Image by Mudassar Iqbal from Pixabay
When Prime Day came and went this year, it got me thinking as to all the ways I've used my own Prime membership. I've been a member for a number of years now and I keep finding these "hidden" gems that I've come to use quite a bit and yet have found that some folks didn't realize was there. These are just extra ways to save money and even get some freebies out of it too!
As I said in the previous post, I HATE to pay retail. I also don't like to pay for memberships. But when I do, I try to use every feature I can to make the most of my money. So I was happily surprised when I came upon a few features I was unaware of until the last year or so. What surprised me the most is while talking to friends, they didn't know about them either! (and these people can Prime with the best of them!!) So let me share with you what I found...you may have discovered these yourselves already. Let us know how you like them and if you found any Prime goodies as well! Just a note about this piece: Unless otherwise specified, you MUST be a Prime member to take advantage of these services, including Prime day. But you can sign up for a FREE month and use everything just like a paid member to see if you really like it!
1. Prime Insider: First off, if you have a membership, this page is a must go-to. Prime Insider will let you know about upcoming deals, movies and shows coming to Prime Video, exclusive offers ane more. It's basically your Prime member home page and while you can click Prime Insider here, if you need to find it again, just look on the upper right hand side of any Amazon.com page, click "Prime" and you'll get info on how to get to your Insider guide.
2. Prime Reading: This has to be one of my favorite features ever. Prime Reading is a way to borrow books and magazines, most for an unlimited time, any time you want. These are absoutely FREE to read on either a Kindle, Fire Tablet, or Kindle app. You can borrow up to 10 at a time and when you're done with one, you just 'return' it and borrow something new! I love it for magazines. The rotate them monthly and because of this feature, I've discovered magazines I never knew existed! I also have kept two holiday ones for their cookie recipes. So while that may now limit me to 8 'borrows', that's ok. During the holiday time, I'll be glad I kept them!
For books, you can find titles both new and old. For example, you can read The Handmaid's Tale, Harry Potter and Divergent as well as new releases in biographies, business and non-fiction. For myself, I'm a big history buff and have found fantastic volumes both current as well as classics. Even such works by the Founding Fathers! (Great for a 4th of July read!) There's also great stuff for kids including comic books and you can also find titles with audible accompaniment. What you need to do in Prime Reading is really know how to explore and get the most out of it. When you first pull up the main page, it will give you featured titles in a few different genres like fiction; non-fiction; business; magazines; biographies. But there is just so much more and literally THOUSANDS of titles in many different areas to choose from. So make sure you hit the "see more" link at the top of each genre. From there you can go through the many titles and discover books and magazines that could keep you reading for 3 lifetimes! Summer reading list anyone??? Just one quick note...when searching on Prime Reading, just make sure you didn't flip over to Kindle Unlimited. This is a separate subscription service and is an entirely different deal. 3. Amazon Giveaways: This has to be my most favorite feature on Prime! Giveaways are literally hundreds of PAGES with THOUSANDS of chances to win products on Amazon. FOR FREE! Seriously!! How cool is that? There are so many different kinds of things to try and win, it's almost like an Amazon within an Amazon except this stuff is all FREE! So how does it work? Say you're an author with a new book and a website and you want to get the word out. You'd purchase a copy of your own book and add the giveaway to your site to offer your visitors a chance to win it. The same goes for companies, inventors or bloggers, etc with their own products. So when you go to the Giveways section on Amazon, all of these thousands of offers are now grouped for you to try and win. I've been doing these for over a year now and ok, so I haven't won anything yet, I still try all the time because you just never know! They are incredibly easy to enter. There's three ways to do so and each one is up to the individual who is running the giveaway. You can either just "tap a box" which is literally tapping an animated box to see if you've won; Watch a video: the average time on this is 15 seconds and usually a product demo of what you're trying to win; Follow the person doing the giveaway: this normally goes for authors. You follow their Amazon page for updates on their work. (Some authors do Kindle giveaways instead of their books!) You can also sign up for the Giveways email updates and every day more are added. You can also try to win the same product after 24 hours if you failed to win the first time. And there is a bonus! If you don't win, a major percentage of the giveaway items will offer you a tremendous discount on them once you've played as incentive to get you to still purchase it. Which is great around the holidays! So while you may not win, getting a 40% discount is still awesome!! (see example pic below--not all discounts are the same) It's a lot of fun and you can find almost anything within the Giveaways, the only thing I haven't been able to figure out yet is how to do a search within them...even just for a category. At the same time, I've discovered a whole lot of products through this that I didn't know existed. Try it out. You can do a couple at a time and who knows, you may get to win something really cool! 4.Amazon Smile: What an incredibly awesome feature this is! When you set your Amazon home page (either on your computer or browser like Safari or Chrome on your mobile device), a small portion of your purchases will go to your favorite charity. You just go to your Amazon home page. On the right where it says say, "Hello Christie, Account & Lists", mouse over it and in the drop down find "Your Amazon Smile" (or "Amazon Smile"). When you click on it you'll get a dashboard page that let's you choose your charity and eventually will show what you've earned, etc. Then once you're signed up and your charity is set, when you purchase through the Amazon Smile page, your donation will be recorded. Please note that you MUST shop through the Amazon Smile in order for the donation to take effect. The best part of this program is that you can choose from thousands of charities including LOCAL non-profits. While you can do a big named group like the American Red Cross or ASPCA, etc, you can also search your town and see if any local organizations are represented...and you can change it anytime. So maybe you pick one and when you hit a certain dollar limit, you switch it to another. I've done my local historical society, animal organizations, elementary schools and more. Be sure to try different searches as I've found if I use my city and state in the search, not many will come up, but when I just put the city, I get a few hundred of all kinds. Supporting local has never been easier! I hope this gives you some new ideas on how to use your Prime membership. There's certainly more to talk about, but that's for another day. Have a Very Happy Prime Day EVERY Day!!!
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