I am brand new to Amazon Prime. We signed up for the free trial, and are now at a point of deciding whether to pay the yearly fee or not. What’s the best way to make a decision about something like this? Ask your friends on Facebook of course. :)
This morning, I threw out the question “Do you have experience with Amazon Prime? Is it worth the yearly fee?” on my Heavenly Homemakers Facebook page. Within minutes, I had over 200 responses – most of which screamed a great big “YES! Do it! So worth it!”
Thanks, all. I knew I could count on you.
It seems that from your experience, the savings on free shipping pays for itself in no time – especially if you are planning to Christmas shop at Amazon (which I am). Many of you enjoy all the movies and TV shows you can watch for free, and who doesn’t love their orders delivered within just two days?!
Based on your rave reviews, we’ve decided to stick with it for now – especially with Christmas coming up.
Your turn to weigh in: Do you have experience with Amazon Prime? Is it worth the yearly fee? If you haven’t tried it yet, I’d suggest signing up for a free trial to see how you like it.
We love it!! We originally signed up as part of Amazon Mom to save on diapers and wipes, but we quickly found that it paid for itself in the shipping savings alone.
Yup, totally worth it!!!! Sometimes my days get so jam packed that that I almost forget I actually ordered it, and the two days fly by so quickly that it feels like only hours between order and delivery. Love it!!! Plus, I love letting my little guy watch Kipper, Mr. Rogers, and Caillou for free…. bonus!
Yes it sis so worth it. We’ve had it for 2 years now and it’s very nice to have and have the free shipping not to mention the great deals you can find using Amazon Prime.
We have Amazon Prime, and we LOVE it.
Yes, very worth it for us! It isn’t just the free 2-day shipping, it is also all the free videos that are commercial free, Kindle-lending library and Amazon Mom (which you can only join if you are a Prime member). We have saved a LOT of money through Amazon Mom Subscribe & Save on toilet paper, diapers, wipes, organic food and other toiletries because it gives you 20% off.
If you’re not using Subscribe & Save that comes along with Amazon Prime/Mom, you’re missing out! We have all our garbage bags, toliet paper, paper towels, ziplock storage bags, crackers, honey, etc shipped this way. HUGE savings and it comes straight to my door with free shipping. Definitely worth looking into!
Love, Love, Love!! Amazon Prime. I order from them all the time. Sometimes “free 2-day shipping” turns out to be free next day delivery which is nice. Love the subscribe-and-save with Amazon Mom savings. Watch free shows every once in a while. And it was a lifesaver on vacation in July when I inadvertently left some of our allergy-free/gluten-free foods at home. 2-day free shipping direct to the beach condo. Very nice.
We’ve had it for two years and LOVE it. We also have a Kindle and get free books and video. The free shipping fantastic. Can’t say enough good things about it!
We actually did the free trial at the beginning of December last year to take advantage for Christmas, and had to wrestle with the same choice just after New Year’s. We decided to give it a try, and don’t regret it one bit! I love that I can find some organic options that I can’t seem to find in local stores. I do also sometimes find prices that beat Azure Standard. Plus, it’s delivered to my door within 2 days. Love the subscribe & save as well. Easy to modify to make it work for you, and love saving 20% off the price when I can get 5 subscribe & save items sent in the same month. Before when we needed something, we would hit the local stores. Now we actually start at amazon for a lot of things to see if we can get the best price there. And how can you really beat delivered to your door (saving time & gas money) and not paying tax (hope that doesn’t change)! Wish we would have bought amazon stock a few years back because it is a great way to shop! :)
When life is crazy and it’s not always possible to get out of the house to run errands, Amazon is a life-saver. I bet I’d save $80 in gas in a year just from getting to stay home! Plus quite often when I’m shopping for that perfect something, I’ll check Amazon and they’ll have it cheaper.
Someone else might have told you this already, but you can share your free shipping benefits with up to four “family” members! Just go into manage your prime account and you will see where you can invite others. You need their email address that is associated with their Amazon account and their month and day of birth. They need to know your month and day of birth as well in order to accept the offer. Enjoy it, I love it, especially because I am buying more and more off of Amazon for the convenience.
To play devils advocate, here’s why I don’t have Amazon Prime:
I always order at least $25, which gives me free shipping. It’s never a problem to find something small to add to my order if needed to reach the $25.
I use the subscribe and save feature about every other month; it doesn’t require Amazon Prime.
I’m already paying for cable TV, don’t feel the need for additional videos or shows.
With Prime, you can only borrow one Kindle book a month. Most months, I borrow about a dozen Kindle books from my public digital library.
Bottom line, to me it’s not worth the membership fee just to get my orders a day or two sooner…and I order a lot from Amazon.
Same for us,Pearl.
We just cancelled Amazon Prime after the 30 day free trial. yes it was nice to have the quick free shipping, but we can just wait and use the free shipping over $25. We usually have something little we know we will need that we can add on to an order to get to $25. we have Netflix so the free videos didn’t seem that great. We order a lot off of Amazon, but it wasn’t a good fit for the $79 to just get the products sooner.
LOVE IT!!!! You get free shipping on practically everything AND free streaming of tons of shows. It has pretty much all the videos that Netflix does not. I get a discount for being a student so I only pay $39 a year.
Craig recently wrote about this: http://www.moneyhelpforchristians.com/amazon-prime-a-great-way-to-cut-costs-on-several-different-fronts/
I agree with the others, for shopping, the shipping will pay for itself in no time. And 2 day delivery is awesome!
BUT if you’re thinking about using it for movies and TV, I just don’t think it’s as good as Netflix. It isn’t very user friendly. But it has a lot of the same programs as Netflix, so that’s nice.
Agree with everyone else. We do a lot of shopping on Amazon and free 2 day shipping has been totally worth the $79 a year!
We are on a tight budget and Amazon Prime is one of the few “extras” that we feel is worth the yearly fee. We’ve been members for 3 years now and it has saved us so much time and money. Like others, we have found great deals on groceries and household supplies. Plus, they have coupons that you can “clip” to save even more.
We’ve also saved a tremendous amount on clothing, electronics, and other items. The emergency back-up battery in our garage door opener died a few months ago. A new battery was going to cost us $100. We checked Amazon and the same battery was just $17, plus free 2-day shipping!
I’ve also found good quality khakis and polo shirts for my husband for $5 and under, which has been a huge blessing since I rarely have time to search the thrift stores for good deals.
We LOVE the free movies on Amazon Prime! We’re not into TV shows, but we look forward to family movie night every Saturday. We used to spend $3-4/month at redbox (cheaper than Netflix), but now we just go to our watch list on Amazon and pick out a movie. The redbox savings alone pay for half of the prime membership! Not to mention, the convenience.
Can you tell I’m a huge fan of Prime? :)
I have had Prime for 2 years and love it. I do share the shipping with family. Getting books for school, pajamas, food, and the movies are great. I always compare prices but usually the price is very good! Netflix doesn’t offer many of our favorite shows any longer, but they are on Amazon. The Christmas savings alone are worth it!
Wanted to mention one way we use Prime (in addition to the ways other folks have described): shipping things to our college students. We currently have two children in college. I can send them healthy snacks, toiletries, etc all at prime shipping. They also use Prime to save on textbooks. When my daughters’ get their required book list they go to Amazon and search for the cheapest used versions that are prime eligible. They like having hard copies they can make notes in. By ordering they can have their books in 2 days–even if the only book they need is a $3 paperback. Sometimes the school bookstore is sold out of used copies-Prime allows us to buy used yet still get the books in a timely manner.
I purchased a Kindle this year and I did sign up for Amazon Prime. Not only has it benefitted me for my Kindle (such as being able to borrow books and try them out for free, PLUS getting free books) but since we switched to Roku we are able to watch videos on our TV. With Amazon Prime we can get many movies & shows absolutely free. I also order online a lot and the free shipping and discount prices really are beneficial. With everything Prime offers it was well worth the money and it has paid for itself many times over!!!!
Yes! We have literally purchased everything on Amazon, from kid’s presents, food, and car parts. Totally worth the investment!!
My husband has saved unbelievable amounts of money using Amazon Prime to ship struts and MANY other and other car parts when we need to work on one of our cars. Think about how heavy car parts can get and you can imagine the savings. I use it for homeschool books and supplies, gifts to send directly to family out of state… for eveyrthing. I know our annual Prime fee pays for itself during the holidays for us. Keep it and give it a full run. I’d be amazed if you don’t see savings.
Since Amazon put the commercial out that they did I closed my account and stopped buying from them. They are very non-Christian. I know a lot of Christian authors use them to sell their books and we have a Kindle and lots of free classic books but my conscience would not allow me to continue to provide support to their cause. Sorry.
don’t forget you can share the membership with up to 4 friends or family bringing the yearly fee down to as little as $20/year.
We don’t have Prime right now. I think the convenience would be wonderful, especially for things that you order regularly. You will probably see a benefit for your family and the variety of items available is amazing. Remember, if you spend a lot at Amazon I believe you may be responsible for paying taxes on your purchases at the end of the year. The savings is still probably worth it.
I have had prime for 3 years now and can’t imagine not having free 2 day shipping. We purchase A LOT of items via Amazon and save A TON with this service. I got a year free when I started and have been hooked ever since.ONe great feature is the lending library. I love it because I get one book a month for free instead of having to purchase it. Dont get me wrong I love having printed and bound books but sometimes the electronic version is great and takes up no space in my home. I can read it and return it without worry of loosing damaging a library book. Prime does that for me as a bonus. LOVE IT!!!!
Totally worth it! We use it often.
Love it! It saves me a crazy amount of gas $. (And yes, I know it’s not good for the environment to make the UPS truck come down my road every week, but…..) I can’t tell you the amount of times I think I need to go to that special store across town to pick up “x” and then I remember I can stay right here in my cozy house, click a button, and have it on my porch in two days. I think it also saves me $ because I’m not tempted to pick up extra items in the store when I’m there.
I eat gluten free and buy lots of flour, oatmeal and other food products off amazon.