the fulfillment list, below prime orders. When I order on Prime it's 2-3 days. I don't consider the environmental impact because I live in a major city and an Amazon truck passes by my house at least 5x a day.
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...
Sometimes I order things so I don't have to go to the grocery store (where I would spend more). It also saves me a trip. This is mainly items <$10, so I would have to spend $25 more on stuff I likely don't need, to get free shipping. I'd almost argue I save $12 a month by not trying to meet the minimum for free shipping. I did this a ton more with Walmart+ orders than Amazon, but it's the same idea.
At least from my anecdotal experience, whenever I've ordered from Amazon not on Prime it takes nearly 1.5-2 weeks to get to me. It appears your order is placed at the bottom of the fulfillment list, below prime orders. When I order on Prime it's 2-3 days. I don't consider the environmental impact because I live in a major city and an Amazon truck passes by my house at least 5x a day.
This is getting close to "well it was on sale for 10$ off so I saved 10$" logic. Not quite and if you know your weakness and are working to limited it then this might be best.
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Sometimes I order things so I don't have to go to the grocery store (where I would spend more). It also saves me a trip. This is mainly items <$10, so I would have to spend $25 more on stuff I likely don't need, to get free shipping. I'd almost argue I save $12 a month by not trying to meet the minimum for free shipping. I did this a ton more with Walmart+ orders than Amazon, but it's the same idea.
At least from my anecdotal experience, whenever I've ordered from Amazon not on Prime it takes nearly 1.5-2 weeks to get to me. It appears your order is placed at the bottom of the fulfillment list, below prime orders. When I order on Prime it's 2-3 days. I don't consider the environmental impact because I live in a major city and an Amazon truck passes by my house at least 5x a day.
I also use Amazon to buy small items all the time, which I'd have to make a trip across town otherwise. Just one trip per month would eat up much of the $7.50 prime membership -- it's $7.50/mo for me per month because I use the Chase Amazon Prime credit card to get 5% back instead of 3%.
I also don't want to wait two weeks for something I might need within a few days.
There are literally thousands of examples of things one might need in a few days as opposed to weeks, answering another poster's question above. EDIT: And it only takes me 1 example per month to justify the bulk of my prime fee.
$7.50 /mo for Prime Video alone is a great value to be honest; it's at least fairly worth say $3 per month. This brings down my shipping service fee to $4.50 per month. Amazon Prime Video the only service I have a regular subscription to.. others I buy for a single month maybe a couple times per year.
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I guess I have trouble relating to the "I need something tomorrow" mind set. Just about everything in my home that I could say I have a general need for I try to apply a "two is one and one is none" philosophy, if I have only one unused of an item I will pick up a second the next time I am out. This may shift some spending forward but it does not really change the total spend and I am never caught without.
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I guess I have trouble relating to the "I need something tomorrow" mind set. Just about everything in my home that I could say I have a general need for I try to apply a "two is one and one is none" philosophy, if I have only one unused of an item I will pick up a second the next time I am out. This may shift some spending forward but it does not really change the total spend and I am never caught without.
Okay I'll give you an example. I was suffering horribly from GERD and my doctor wanted me to get a 12" wedge for my bed. Amazon had the best price and I didn't even know where to drive to locally. I needed it ASAP because I was having a lot of problems sleeping like lowered oxygen for example. It was detrimental to my health that I get it ASAP. I got it the very next day with Amazon Prime and it immediately improved the quality of my sleep.
Other examples: Say you got a side gig and need some supplies for a project you are working on, which you could stand waiting 2 days for but not 2 weeks.
List goes on and on. Thinking about it more and the $4.50 per month is worth it to me -- I'm allocating $3 per month for Prime Video Service because that service is worth it to me for $3 per month. I probably won't cancel. (I'm going back and forth because I too hate subscriptions.)
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It is kind of annoying that they are increasing cost of Amazon Prime, when they dont' even often get your packge to you in 2 days ever since covid.
Yes, came here to say this, too. And sometimes the package never arrives, so Amazon apologizes and says I can cancel the order if I want. So I cancel, then reorder, which means waiting even longer for the same item. Or... in the case of some walnuts I ordered... the package goes from California to Hawaii, then back to California, and finally to my house, very far east of California. Those were some very well-traveled walnuts.
Also, we've been trying to watch "The Man in the High Castle" via Amazon Prime and we've had to resort to letting it... load? (sorry, I'm not very technical)... before actually sitting down to watch it because it was stalling every minute or two.
So I'm very tempted to dump Prime and see how it goes.
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I needed it ASAP because I was having a lot of problems sleeping like lowered oxygen for example. It was detrimental to my health that I get it ASAP. I got it the very next day with Amazon Prime and it immediately improved the quality of my sleep.
This is a great example of a time when paying for expedited shipping is well worth it.
This is not a great example of why you need to pay in advance for a year of slightly-faster-than-normal-shipping.
I have needed and purchased fast shipping a few times in my life; I can guarantee it's cost me a lot less than maintaining an Amazon Prime membership. Plus it leaves me the freedom to comparison shop at other retailers.
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Free 2-day or 1-day shipping is still worth it for me.
What are you ordering that is so time sensitive it couldn't wait a couple days?
Sometimes I order things so I don't have to go to the grocery store (where I would spend more). It also saves me a trip. This is mainly items <$10, so I would have to spend $25 more on stuff I likely don't need, to get free shipping. I'd almost argue I save $12 a month by not trying to meet the minimum for free shipping. I did this a ton more with Walmart+ orders than Amazon, but it's the same idea.
At least from my anecdotal experience, whenever I've ordered from Amazon not on Prime it takes nearly 1.5-2 weeks to get to me. It appears your order is placed at the bottom of the fulfillment list, below prime orders. When I order on Prime it's 2-3 days. I don't consider the environmental impact because I live in a major city and an Amazon truck passes by my house at least 5x a day.
I guess that makes sense. Three or four years ago I was considering using Amazon for groceries and found that they either didn't stock what I wanted, or didn't have a competitive price so pretty much gave up on the idea. Might be better today (or maybe just better in the States than Canada).
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I needed it ASAP because I was having a lot of problems sleeping like lowered oxygen for example. It was detrimental to my health that I get it ASAP. I got it the very next day with Amazon Prime and it immediately improved the quality of my sleep.
This is a great example of a time when paying for expedited shipping is well worth it.
This is not a great example of why you need to pay in advance for a year of slightly-faster-than-normal-shipping.
I have needed and purchased fast shipping a few times in my life; I can guarantee it's cost me a lot less than maintaining an Amazon Prime membership. Plus it leaves me the freedom to comparison shop at other retailers.
I gave that as a single example; I am finding numerous occasions looking at my order history. All I need is one per month to cover the subscription.. and well I exceed 12 incidents per year. So you can rationalize however you want just because you hate subscriptions (I hate them as well). Maybe your logic works for you, but not everyone else. But I've already considered everything and I actually benefit from the subscription financially. I am looking through my purchase order history for the past couple years.. been doing it for the past couple days.. and it pays for itself easily. It also prevents any stress from having to wait extra long for something to come and having to buy more stuff to get the $25 limit. It's free to me and prevents stress.. no brainer for me.
Someone was bold enough here in this thread to say having a Prime Subscription is NOT mustachian. I think that was very bold and not very careful statement; preaching from their own personal perspective as it being the golden written rule. It depends on the situation.
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I stand by my statement that it's not Mustachian. A core component of being Mustachian is reducing consumption. This of course has financial benefits, but another big motivator for reducing consumption is to reduce the impact we have on our planet. You might be able to justify Prime financially, but if you look back at most of my posts in this topic, you'll probably note that consumption is my biggest complaint, not necessarily the finances of it.
You've given some good examples in other threads of ways that you have Mustachian habits like buying used items instead of new, doing your own repairs to extend the life of your possessions, and growing a garden. Those are very Mustachian things to do because they save money andreduce consumption at the same time. Paying monthly money that you don't need to in order to have "free delivery" of small trinkets so that you can skip a trip into town, or avoid some basic planning and combining trips is not Mustachian. A big reason that I say that, is the wasteful consumption it causes. You might not feel the environmental impact, but the impact is still being made. It's there in the unnecessary trips by inefficient vehicles. It's there in the extra packaging. It's there in any impulse purchases that might not otherwise be made. That's why I say it's not Mustachian. You're paying extra money, and increasing the environmental impact of your consumption. It's the exact opposite of your Mustachian habits.
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Thanks for the polite reply. I get where you are coming from. But one could argue there would be more consumption for one person driving across town to buy a single item -- when there are absolutely no other items to buy in that area in the foreseeable future -- than it would be for a truck on a fixed route dropping off packages in the most efficient order possible.
I don't generally buy "trinkets" at all. I buy necessary things from Amazon, or perhaps things which are used from Amazon at spectacular prices such that I could sell it after I am done with it and get all my money back. I can't stand trinkets lol, and unnecessary things laying around the house. I don't have an egg slicer or other single task items for example. I can't stand an abundance of decorations because they take up so much space and I don't sit there appreciating them all very often. If I do get decorations, I get them for 25 cents at a flea market etc.
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I used "trinkets" to describe small, inexpensive items. Honestly, I can't think of a single case where I needed something small from the other side of town that was worth making a dedicated trip for unless it was an absolute emergency and I needed the item in hours not days or weeks. Nothing that I purchase online fits that category, and none of it is so important that I need it in 2 days instead of 5-10. If I buy it online, I can wait. If I'm buying it in person, then I'm probably waiting until I can combine trips, so I'm waiting either way.
I also have tracked shipping on many items only to see them go the opposite direction from my house so I'm skeptical of the idea that having it shipped is always (or even often) more efficient than just making a direct trip in an efficient vehicle. The logistics companies move freight in a way that's most efficient for them considering all of their packages. That's different than trying to get your single item from its origin to your door in the most efficient manor.
Some small lifestyle changes like planning ahead and combining trips seems like it could cover most non-emergency situations and avoid some waste. At least it has for me. So paying a monthly fee to potentially get things a little bit sooner seems unnecessarily wasteful and excessive.
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I don't know how this relates to Amazon, but Scientific American: Delivery from Local Store Is Greenest Shopping Method—Most of the Time (https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/delivery-from-local-store-is-greenest-shopping-method-most-of-the-time1/).
I always use "prime day" so that hopefully Amazon does something reasonable with my packages.
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I don't have prime and I usually get my things within 2-3 days. It's rare that anything takes over a week unless it's being shipped directly from China. Even mattresses recently took only 2 days. I order so infrequently that I always have a list of small "nice to haves" in the back of my mind for when I need to meet the free shipping threshold.
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If Prime is not a good value for you, it’s not Mustachian. I’m not actually Mustachian, just cheap and retired.
I like Amazon for its wider selection than I will likely find in local stores, and because I would basically always pick staying home over going to Target. Ugh.
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While not necessarily an emergency, it was nice to be able to order the part needed to fix the dishwasher and know it will be here tomorrow. I'm fairly certain that there is no store within 90 miles of me that would have had that in stock yesterday when we discovered what we needed.
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While not necessarily an emergency, it was nice to be able to order the part needed to fix the dishwasher and know it will be here tomorrow. I'm fairly certain that there is no store within 90 miles of me that would have had that in stock yesterday when we discovered what we needed.
For a critical and unusual problem like that, I'd probably pay for Amazon's fastest shipping option. Still cheaper than getting prime. :P
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While not necessarily an emergency, it was nice to be able to order the part needed to fix the dishwasher and know it will be here tomorrow. I'm fairly certain that there is no store within 90 miles of me that would have had that in stock yesterday when we discovered what we needed.
For a critical and unusual problem like that, I'd probably pay for Amazon's fastest shipping option. Still cheaper than getting prime. :P
Or subscribe for one month of prime and enjoy free shipping the rest of the month and maybe binge watch a few series? :)
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While not necessarily an emergency, it was nice to be able to order the part needed to fix the dishwasher and know it will be here tomorrow. I'm fairly certain that there is no store within 90 miles of me that would have had that in stock yesterday when we discovered what we needed.
For a critical and unusual problem like that, I'd probably pay for Amazon's fastest shipping option. Still cheaper than getting prime. :P
Or subscribe for one month of prime and enjoy free shipping the rest of the month and maybe binge watch a few series? :)
Yep, do that a lot too.
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I am a Prime member but I think it’s fairly stupid and I could live without it, but I wont because I am old and rich.
The video selections are decent though and their catalog is deep. You’ve got to hunt for the stuff that is interesting. Yes I get “free shipping “but I hate buying stuff from Amazon even though I do it. As it is now I consolidate all my shipments to their weekly delivery. I am horrified by all of the boxes that come my way in Amazonland.
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I am horrified by all of the boxes that come my way in Amazonland.
This is the number one reason that I look for alternatives to Amazon. The amount of packaging is painfully and heartbreakingly over the top.
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I am horrified by all of the boxes that come my way in Amazonland.
This is the number one reason that I look for alternatives to Amazon. The amount of packaging is painfully and heartbreakingly over the top.
You can compost the cardboard for your garden if you have one.
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I discovered that the ReStore was happy to take my Amazon boxes to pack stuff in. And big boxes are easy to give away on Buy Nothing.
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I am a Prime member but I think it’s fairly stupid and I could live without it, but I wont because I am old and rich.
God, I love this answer! Go, @iris lily!
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Inspired by iris lily and prompted by a spammy phone call at 6:23 am today saying that "My Amazon account has been compromised", I just checked our purchase history. Most of the five pages of orders in 2021 were for parts for our home or vehicles. I ordered some office supplies for which I was reimbursed. They were half the price of what they wanted for the very same thing at my local Office Max.
Guess we're keeping it.
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I don't have prime and I usually get my things within 2-3 days. It's rare that anything takes over a week unless it's being shipped directly from China. Even mattresses recently took only 2 days. I order so infrequently that I always have a list of small "nice to haves" in the back of my mind for when I need to meet the free shipping threshold.
This has 100% been my experience as well. I have never had the 1-2 week delay for non-prime orders that others speak of.
The fact is that not having prime doesn’t mean you can’t order from Amazon. I’m sure everyone here has analyzed their history and assigned a weighted value to each order and its urgency/distance/weight. But regular people out there think if they order from Amazon, they need Prime. And in the bulk of cases, I bet that’s not true.
It also puts you in the mindset of going straight to Amazon. When it might be cheaper or more available at Walmart/target/ebay/?? Amazon wants too be the default that you pull up, paying for prime helps that. Once you stop shopping around, they can charge whatever they want.
The easy way to check this is to take a little break. See how it goes, you can sign right back up as soon as you start to miss it. I did that a a couple of price increases ago and I haven’t missed a thing.
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Though someone clearly can't math, I thought I'd drop this here in case someone might find it useful.
https://www.wric.com/news/7-ways-to-avoid-amazon-primes-fee-hike/amp/
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It also puts you in the mindset of going straight to Amazon. When it might be cheaper or more available at Walmart/target/ebay/?? Amazon wants too be the default that you pull up, paying for prime helps that. Once you stop shopping around, they can charge whatever they want
I check ebay very often because I do find more affordable items on ebay :) I confess I never check either of the online versions of walmart and target; maybe I should? I think I have in the past and the prices weren't great or I didn't like the shipping charges/options, I forget.
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I don't have prime and I usually get my things within 2-3 days. It's rare that anything takes over a week unless it's being shipped directly from China. Even mattresses recently took only 2 days. I order so infrequently that I always have a list of small "nice to haves" in the back of my mind for when I need to meet the free shipping threshold.
This has 100% been my experience as well. I have never had the 1-2 week delay for non-prime orders that others speak of.
The fact is that not having prime doesn’t mean you can’t order from Amazon. I’m sure everyone here has analyzed their history and assigned a weighted value to each order and its urgency/distance/weight. But regular people out there think if they order from Amazon, they need Prime. And in the bulk of cases, I bet that’s not true.
It also puts you in the mindset of going straight to Amazon. When it might be cheaper or more available at Walmart/target/ebay/?? Amazon wants too be the default that you pull up, paying for prime helps that. Once you stop shopping around, they can charge whatever they want.
The easy way to check this is to take a little break. See how it goes, you can sign right back up as soon as you start to miss it. I did that a a couple of price increases ago and I haven’t missed a thing.
I 100% promise you that I am more likely to buy something that I don’t need by going into Target than I am by ordering from Amazon. You have to know thyself. LOL
My Prime orders have mostly gone back to next day delivery.
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Okay, I went ahead and did it, just to give this chance. I canceled my prime membership. It auto-renewed in early January, and well they refunded me the full $119 -- was shocked. They said my card will be credited $119 in 3-5 days.
So now I'll only get 3% back on my prime credit card instead of the 5%. But's that okay. I don't need the videos either.
Now I am subscription free, from both Adobe and Amazon. Only subscription I have left is $1.99 per month to google for google drive, and I'm not changing that :) I consider my phone and internet subscriptions as necessary, non-discretionary expenses. Basically they are utilities.
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I share my Prime membership with a friend and we both pay $60/year each. It renews in November for us, and I will pay $70/year each. No big deal as I watch Prime Video quite often as most Indian movies are on Amazon these days. I don't pay for Netflix. For me, shipping is an added benefit.