Is Amazon Prime worth the annual fee?

As a resistant shopper and a pretty tough upsell, I’m generally the despair of anyone selling extended warranties, department-store credit cards and other impulse or point-of-sale add-ons.

But on a whim last year I signed up for Amazon.com’s Prime service, and as renewal  time looms, I have to say it’s worth the $79 tab. 

I placed 46 Amazon orders in 2012, for items ranging from DVDs and books to ironing-board covers, pink Himalayan salt, a refurbished wireless router, a bathroom fixture, canned goods and pantyhose.  Figuring shipping would’ve run $6-8 per order or more (or $3.99 for the penny used books I’m prone to buy) I’d say the deal turned out to be greatly in my favor — and the items generally showed up on my doorstep within two days.

Aside from the monetary savings, the Prime service helped conserve my sanity by eliminating a lot of dithering.  If you’re like me, suffering from information overload and decision fatigue, being spared yet another pro/con mental argument (“I could get the ironing-board cover at Target, but will they have the right color and is my time worth the savings in shippng costs?, blah blah”) is worth a pretty penny as well.  I found Prime spared me numerous errands to discount stores, which probably conserved funds I would’ve spent on unplanned purchases there, as well as wear & tear on my body, mind and vehicle.  I can shop at hours convenient to me, click and cross another item off of my to-do list.

That’s a lot of value for about 22 cents a day, so I’ll definitely be renewing for another year.  I’m confident now that the lure of free-shipping doesn’t generate a frenzy of unnecessary shopping, and while I feel bad for bricks and mortar stores that can’t provide the same deal, it works for me right now.  (Note that Sears and Kmart offer a similarly priced free-shipping/VIP service through their Shop Your Way rewards program, and I’ve had great mail-order service from Kmart on household staples — but they don’t sell used books and many other products I want.)

Two other minor but potentially fruitful aspects of Prime:  It also allows for a lot of free video viewing, which I haven’t had time to access but may well on some long winter evenings.  If it turns out that Amazon will fill the need currently being served by Netflix, I’ll cancel the flix and save $7.99 per month.  Also, during the holiday rush, Amazon’s checkout process sometimes offered me the option of forfeiting two-day service in exchange for a promotional credit.  When I didn’t need the item right away, I agreed, and now have $9 to spend in its video library — though the credit expires Jan. 31, which seems to me a rather short redemption period.

 

Happy New Year from MsMiser!

Once again, Ms Miser attempts a fresh, frugal start.   Here’s to a prosperous and productive 2013!

Kicking the year off with this food for thought from The Atlantic, “The 11 Ways Consumers are Hopeless About Math.”   I’m not sure I buy them all, but some of the anecdotes offer interesting glimpses into behavioral finance; now you’ll know that $400-plus breadmaker was just a decoy to make the $200 one look good!

MsMiser needn’t worry about merchants’ ploys, for a while anyhow, because her January motto will be that adopted by sufferers in the Great Depression:  “Use it up, wear it out, make it do or do without!”

(That especially goes for that bright-yellow half-bag of Better Made potato chips on the kitchen counter — when it comes to Better Mades I’ll regretfully be migrating from “use it up” to “do without” for the new year.  I hope.)

Watch those expiration dates on air miles and other points programs

Delta sent out a welcome e-mail this morning notifying members that from now on, SkyMiles mileage points have no expiration date. The company claims to be the only major U.S. carrier to extend the life expectancy of frequent-flyer miles indefinitely.

Since most of my miles are with Delta, I’m happy about the change and hope other air carriers follow suit.

Meanwhile, you might want to take a moment to check expiry dates for your miles or for any other rewards programs you’ve entered.   It’s not always impossible to recoup lost points but avoiding the hassle in the first place is much easier on the blood pressure.

A couple of examples:

• I’ve been saving MyCokeRewards points for some time and had my eye on one of their offers — until my 658 credits suddenly evaporated on Dec. 26!  Amid the holiday bustle I hadn’t entered any fresh codes, nor noticed the warning e-mails.  Two rounds of e-mail and a phone call to Coke later, my credits were restored — quite graciously; it seems Coke has a policy of voiding the expiration on request.  But 30 seconds entering codes to keep the account alive could’ve saved me about an hour of aggravation.  And losing the points would’ve been stupid:  I used them to pay for a $40 gaming-site membership fee that otherwise would’ve been added to my credit-card bill.
• Though not a frequent Sears or Kmart shopper, I do belong to their points club and had purchased quite a few items of lounging apparel from their goofy new Rebecca BonBon apparel line, as gifts.  (Miss BonBon is Hello, Kitty’s cousin.)  On a Dec. 23 sundries run to Kmart, the clerk asked if I wanted to use my points and I said yes; she knocked a little over $5 off the bill.  Later I learned that my points expired Dec. 31 anyway, so that $5 would’ve been history long before my next trip to the Big K.
• After hoarding American Airlines miles for years, I finally have nearly enough for a free ticket — or did, until they expired last year.  Again, I belatedly noticed the warning e-mail, which looked like an airfare ad.  A frantic call to the points program divulged that proof  of any (pre-expiration date) spending at a program partner could resurrect my points; I found the receipt for a hotel stay in May that qualified.  Voila, my miles were restored — but again it involved tedious phone time and some legwork on the paper trail.

Check credit card, retail, airline, hotel and other points programs you’ve signed up for — note your points’ expiration dates and what you can do to keep them alive.  I wish I had known, for example, that Harry and David gift orders I place a couple times a year could’ve been racking up American Airlines miles for me, or that last year’s week-long rental from Hertz may have bulked up my Delta account.   Next time, I’ll know, and you should too!

Girding for grocery price hikes in 2011

Are you concerned about the barrage of food-price forecasts over the past few weeks?

One of the upsides of the post-recession economy has been the near-absence of inflation, particularly at the supermarket.  According to the year-end report on the Consumer Price Index by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, overall food inflation for 2010 was 1.5 percent.  That follows a half-percentage-point dip in 2009, so on a net basis our food costs are up one penny on the dollar since 2008.  The BLS says meats, poultry, fish, eggs and dairy gained the most, with cereals, bakery products and non-alcoholic drinks declining.

Recent reports and federal government forecasts predict a bigger gain in 2011.  Conventional wisdom (which not every pundit supports) says dwindling reserves of corn and greater use of the grain in ethanol production contribute to higher feed prices, so livestock and poultry cost more to raise.  Makers of corn flakes and the zillion other foods containing corn or corn syrup are paying more for raw ingredients, meaning you’ll pay more at the scanner.  Worldwide drought, crop failures, Midwest flooding expected during this year’s planting season — it’s all coming together and large manufacturers like Kraft already are signaling higher prices ahead.

I’m looking forward to sharing lots of money-saving strategies and tips on pantry parsimony — and hope you will too, in the comments section here.

But first, to put in perspective some of the angst, I looked up U.S. Department of Agriculture stats on how much of our income is devoted to grocery costs:

In 1929, American households spent 20.3 percent of disposable income on food at home, and 3.1 percent on food away from home, for a total of 23.4 percent of disposable income on edibles. Flash forward to 2009 and we spent 9.4 percent of our disposable income on eating — 5.5 percent on food at home and 3.9 percent on food away.  Less than 10 cents of every dollar we have available for spending can provide all of the nutrition we need — and, for most of, far more calories than we really should be consuming.  Even if that cost goes up by 10 percent — or another penny on the dollar — it seems to me we really can’t complain.

Especially compared to Kenya, where it takes 44 percent of household income to stay fed, or China (32.9 percent) or Brazil (24.7 percent) according to this USDA chart of other countries’ spending on food consumption.  Many countries don’t enjoy the bounty of choice we have, either, let alone the convenience.  So bookmark that chart — it might take the sting out of your 2011 grocery receipts.

And if you enjoy these factoids, poke around the USDA’s Economic Research Service online; it’s a smorgasbord of fascinating current and historical data.  And the USDA site itself is an enormous clearinghouse of not just farming-related news and information but all sorts of cool stuff about food, food regulation, diet, health, school lunch programs, international trade, you name it.  If you’re at all interested in the food economy, you’ll find plenty of useful stating points at www.usda.gov.

 

How to beat the high cost of … dry erase boards

Need more writing space to keep track of projects, lists and schedules?   Read on for a fast, inexpensive and easy alternative to commercial whiteboard products.

For a while now I’ve been yearning for more whiteboards in my home office and my sewing room — a desire quickly quenched by the high cost of dry erase at retail.  I toyed with the notion of slapping a few coats of dry-erase paint on the high-gloss white walls of those rooms, but online reviews for all such paints were tepid at best.   Both in application and in practice, users said the paint — which would probably ring up at about $50 for my project — was runny and didn’t erase very well when dry.

But, on the trail of those reviews, I stumbled across the fact that many whiteboards are made of common melamine — the plasticky stuff of collectible 20th-century Melmac dinnerware and more recently, as this Time article points out, the culprit behind tainted baby formula in 2008.

Because it’s also used, sort of like Formica, to laminate millwork, home improvement stores sell it in big sheets for very small prices.  I rushed to Lowe’s, where a helpful associate laid a 4′ x 8′ sheet on the vertical saw and in five minutes stacked my three desired sizes of white board onto a trolley; he also cut the 12-inch-wide scrap into three smaller boards for me.  Grand total:  $11.87 for boards that I priced at $188 at the office supply big-box down the road.   Another $3 for hanging hardware — the cutting was free — and off I went with a backseat full of new terrain for jotting brainstorms and keeping track of deadlines.

Granted, my boards aren’t framed, but they blend a bit better into my walls that way and I can always use on-hand materials like ribbon, bias tape and a glue gun to pretty them up if desired.  The barbed picture hangers stick through the 1/8″ thickness of the boards a bit; I plan to cover the barbs with something cute in my decor theme but a bead of white caulk or silicone would do just as well to bury the sharp points.

Even if you don’t crave dry erase boards, use this post as inspiration:  As with The Parsimonious Pout, you often can save money on wish-list items — or reasonable facsimiles of them — by breaking down the want or need into its component parts and sourcing them as economically as possible.

 

 

Swap party how-tos from Leah Ingram

Here at MsMiser we like to talk about using creativity and ingenuity to get what you want while conserving money and other resources.   In a guest post today, lifestyle authority Leah Ingram offers tips on holding a post-decluttering exchange, based on ideas from her latest book.  What a great idea, especially just ahead of spring cleaning season.  Enjoy!

 

Leah Ingram

How to Organize a Swap Event

By Leah Ingram

While my new book Toss, Keep, Sell! The Suddenly Frugal Guide to Cleaning Out the Clutter and Cashing In focuses on getting cash for your clutter, I realize that there are some things you want to get rid of where selling them doesn’t make the most sense. In some instances, swapping or trading your things is the best approach. That’s why I’ve dedicated an entire chapter in Toss, Keep, Sell! to swapping and trading. Here is a little taste of that chapter with some advice on how to organize a swap event.

A lot of people like the notion of swapping but don’t like the impersonal nature of swap sites. For these folks who want to give away their old stuff, get new things to take home, and enjoy face time with friends, a swap event is the perfect answer. And organizing a swap event isn’t as hard as you might think.

For example, if you want to have a clothing swap, you don’t have to stress out about inviting same-sized women only. Believe it or not, clothing swaps that welcome women of all shapes and sizes are the ones that people tell me are the best attended and received.

Think you want to organize a swap get together? Here are the steps to take.

First, you need to find a location. Most clothing swaps occur in people’s homes. It provides the intimacy of a small get together, and people can slip into the powder room when they need to try on something. However, there are other places where you can hold a swap. These include the conference room at someone’s office, a thrift shop or other clothing store that is amenable to hosting a swap, a local community center, or a house of worship.

Next, you need to communicate your swap’s “guidelines.” This will let people know what they can bring and what they should leave at home. Some swaps are specific to clothing and accessories only. Others allow people to bring household items along with books.

The only problem with expanding the boundaries of your swap beyond your original idea is that it makes it more difficult for people to find even exchanges. I would recommend starting with a clothing swap, with the understanding that people can bring anything that’s related to clothing—shoes, scarves, belts, and bags. Then you can assign a value that makes sense for everyone. For example, a pair of pants is worth two accessories, or something like that.

The other guideline you should communicate to your group is simple courtesy: make sure that anything you’re bringing to swap is clean (or at least fresh smelling) and in good enough condition that someone could wear it home. Stain, torn and worn-out clothes should go into a rag bin, not a “to be swapped” bin.

Now the only thing left to do is finalized the details, such as setting a date and time. If you’re inviting all moms, then having your swap meet during the day—when kiddies are likely in school—will help you to draw the most people. If your friends work, then clearly an evening or weekend date would be better. Give yourself at least two hours so no one feels rushed during the swap.

Finally, always arrange to donate unwanted clothes. Regardless of how much great stuff people bring, there is always going to be some clothing left over that no one wants. Rather than burden your guests with having to take their un-swapped items home, arrange it so that the next day you or one of your swap participants can make a trip to Goodwill or another place where you can donate those clothes.

Copyright 2011 Leah Ingram, Reprinted with permission from Toss, Keep, Sell! The Suddenly Frugal Guide to Cleaning Out the Clutter and Cashing In (Adams Media, 2010)  Check out Leah’s blog, SuddenlyFrugal.com, too.

 

Recycling wine corks, holiday lights and more

Being thrifty with the earth’s resources is as satisfying as pinching one’s own pennies, but finding the right recycling stream can be an onerous task.  Here are a few suggestions for proper disposal of common household trash items that otherwise would languish in landfills for centuries:

Wine corks: Yemm & Hart, a green materials contractor in Missouri, has been accepting donations of wine corks via mail with the goal of producing floor tiles and more from the discarded stoppers.  Last year I sent a large envelope of corks and a few weeks ago was pleasantly surprised to receive a small box of sample tiles — free of charge, no sales pitch involved — in return; they’ll make great mini bulletin boards in my office.  The company still is accepting corks at:  Wine Cork Recycling, Yemm & Hart Ltd, 425 North Chamber Drive, Fredericktown, MO, 63645.

Holiday lights: What do do with those half-lit strands of Christmas-tree lighting (which some of us use year-round as accent lighting, leading to more frequent burnouts.)?   A Jackson, Mich. company, HolidayLED.com, will accept lights you send and harvest the glass, metal  and plastic for recycling.  They’ll send you a 25-percent-off coupon good toward the purchase of their lighting products if you wish, in return for the donated scrap. Here’s a link to their recycling page for procedures and mailing info.  (Print it and stuff a copy in your Christmas decor box to have handy for next year.)

DVDs and CDs: CDRecyclingCenter.com says millions of the shiny discs end up in landfills every year;  they’ll accept discards via mail at:

The Compact Disc Recycling Center of America
68E Stiles Road
Salem, NH 03079

For about $10 in postage to mail these items away, you can buy a priceless amount of self-satisfaction.