Is Amazon Prime membership worth it?

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Forum -> Household Management -> Budgeting & Bargains

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Mevater

Sun, May 15 2016, 7:00 pm

Is Amazon Prime membership worth it? How much does it cost for how long?

Are there different deals/offers?

potatoes

Sun, May 15 2016, 7:11 pm

I share it with some family members. We split the cost of membership, all have the sign in/passwords etc
Very worth it for us
We got it on a day of a sale, but I think its generally $99. You can do the free trial, I think its for 30 days, and you will see how much you use it and benefit.
I live out of town with no easy trip to the store, and its a life saver.

Blessing1

Sun, May 15 2016, 7:38 pm

How do you share prime with others?

Mevater

Sun, May 15 2016, 8:40 pm

How much quicker do you get your stuff? Without Amazon Prime, I always choose free shipping and 9 out of 10 times I get it within a week. I just make sure to order at least $35 at one time, bec thats the minimum for free shipping.

mfb

Sun, May 15 2016, 8:44 pm

With prime you get the stuff within 1-2 days, and free returns on most stuff

treestump

Sun, May 15 2016, 8:48 pm

If you buy things from Amazon very often, it is totally worth it. Amazing convenience.

If you don't buy so often, it may not be worth it for you. Then again, you may find yourself ordering more things from Amazon when you have Prime - that is Amazon's prime motivation in offering Prime membership, after all.

nicole81

Sun, May 15 2016, 9:05 pm

Two days, and sometimes same day. For example, I wanted to start reorganizing a kids closet in my house tomorrow morning but knew there was no way I was making it out to buy storage cubes today. So I ordered on amazon around 10am today and they were dropped off by my house at 8:30pm.

The convenience is absolutely worth it for me. Plus, if you forgo the expedited shipping, they offer credits for various things. Usually it's just media which isn't worth it for me, but sometimes it's a $5.99 prime pantry credit. I rack up about $60 in these credits a year, which when combined with specific sales and shipping discounts, turn out to be fabulous savings.

Merrymom

Sun, May 15 2016, 9:14 pm

I don't think it is. I only purchased a membership because we needed some swim things fast for a vacation. Otherwise everything is free shipping anyway and comes usually within a few days if you spend a minimum of $35.

gande

Sun, May 15 2016, 9:31 pm

It is worth it. First of all they are about 15 percent cheaper on many items. Diapers are 20 % off. Knowing that you can get what you want whenever you want makes it less likely to buy things you don't need just in case as you would in the store or if you want to reach $35 for shipping.

marina

Sun, May 15 2016, 10:10 pm

35 is not the minimum anymore it went up

seeker

Sun, May 15 2016, 10:51 pm

marina wrote:

35 is not the minimum anymore it went up

WOW - when did that happen?! Last time I checked it was still $35 but I just checked to confirm and you're right - it says orders including $25 of books the whole order ships free, but other items the minimum is $49. That is so stinky. A big jump, too, and just as bad as many other non-free-shipping sites. You would think this would have been news but I just found out now.

You get Prime cheaper if you're a college student, btw.

Prime also entitles you to a certain amount of free media if you have a kindle, but I haven't found myself taking advantage of that very much. They don't make it easy to search books based on prime availability so I don't really find it worth the hassle most of the time.

I like having prime but I don't know if I would choose to spend the money on it (DH signed up without asking me so I get the benefits without the angst Very Happy

) But it is definitely a huge convenience. It's amazing how they roped us in - you get used to the convenience of free shipping with a $25 order. $35 still not hard. Then you get a free trial of Prime. Before you know it you're so used to shopping on Amazon that even when they start raising the fees you're not really sold on stopping - nu, most other sites don't have free shipping under $50 either. Target becomes a reasonable competitor (free shipping and 5% off with red card) but the selection is much more limited. And pricing on Target is more consistently average, while Amazon is a toss-up where sometimes you do really well. So I'm kind of like... yeh, take my money already and let's go on with life as we know it.

Shoshie

Sun, May 15 2016, 11:36 pm

I didn't renew my Prime membership because I didn't use it enough to justify the cost. So far I haven't missed it.

Walmart will shortly be offering a similar two-day shipping program at $49 a year, but according to their website not all items are included.

HelloG

Mon, May 16 2016, 12:35 am

I found that I order a lot more stuff with prime.... More than what I need

fluffernutter

Mon, May 16 2016, 1:58 am

If you ever just need it for something specific or for a short period of time, they have this new thing where you can get Prime for a month (I guess after you do the free month trial) for $11 I think. Its not worth it if you'll use it more than 9 months a year, but its good for that once in a while.

Mon, May 16 2016, 3:09 am

I use it for streaming video as well as well as shopping, and it comes out to about the same cost as other streaming services. I don't do a lot of impulse buying, so that isn't a problem, and I enjoy the convenience of not having to batch purchases to avoid shipping fees. Works for me.

happy12

Mon, May 16 2016, 3:49 am

If you have a .edu email as a student the first year is free ( may only be 6 months now). After that its $49.99 a year.
I use it a lot for college book rentals. They did not verify the .edu acct after the first registration so far my son is in his 3 year college so I figure I have another year to go.
After that I have other children who will be in college.
I was able to register under my own email address but had to provide his .edu address so he can verify the link. After that they never requested or used his account again.

At $4.50 a month I definitely find it useful.

little_mage

Mon, May 16 2016, 4:42 am

We love our prime. What really adds the value for us is the video, though. I think I would find it a lot less worth it just for the shipping, but we do a lot of video streaming, and that is definitely worth the price.

cnc

Mon, May 16 2016, 5:14 am

I pay $49 a month because I have a student email address (from quite a while ago I should add) , and it's totally worth it for me.
I order everything from there and it come within 2 days maximum. Most stuff are free returns too.

Rubber Ducky

Mon, May 16 2016, 5:51 am

My married son uses our prime account (uses our password) to order items he and his family need and can have the merchandise shipped to his address, so I guess we share the account. Prime is definitely worth it to us.

thanks

Mon, May 16 2016, 6:00 am

Rubber Ducky wrote:

You can share Prime with four members of the household. They can set up their own username and password.

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