Amazon Prime Review {and Stacking Savings with Ebates}

I don't do many reviews here on Two It Yourself, but I thought I would share one with you today as we quickly approach the holiday.  I don't know about you, but we've been enjoying the first days of holiday vacation at home playing with what will soon be the 'old' toys and watching some fun movies -- many of them thanks to our Amazon Prime subscription.

A few weeks before Thanksgiving my husband suggested we finally shell out the $79 and get Amazon Prime.  If you're not familiar with the Amazon.com program  you get 2 day free shipping on any item that's part of Prime.  It's certainly not everything on Amazon because many items are sold through a third party, but it is a lot.  What I didn't realize, but my husband was quick to point out, is the Prime membership also gets you unlimited access to a database full of nearly 15,000 tv shows and movies, as well.

When I was a new mom, I was part of Amazon's Mom's Club which rewarded you with months of Amazon Prime if you spent more than $25 dollars in a single purchase.  That's easy to do when you're buying diapers and wipes - but what's better is having them delivered free to your door just two days later.  Often, I would get them the next day.   Anyway, I knew I liked the two day free shipping when it was free, but would it be worth it to pay for it?  That means it's not really free shipping...it's basically $79 for the year.   But add the movie and tv show bundle on top of that and I think I'm sold.

I signed up and got my free month subscription for Prime and then we let Amazon automatically charge us for the year-long subscription.  I can tell you that I did not make one trip to the mall this busy holiday season.  I did not pay for one item to be shipped, and I did not wait longer than two days for anything to arrive at my door.   We didn't rent any movies or shows On Demand and we didn't visit the Red Box.  Instead, we streamed all of our movies and tv shows through Amazon Instant Video.  I don't care to watch movies on my laptop, so we watch them on our full size TV by streaming them through our wi-fi enabled Playstation.   The convenience and price are right!

Oh, and the icing on the cake for me was doubling up Ebates and Amazon.  If you're not familiar with Ebates, I suggest you get to know it! This site is crazy cool.  You go to Ebates.com and then use the search box to find an online store you want to shop at...like Amazon!  Then Ebates takes you directly to Amazon and you shop and checkout like normal.  Ebates then cuts you a check for a percent on your final purchase price.  I just got my first check in the mail this week....

...and as you can see from this screen shot of my account, I have more pending.

This is all Ebates money I've earned just while shopping for Christmas gifts - I'm only upset I didn't know about this site earlier. Hello! Why would you NOT do this? I spent like $200 at JCrew and they gave me $13 FREE money.

Anyway..that's my two cents on both Ebates and Amazon Prime and why I love them both.

 

 

In full disclosure, I am an Amazon Affiliate and I get a referral fee for referring Ebates customers.  I was not compensated for this review and all opinions are my own. 

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