For a frugal person the best way to save money shopping online is to not shop online at all. But for those of us that are not as frugal iTunes & Amazon can be a great way to save a lot of money while buying songs and movies.
Have you ever known someone who collects DVDs and yet they only watches them once? I sure have. Many take immense pride in the fact that they own over 300 DVDs. At an in-store average of $20 a DVD that is $6000 spent on DVDs you may only watch once. A similar situation is when people buy music CDs just so they can listen to that one song.
I do not know about you but I do not often re-watch movies. I do have a small collection of about 5 DVDs that I could watch again and again. But in general I will not be that impressed with a movie to want to watch it a second time, much less a third. I exclusively use iTunes for my renting and purchasing of both music and movies as I have an iPhone. It is much easier to transfer between the two. However, I include Amazon in this post because it is generally cheaper than iTunes. If you do not have a preference and just want to save money I highly suggest you check them both out as they can save you major cash.
For example, the price of the movie Rise of the Planet of the Apes is listed as $29.99 at Futureshop. If you buy it on iTunes you can pick it up for $19.99 or better yet $14.99 on Amazon. Renting the movie on iTunes at $4.99 or Amazon at $3.99 could save you around $15.00 if you don’t end up liking the movie.
- If you bought a movie off Amazon every week for a year you would spend a shocking $779.48. Alternatively if you rented them off of Amazon first you would only spend $207.48. This leaves a lot of room to buy the few movies that you think you will re-watch.
And yes, I do realize iTunes is a tad more expensive. However, for the no hassle transfers and anytime viewing I prefer to spend the little extra and go with iTunes.
Similarly for music, THE E.N.D. (Energy Never Dies) – Black Eyed Peas’ CD sells for $15.99 at Futureshop whereas if you buy it on iTunes you can pick it up for $10.99 or $12.16 on Amazon. But lets just say the only song I would want is ‘I gotta feeling’ . Why would I pay $15.99 (or $12.16 or $10.00) for the entire CD, when on iTunes the singular song sells for $1.29. Even better the same song lists for $0.99 on Amazon.
- If you bought a CD once a week at Futureshop you would spend $831.48. Now, if you only bought the songs you liked you could spend as little as $51.48 for the entire year.
I can imagine some of you are thinking ‘there is no way someone buys that many CDs and DVDs’ I assure you there are. There are even software to help you catalog your DVD collection.
I know that for most of you that read my blog probably are already aware of singular song purchasing and renting of money directly on the internet. However, I still see people buying CDs for that one song or buying a movie without having watched it. So please, if you know anyone that is a victim to the above do not hesitate to show them this article!
Do you have any tips on how to minimize costs with iTunes or Amazon?
I never really understood the people who build up a big DVD collection. I rarely watch a movie a second time. Who really has the time to be doing that? If you’re likely only going to be watching it once, you might as well just rent it. As for music, I’ve just been listening to the radio and most of the time I’m fine with that. I can’t remember the last time I bought a cd.
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I listen to a lot of radio as well. When I find songs I enjoy I will go to iTunes and buy it.
I love Amazon and if there is ever anything entertainment wise I go there first. The price doesn’t concern me too much because I now have several ways to get Amazon gift cards. You can sign up for Swagbucks or Superpoints and use your rewards for Amazon gift cards. I haven’t spent a cent at Amazon but have ordered quite a bit from there. As much as I want to I won’t spam you with my referral links though.
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Please do, is it easy to make money off of the two sites you mentioned?
I have found it pretty easy. Swagbucks is a search engine that you get rewards for periodically. There are other ways to earn from Swagbucks but the basic one is the search engine, so it rewards you for something you do anyway on Google but Swagbucks pays you. Here is a referral link to sign up: http://www.swagbucks.com/refer/tkirk62
Superpoints has a button on their site that you click and sometimes you win, sometimes you don’t. It is really easy to just have it open in a tab and click on it every once in a while if you are on your computer anyway.
Here is a link to sign up: http://superpoints.com/refer/tkirk
I use both sites and have had a lot of success with them. If you are on your computer a bit then they are worthwhile. If you feel you are already crunched for time they might not be as lucrative for you though. I encourage you to give them a try though!
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