About a year ago, my husband and I debated: should we pay the $79 fee to use Amazon 
Prime? After all, we have two Kindles in the house, and I love buying books. Besides that, since I have to drive forty-five minutes to get to a decent mall, I shop frequently at Amazon.
We decided to go for it. And what have the past 12 months taught me?
The Amazon Prime fee pays for itself. Here’s why.
Free Two Day Shipping
As a Prime member, you get free two day shipping on any product sold by Amazon. This doesn’t apply to merchandise sold on the site by third parties. Since regular shipping can cost $5-$13 per order, if you made twelve orders over the course of a year, you would probably spend over $90 on shipping.
With Amazon Prime, your order shows up quickly. For free!
Last Christmas, I spent $20 mailing gifts to our friends in San Diego. This Christmas, I spent nada to ship Legos out there. Made me very happy.
Kindle Lending Library
Amazon boasts that it has thousands of titles available to lend to Kindle owners, and that hundreds are NY Times Bestsellers. You can borrow one book at a time, as often as once a month.
Over the summer, my husband borrowed all three books from The Hunger Games trilogy. In fact, I think one might still be sitting on his Kindle.
So again, do the math. If the average Kindle book costs about $10, one per month would end up costing $120 over the course of a year. The $80 deal keeps looking better.
Free Streaming Movies and TV Shows
Let me emphasize that many of the free movies available to Prime members are often old, or low budget, or ones you never heard of. But, we did find and view the Footloose remake recently. Other tempting titles we’ve seen listed on the Prime page: Captain America, Ocean’s Eleven, and the original Mission: Impossible. Not bad for free.
All of the video rental stores in our small town have folded. And the Redbox machine posted inside our Walmart offers limited selection. When our internet actually works, and we can find a decent movie, Amazon Prime saves us time and money.
Go for it
Believe it or not, Amazon didn’t pay me to write this post. (But I should get some commission, don’t you think?) And, I have worries about the giant on-line store taking over the book industry. See my post on Amazon’s fight with Barns and Noble for more discussion on that topic.
But, since I love the perks of the Amazon Prime membership, I’ll renew at the end of this month. To keep balance, I also maintain a Barnes and Noble membership and shop there frequently.
Little things count, right?
Do you have an Amazon Prime account? If yes, do you think it’s worth it? If you don’t, would you consider getting one?
I’d love to hear your thoughts!
Julia
hello,
I see you use amazon prime and you are in costa rica?..how do you do that? you order from amazon and its delivered in costa rica?
Im moving there april 28th 2013 to palo seco parrita trying to figure out my kindle options with prime in costa rica
Thanks,
annie
Annie,
To clarify, I do not live in Costa Rica, but Sarah Corbett Morgan, who left the first comment on this post, does, or at least did in January. It sounds like she must have access to Amazon, but if you want to know more I suggest you try to contact her directly.
My husband also convinced me to do Amazon Prime – and we love it! I don’t buy a ton, but this Christmas it sure was great. We’ve given up Netflix and rarely Redbox, but every once in awhile we will watch an Amazon Prime stream. I’m even considering a Kindle next…something I never thought I’d do! But after hearing about the borrowing and free classics download? My life will never be the same.
Thanks for being out there keeping up with such things and sharing them with us. Really interesting, in not too many words, to learn about this product and how you feel about it. Cool!
Glad you all found this helpful! If anyone has been unhappy with Prime (see Sarah’s comment – first one), please share your concerns here. I think it would be helpful to have all sides of the story represented here.
This really would pay for itself! I need to look into this! 🙂
I agree, Julia! Sarah and I found AP because we wanted to watch Season 2 of Downton Abbey! After we finished that, I poked around to see some of the other perks, and there are MANY. I’m canceling Netflix next.
YES, you should get some sort of reimbursement 🙂
Julia,
Shows how little I know — didn’t even know this existed. I have a lot more amazon shopping in recent months. I think it’s time for me to calculate the cost and consider this.
Thanks for sharing and yes, you should get some kind of commission! (or maybe they’ll post your blog???!!!) 🙂
Take care,
Love, Hester 😉
Glad you found it helpful!
It’s great to hear your experience. I think we will buy a membership right before baby is born and take advantage of the old movies, kindle rentals, and shipping on things like diapers and wipes.
You should Emily! I know a lot of people who swear by getting diapers at Amazon because it’s so much cheaper.
Good point Sarah- so I guess I should qualify that the book selection is limited too. Thanks for your input!
Good post and something I have thought about. Still debating it, though, because the only thing pertinent for us–living at the end of the road in Costa Rica–is the lending library. After an afternoon wasting time looking for books I’d like to read (available in the lending library), I came up with a big fat zero. So, until there is something ‘streaming’ here besides vines from trees or ocean currents, I’m holding off. 😉