Category: News

Amazon Prime Video Adds Ads, Becomes a Bit Subprime

Amazon emailed Prime members today, letting them know that, beginning January 29, Prime Video will begin including ads within programming. Of course, for an additional $2.99 per month, you can maintain the ad free experience you have had until now.

Amazon wants you to know that you still get lots of other value out of your prime membership, so this is not so bad.

Prime is a very compelling value. Prime members enjoy a wide range of shopping, savings, and entertainment benefits, including:

 

  • More than 300 million items are available with free Prime shipping and tens of millions of the most popular items are available with free Same-Day or One-Day Delivery.
  • Access to exclusive and broad streaming video content (including Prime Video exclusives like The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power, The Boys, Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan, Citadel, The Wheel of Time, Reacher, and The Summer I Turned Pretty, as well as blockbuster movies such as Air, Creed III, Dungeons & Dragons, Candy Cane Lane with Eddie Murphy, and exclusive live sports including NFL Thursday Night Football).
  • Access to Prime Video Channels, which provides an unmatched selection of subscription channels like Max, Paramount+ with SHOWTIME, BET+, MGM+, ViX+, Crunchyroll, PBS KIDS, NBA League Pass, MLB.TV, and STARZ—with no extra apps to download, and no cable required. Customers only pay for the ones they want, and can cancel anytime.
  • The ability to use your Prime shopping benefits—like fast, free delivery, a seamless checkout experience, 24/7 live chat support, and hassle-free returns—on online stores beyond Amazon.com with Buy with Prime.
  • Exclusive deals and shopping events like Prime Day.
  • Ad-free listening of 100 million songs and millions of podcast episodes with Amazon Music.
  • Prescription medications as low as $1 per month and fast, free shipping from Amazon Pharmacy.
  • Access to unlimited eligible generic prescription medications for only $5 per month (including free shipping) with RxPass from Amazon Pharmacy.
  • High-quality health care from One Medical for only $9 per month (or $99 annually), with the option to add up to five additional memberships for the family for only $6 per month (or $66 annually) each.
  • Free two-hour Fresh grocery delivery on orders over $100 (and delivery charges between $6.95 to $9.95 for orders less than $100), and in-store savings on select groceries at Amazon Fresh and Whole Foods Market stores across the U.S.
  • Unlimited photo storage with Amazon Photos.
  • Gaming benefits with Prime Gaming.
  • More than 3,000 books and magazines with Prime Reading.
  • A free, one-year Grubhub+ membership trial valued at $120 per year, offering unlimited $0 delivery fees on orders over $12.

 

And, you can expect additional features and programs added in the future for our Prime members.

Notice that over the years, Prime 2 day free shipping has quietly morphed into the non-committal “free Prime shipping”.

Other streaming services have also been raising prices and adding tiers with ads. We guess the party is over.

What do you think of this change?

MegaMillions Irresponsible And Bizarre Promotion

Mega Millions tickets

It shouldn’t come to our readers that lottery tickets are not a good investment and are certainly not a retirement planning tool. But we were surprised to see “Save For Retirement” prominently featured at megamillions.com presumably as something MegaMillions might allow one to do.

This is an irresponsible and dangerous message. We understand that people enjoy buying lottery tickets for the chance it gives them to dream of a major change in their lives. However, lottery tickets are not a retirement saving tool.  We call upon MegaMillions and the states behind it to immediately cease this misleading promotion and stick to promoting the lottery in a responsible way.

Be One of The People Paying their Credit Card Bills On Time

Credit cards Français : Cartes de crédit Itali...

Late Credit Card Payments are the lowest they’ve been in seventeen years. This is despite an increase in the use of credit cards. People are cutting back on the number of cards they carry and accumulating less debt in general.

Credit cards are great…if you pay them off. It is often too easy to lose track of how many money you have because you can spend much more with a credit card. As long as you pay off the bill by the due date, a credit card is essentially a short-term loan. The downsides only come when you can’t pay.

There are also benefits that come with credit card purchase that users may or may not take advantage of. Fraud protection is the most often appreciated benefit of credit cards. The credit card company is assuming the fraud risk.

But people forget that credit cards also offer extended warranty services. Of course, the risk of these is that you need to retain your receipts and your manufacturers warranty, or your claim may be denied. They offer options like car rental loss, purchase protection, travel accident/trip cancellation insurance, emergency assistance, and more.

While limited yourself to one credit card is a potentially frugal move, having two allows you to have something to handle your business should an account unexpectedly be frozen, for whatever reason.

In this modern computerized world, paying off your credit card on time is easy. The credit card company will let you automate the payments. you can tell it to pay the full amount on or around the due date. You’ll never worry about missing a payment again. And instead of going through and reviewing the bill, then setting up a payment…you can assume the payment should be made, and your review is to only override what you would, in a normal month, ultimately do…pay your bill.

Related articles