Ordering on Amazon can be one of the most powerful tools for your household. I typically encourage people not to spend money but I feel an Amazon Prime membership is the expense that keeps on giving. Amazon Prime comes with its own streaming service, photo storage, faster shipping, special discounts, and a few things many people overlook.
Where Amazon Prime Shines
Slow down when you’re ordering on Amazon and really scrutinize the product pages and check out screens. If you look at my example below you’ll see that there’s a coupon on these Larabars that you can clip. Check the box and your order changes to “Subscribe & Save.” Subscribe & Save is a subscription service within Amazon to continuously order items that you need frequently on a schedule of your choice. If you get enough Subscribe & Save items for an order they gradually knock more off the total for up to 15% savings. You have to be careful here because sometimes this price is higher than what you’d pay in a store. Check your local grocery store website and see if the price is comparable.
The other option here is to make a single purchase and not subscribe to this item, sometimes there’s still a coupon for a single purchase so be sure to check it off if there is one. There’s still another way to save here though if you’re careful to pay attention to the checkout screen. If you look below you’ll see Amazon has offered me $1 in digital credits for choosing slower shipping. I do this often because this is the currency that gets applied to Kindle Books and movies on Amazon Prime.
Kindle Books
I was not a fan of kindle books when they first came out because they were expensive. Now that Kindle has been around for a few years we are finally beginning to see reasonable prices on books. Physical books will always be my first love when it comes to reading but there’s something so handy about being to carry around several books on your smartphone. I will pull up books while I’m sitting in waiting rooms, standing in line, and at various other “dead air” times of the day. You can use the digital credits earned from selecting slower shipping towards the price of Kindle books (they are automatically applied). If you combine this with signing up for BookBub you will receive emails from them telling you about books on sale (sometimes they are free).
Amazon Prime Movies
The second way to use digital credits is to rent movies on Amazon Prime’s streaming service. I am often able to get myself at least a movie or two a month with digital credits. The prices of movies can vary so YMMV here. Even if it doesn’t cover the entire cost of the movie you can still apply the digital credits against the balance to reduce the price.
How to Check Your Digital Credit Balance
You can check your digital credit balance anytime by using this link (please note this does not give us access to your account just type this into your browser search bar):
https://www.amazon.com/norushcredits
Final Note About Digital Credits
Digital credits expire, Amazon will send you an email to let you know most of the time but it’s a good idea to manually check every so often to see if there’s an upcoming expiration on the balance page.