What Is Amazon Prime? * Spotlight My Health

I have to admit that I really don’t like shopping, but I do shop with Amazon. It’s just soooo convenient. And even though I do go to other sites to shop, I always tend to come back to Amazon. Here’s why. The Prime Membership, of course.

I’ve gotten spoiled not having to pay for shipping as a Prime Member. I get fast, free shipping on eligible purchases (which is easy). Also included is streaming of movies and original Prime shows, unlimited reading and exclusive shopping deals.

I also get Prime Music which my family and I use all the time. You may not even use all the benefits and feature of a Prime Membership, but just the convenience of Amazon is work it to me.

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Is A Prime Membership Worth It?

In 2018, the cost of the Prime Membership was $99.00 and I thought it was a steal. But that year, the membership cost increased by 20% bringing the annual fee to $119.00. I hesitated continuing our membership.

But then I had to remind myself how much my family uses Amazon. There is barely a week that goes by, that a package or two isn’t delivered from Amazon.

Because of the free shipping, we tend to turn to Amazon as one of our first shopping establishments, especially since Covid started. And we have ordered everything from different tools to baby aspirin.

So, I would bet that we went through that $119 cost fairly quickly at the beginning of the year in no time. Matter of fact, I just sat and counted our orders from today, back to June. Total count of orders: 63.

That’s not 63 items, but 63 deliveries made to the house as I counted the delivery dates. When I break down and order something from another merchant, I’ve noticed that my shipping cost is not less than $7.00.

That amounts to $441.00, if I take that shipping total times the 63 deliveries, we’ve gotten in the last 5 months.

So, that means, my Prime Membership has saved us quite a bit of money just on shipping alone. And, on top of that, most of our orders arrive within 2-3 days, if not sooner.

Can’t beat that for service. And with Amazon Household, your whole immediate family gets to use the membership.

More Prime Benefits

You Can Also Pay Month to Month

If you prefer paying monthly, a Prime Membership is still worth the cost. An Amazon Prime membership is $12.99 per month, and a Prime Student membership is $6.49 per month.

For EBT and Medicaid holders, additional discounts bring the cost down to $5.99 per month. Paying month to month, the additional cost is only around $37 more than the annual membership fee.

If you’re a student and/or have access to a university email, you can save 50% on the yearly fee with Prime Student. And you’ll be able to share your Amazon Prime and most benefits with family members via Amazon Household making this Prime Membership and even better investment.

More Benefits

There are definitely more benefits for Prime members. For instance, you will get free two-day shipping, free same-day shipping, and free two-hour delivery on eligible items (and there are plenty of items), rewards and discounts only available to members, access to Prime Video, Prime Music, online photo storage, music and books, among other bells and whistles. And I can’t forget about Prime Day.

Prime Day is Amazon’s sitewide sale just for Prime members. This event can last from 24 to 48 hours and gives members discounts on everything from crockpots to TVs.

GET A FREE 30-DAY PRIME TRIAL

You may or may not be someone who is willing to pay extra for superior perks, but my family and I will keep paying for the membership as we feel we can’t lose.

But I thought I’d take a little more time and actually tell you about some of the other perks that come with Amazon Prime besides the free shipping on Prime items.

And to make the decision even easier on whether to get Prime, you can always give the free 30-day Prime trial a try. You should give it a spin and see how you and your family like it.

Amazon Prime Shipping

The annual price of $119 includes free two-day shipping on over 100 million items and free one-day shipping on more than 10 million items with no minimum purchase.

Without Prime, you’ll get free regular shipping if your order is over $25, but no two-day or one-day shipping.

And while expedited shipping is available for most of us when shopping elsewhere, it usually comes with an unfortunate high additional cost. However, Prime’s free, same day shipping on over a million items when you spend over $35 can save you money, time, and convenience.

Amazon Prime Video

Prime Video lets you stream from a large library of movies and TV shows for free, including Amazon Original content, and also rent the latest releases for low prices.

Prime members can also subscribe to over 100 channels (and only pay for the channels they want), including HBO, Showtime, and CBS All Access.

You also get unlimited photo storage and sharing, as well as 5 GB for videos and files

Amazon Photos

Amazon Photos lets you save and share unlimited full-resolution photos across desktop, mobile, and tablet, as well as share unlimited photo storage with up to five people.

Something you may want to think about: switching to a Prime Membership just for this benefit if you’re paying every month to increase your iCloud storage to make room for the photos on your phone.

Also available for you is five GB for videos and files. And a really nice feature is that Prime Photos comes pre-installed on Amazon devices, so you can also view your photos from your Fire TV and Echo Show.

Amazon Household

If you want to use Prime for your whole family, you can do so with Amazon Household. Prime Household can include two adults and up to four teens and four child profiles in your Household link.

This will allow everyone in the family to enjoy Prime benefits (free shipping, Prime Video, Prime Photos and share content like ebooks, audiobooks, games, and apps) without paying extra.

Amazon Household alone makes Prime an excellent investment for your family.

Household also allows parents to approve orders before they are place by your teens and you can also set parental controls on any digital content for your kids and teens.

TRY A FREE 30 DAY-TRIAL PRIME MEMBERSHIP

Prime Exclusive Deals

Rewards and discounts, like Lightning Deals, and a rewards credit card that gives you 5% cash back. I have the rewards credit card and I save and use the 5% cash back for something I really want, but don’t necessarily want to pay for.

Amazon saves the cash back and you can decide when you want to use it. Recently, I ordered two closet organizers and used my cash back and got one of the organizers almost free. Not bad.

Discounts and Rewards

Your Prime membership also makes you eligible for lots of exclusive deals; how can you not like that?

While Prime Day deals are top notch, you also get exclusive access to the following:

Lightning Deals

Prime members get early access of an extra 30 minutes to shop lightning deals (which typically last only for a few hours) before these deals are officially open. Just look for the “Prime Early Access” label as you shop any page.

Discounts or Rewards

When choosing no-rush shipping at checkout: If you can wait a few extra days for your order to arrive, you can either earn rewards on future purchases or receive discounts immediately.

These Rewards are automatically added to your account once your free No-Rush order ships and they are automatically applied to qualifying orders as well.

Reward Credit Card

A rewards credit card, with no annual fee or foreign transaction fees, gives you 5% back at Amazon.com and Whole Foods Market, 2% back at restaurants, gas stations, and drugstores, and 1% back on all other purchases.

You can redeem your points on Amazon as well as for cash back, gift cards, and travel.

Prime Pantry

With this benefit you can do a free 30-day trial, but Prime members can tack on $4.99 per month for access to thousands of household essentials, many of which are not available elsewhere on Amazon. Pantry-exclusive coupons save you even more money on these items.

Prime Wardrobe

Prime Wardrobe lets you try on your possible new style purchases at home. You choose three or more items across their many lines and try them on at home before you decide what you want to keep and pay for.

You have seven days to choose, and once you have decided, you just go to Amazon check out online and let them know your decision.

Then return the unwanted items in the free resealable box and prepaid shipping label provided by Amazon when you originally received your order.

If you are hesitant to buy clothes or shoes online, this is the feature for you. This, try-before-you-buy program would save you money in the long term.

Prime Reading

Prime members get access to Prime Reading. This feature lets you choose up to 10 titles at a time from more than 1,000 options as a perk of your Prime Membership. And Amazon First Reads gives you access to one free Kindle book every month. You will have access to books, magazines, and comics.

If you spend a lot on kids’ books, movies, TV shows, or educational apps and games here’s another good deal. Prime members pay only $2.99 per month for a single child or $6.99 for a family of four kids with FreeTime Unlimited.

This program gives members unlimited access to thousands of options for your kids books, movies and TV shows, etc. Start a trial here before committing.

With FreeTime, Unlimited, parents can set time limits, content filters and personalize the experiences of each child’s profile. This feature is available on Fire Tablets (books, videos, apps), Echo (audio), Kindle eReaders (books), and Android phones and tablets (books, videos).

Prime Music

Prime Music gives you free music streaming and discounted Amazon Music. It features a growing selection of 2 million songs which you can listen to ad-free and on-demand.

If you want even more music, Amazon Music Unlimited has a larger library of tens of millions of songs and lets you download them for offline listening on any device. This is available for only $7.99 per month.

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If you haven’t yet become a Prime member and have access to a .edu email, you can get a six-month trial of Prime Student at no-cost and then pay 50% less than other Prime users ($6.49 per month) after the trial ends.

You can do this for four years or until your indicated graduation date — whichever comes first.

Prime is also discounted for qualifying customers with an EBT or Medicaid card at just $5.99 per month.

Prime and Shopbob, East Dane and Woot

With each of these companies, you will get free standard shipping and returns by signing into your Amazon account.

Your Prime shipping benefits extend beyond Amazon.com. All you have to do is sign into your Amazon account while shopping at Shopbop, East Dane, and the flash deals at Woot!

Exclusive discounts on unlocked phones

If you want an unlocked phone because for greater freedom when not being tied to one phone carrier. Amazon reserves low prices for LG, Moto, and Nokia phones for Prime members.

Twitch.tv

Twitch is mostly used to watch video gameplay. As a Prime member, you get free two-hour delivery, a free Twitch channel subscription, pre-order price guarantee, a Prime-exclusive chat badge, and release date delivery. This feature starts at $4.99 per month for non-Prime members.

Time

Perhaps the biggest (and most valued) thing you will save with Prime is time. With free two-hour delivery on household items with Prime Now, free same-day shipping on over a million items, and consistent two-day shipping on everything else, you’ll save time commuting, browsing, price-matching, and waiting in lines.

And if you find yourself waiting in lines for new video game releases, you’ll save even more with free release-date delivery on new video games, books, music, and movies. You just have to be willing to wait until 7 p.m. the day-of, for delivery.

I have to say that my family and I love our Prime Membership and count on it for a lot of our shopping You should give the free trial a try to see if you will also like the membership.

Happy Holidays!