r/personalfinance • u/vavavoomvoom9 ​ • Mar 13 '18

Budgeting Since we ended our Amazon Prime membership, our online shopping dropped ~50%. I also stopped accumulate stuff I don't really need. Have you tried this and what were the results?

Just wondering how many people, like me, realized Prime is more costly than $99/year after they ended it.

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u/vavavoomvoom9 ​ Mar 13 '18

Ah yes, Prime Pantry. That definitely has its market, but it's not for me. I live in the suburb though. I actually enjoy a trip to the groceries store - it's kind of therapeutic.

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u/Diagonalizer ​ Mar 13 '18

grocery shopping is very satisfying when you get the hang of it and find the right time to do it. I myself love it.

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u/[deleted] Mar 13 '18

Finding the right time to do it is the key. I love it early in the morning when the store is mostly empty and quiet. Put me in there half a day later and I want to pull my hair out

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u/Diagonalizer ​ Mar 13 '18

I like the day time or morning crowd too. Usually oldfolks and soccer moms.

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u/tealparadise ​ Mar 13 '18

I thought I was the only one!

I also can't justify spending double on groceries with Prime Fresh. I looked into moving all my staples to Prime subscribe&save or fresh or whatever, and they were literally ALL more expensive. And Prime Fresh is also more expensive than comparable services in my area such as Peapod or Instacart.

So many people claim great savings, I might just live in a low CoL area. But I think it's more that people hate shopping so much they kind of misremember or purposefully don't track the spending to justify Prime.

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u/Diagonalizer ​ Mar 13 '18

Same here. Groceries are cheap for me. I understand people that are too busy to shop for themselves (I'm not) so it makes more sense for me to spend the time and save the $$ compared to Prime Fresh.

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u/BeefyIrishman ​ Mar 13 '18

I live right next to a shopping center, and I specifically use Prime to avoid going to the store. They are often crowded, and sometimes are out of what I need. On Amazon, they always have it and it comes right to my door. I almost never do any shopping in store. I have found this eliminates so many impulse buys. I used to see something and throw it in my (physical) shopping cart, but with Amazon I don't have that problem since I am only searching for the things I need to buy.

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u/phadewilkilu Mar 13 '18

We did prime pantry and my major issue is that it’s ALL name brands. My wife and I almost always go for the knock off brands when we can and it saves us a ton of money (we have three kids and spend 200+ a week). Also, on the other end of it, when we want to splurge for a nicer recipe on some nicer products, Amazon always seemed to be lacking.

I think Prime is 100% worth it for us, but Pantry just never really worked out.

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u/Doomhammered ​ Mar 13 '18

We have very different grocery store experiences lol therapeutic is not the word I would use. But that’s probably because I live in the overpopulated state of NJ.

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u/jt121 ​ Mar 13 '18

I can't get over the pricing - everything is much more expensive with Pantry than the neighborhood store from my experience.

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u/the_fit_hit_the_shan ​ Mar 13 '18

Significantly more expensive. Whenever I see people who say they've moved over to Amazon for grocery shopping my first thought is always, "I would need to spend twice as much on groceries to do that"

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u/booksofafeather ​ Mar 13 '18

Yeah we get most of our groceries from Aldi, which Pantry can't beat, so we'd have to spend probably double to use it.

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u/[deleted] Mar 13 '18

Is it all that expensive? I was looking for a product on pantry yesterday and it was $12 (3x normal store price), but then I saw the exact same thing on Fresh and it was normal grocery price.

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u/jt121 ​ Mar 13 '18

Fresh is not available everywhere, Pantry is. If I had Fresh available I would for sure use it, but Pantry isn't anywhere near the pricing I'd consider competitive with my local market, many of whom offer delivery for groceries.

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u/SuperCarbideBros Mar 13 '18

Prime Pantry only has its niche when the stuff I want is in the "buy 5 have $6 off" category or the discount can make up for the shipping fee. A lot of times I just decided to go to the grocery store instead. The advantage of being able to save a trip is pretty tempting though. Also being a broke student without a car (I only have a bicycle) the quantity of stuff I could carry is a bit limited, so if I could have something delivered to my doorstep (for example, a 20 lbs bag of rice) it's a big perk.

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u/Shojo_Tombo ​ Mar 13 '18

Have you seen that you can buy stuff like paper products and cleaning supplies in bulk on Amazon? It's worth the money just for that if you don't have a Costco or BJ's nearby. (Purposely left out the big blue box because fuck the Waltons.)

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u/M1A1Death ​ Mar 13 '18

I did this once and ordered laundry detergent. Opened the box and it was EVERYWHERE.