I would never have sprung for Amazon Prime on my own.
But my son AJ doesn't worry about money as much as his dear old mother does and he kept it after his free trial last January. I used his account a few times to get a couple of things shipped overnight but we both felt a little weird about that. Maybe Amazon wouldn't like that.
Then as Christmas started getting closer I started doing a bit more shopping and I wanted to make sure we weren't doing something wrong. The two of us were imagining the horror of being banned from shopping at Amazon when we've both grown so fond of it.
Shipping for up to four eligible household members
So I did some research and I was so thrilled to discover that Amazon allows “up to four eligible household members living in your household (at the same address) to enjoy your free trial or paid Prime membership at no extra cost.” I was thrilled to see that that is an option that Amazon is perfectly fine with our using the same Prime account. I had AJ send me an invitation right away and I got signed up so that I could order with my own account. We already split the cost of the Prime last January, which is $79 per year. It's about time for AJ to renew the membership and I am more than happy to put in my $40 to use the service.
This is also an acceptable option for companies. We don't shop too much from Amazon at my job, but if we did it would sure be handy if more than one of us could use the account to get two day shipping free.
Free Two Day Shipping or $3.99 Overnight Shipping Per Item
I do love ordering from Amazon and getting my order in two days with free shipping. That just sweetens the pot. Of course the biggest perk is the fact that I can get my order shipped overnight, if I'm willing to pay $3.99 per item, which as you can imagine is not very often. I used it several times the week before Christmas. My mother-in-law had expressed an interest in my spiralizer (Plastic Spiral Vegetable Slicer
I learned a little trick… if you don't want to pay $3.99 for everything you're ordering to be shipped overnight, simply order that one item alone. Otherwise you'll get hit with $3.99 for everything. Simple, just remove the other items to purchase later, leaving the one item you need tomorrow, and then come back and put everything back into your cart.
Now this doesn't apply to every single vendor selling through Amazon, so that is where the checkbox on the side to select Amazon Prime comes in when you're searching for a product. Just click on that to limit the items you'll see to the ones that can be shipped by Amazon Prime.
Click here to learn more about Amazon Prime.
Have you considered using Amazon Prime? If you can split the cost with another family member or two would you be more inclined to keep the service after your free trial membership?
*This post contains Amazon Affiliate Links
You can sweeten that pot a little further by using the Amazon Chase card to buy your order and receive 5% cash back reward.
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Mrs. Accountability Reply:
January 29th, 2011 at 4:16 pm
@midactsdeb, is it a cash back reward now? It used to be 3% but we could only get back in gift certificate. I used to use this card but decided to retire it since I found myself being a little careless in spending while using it. Thanks for the heads up on the cash back reward, one of my readers may be able to take advantage.
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Also as an FYI for any students out there who love Amazon Prime – students can sign up for one year free if they use their .edu email address. In the event that you already paid for Amazon Prime – no worries. Amazon happily refunded $39 of my membership I purchased in July when I signed up for Amazon student.
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Sandy Reply:
January 8th, 2011 at 12:50 pm
I LOVE that amazon has a student account. I use it when I order books for my classes!
I also didn’t know about the Amazon search box here! Definitely good to know. 🙂
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Mrs. Accountability Reply:
January 29th, 2011 at 3:57 pm
@Sandy @ Journey To Our Home, that is great that Amazon has a student account. I don’t think I knew that. Thanks in advance if you use my Amazon search box to start your shopping. 🙂
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Mrs. Accountability Reply:
January 29th, 2011 at 4:13 pm
@Melissa, thank you for sharing this information! Good to know!
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My daughter signed up for it to buy some presents. She needed it delivered by a certain date.
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Mrs. Accountability Reply:
January 29th, 2011 at 4:12 pm
@krantcents, has your daughter mentioned how she likes Amazon Prime? I think she can cancel at any time if she doesn’t feel like it is worth having. Thanks for sharing!
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I’m a big fan of Amazon as well.
I never use Prime, though. I just wait until I have $25 worth of items and take advantage of the free shipping.
Right before Christmas, I ordered a couple of items. One of them is kind of a specality book (Ron Shandler’s Baseball Forecaster, an annual publication for geeky baseball fans) and there was a notation that there would be a couple extra days delay before shipment. Not a problem at all.
Two days later, not only had the order been shipped, but it was on my doorstep. Mind you, this was a couple of days before Christmas – a busy time of the year for Amazon.
Recently, I created a new Amazon account so that I could separate our personal account and my business account (essentially, just a shell account for my Amazon Affiliates account). I was worried that shifting the Amazon Affiliates history to the new account would be problematic. I had a fair number of links in my content, and didn’t want to change the affiliate ID in all of them.
The process couldn’t have been easier.
1) Create new account
2) Log into affiliate account and add the email address from the new account as an address that is tied to the affiliate account (and then verify)
3) remove the old email address
Voila! My Amazon Affiliate history now shows up in my business Amazon account.
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Mrs. Accountability Reply:
January 29th, 2011 at 4:11 pm
@Kosmo, that’s what I used to do before my son decided to get Amazon Prime. Now I guess I am just spoiled. 🙂 Thanks for sharing the steps to having the secondary account, that is helpful information. Do you have an easily accessible link or search box where I could start my Amazon shopping so that you get the affiliate referral fees? 🙂
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Kosmo Reply:
January 29th, 2011 at 8:56 pm
@Mrs. Accountability, Sure – http://www.amazon.com/?&tag=thecasobs-20&camp=216797&creative=394533&linkCode=ur1&adid=0CPH4HETA8Q5H4R1QY51
I actually have an ad for them on the front page of The Soap Boxers 🙂
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Mrs. Accountability Reply:
January 29th, 2011 at 11:42 pm
@Kosmo @ The Soap Boxers, cool, thanks for the link. But I went and looked again for your Amazon ad, and I don’t see it. How am I missing it?!
I heart Amazon Prime. We shop enough with Amazon to make it worth our while. The first $1000 offsets our state sales tax of over 8%, the rest is “free”….
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Mrs. Accountability Reply:
January 29th, 2011 at 3:52 pm
@101 Centavos, that is a pretty good deal! I hope you are using someone’s affilate links to go through when shopping if you spend $1000 every year! That would be a nice little chunk of change in someone’s pocket. I go to a few different affiliates when I shop so that someone gets a little cut for the shopping I do. By the way, I do keep a search box on my site in case you ever think about starting your shopping here so that I get the affiliate fees. I am using all affiliate fees directly toward our credit card debt. Thanks for visiting and commenting!
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I have free prime from the Amazon Mom deal. Love it! I used it for textbooks and got used books delivered in two days, which I bought with Swagbucks = free. Excellent!
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Mrs. Accountability Reply:
January 29th, 2011 at 3:45 pm
@The Saved Quarter, neat! That is awesome that you got them free on top of free shipping! Way to go!
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We were just talking about how many people can use Amazon Prime in a household, and you answered it perfectly! Thanks so very much!!! Amazon Prime provides a lot of advantages, and we were also worried about losing our ability to access it. Much appreciated!
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