Who says you can’t score great bargains in July?! July 16th means it’s Amazon Prime Day – a time to snag awesome deals if you know how to shop. Last year, shoppers spent more on Amazon Prime Day than they did on Black Friday!
Sometimes, shoppers find it difficult to weed through the products and prices to find what’s really a discount purchase. If you plan on shopping Amazon Prime this year, check out the following tips. Plus, stay tuned for the best advertised and predicted bargains for 2018.
1. You Need Amazon Prime for the Deals
So don’t read me wrong. You don’t need Amazon Prime to survive. However, if you want to have access to the deals, you do need a Prime Membership. Try Amazon Prime 30-Day Free Trial
2. Is a Prime Membership Worth It?
This is certainly a household by household determination that depends heavily upon your expenses and budget. But, Amazon Prime has yearly increased the services offered to you. With Prime you can now:
- Take advantage of FREE 2 Day Shipping and sometimes even 1 day shipping.
- Amazon Prime Now: Free 2 hour delivery in specific geographic areas (includes Indianapolis)
- Access Prime Instant Video – a service similar to Netflix that grants access to thousands of movies and TV shows
- Listen to thousands of songs and albums for free through Prime Music, a streaming option similar to Pandora and Spotify.
- Store Your Photos for free. You can store an unlimited number of photos as a part of your membership.
- Borrow one of over 800,000 books for FREE per month thanks to the Kindle Owners’ Lending Library. You don’t have to have a Kindle to access one, just any device with the FREE Kindle App. (FYI Slaying the Debt Dragon is is in the Kindle Owners’ Lending Library).
- Amazon Family: 20% off diaper subscriptions and 15% off eligible baby registry items
Coming in at $119 per year, it really might be worth the cost for your family. For instance if you cancel cable and or Netflix, the expense works out to be roughly $9.92/month which is much more affordable than cable and around $1.07 less than the cheapest Netflix option at $10.99/month. Adding in the extra benefits, it just makes sense. The same goes for using Prime Music over Spotify ($10 per month) or Pandora ($4.99 per month). The unlimited photo storage is yet another one of those benefits most people don’t take advantage of and might be paying for through Dropbox or another Cloud storage program.
3. Is a FREE Trial Really Free?
I am the Queen of Free; however, I am ALWAYS skeptical of any sort of FREE trial. Oftentimes, you end up paying a pretty penny for something that wasn’t worth it after all. That being said, you may qualify for a 30 Day Free Trial of Amazon Prime. If you’re interested in shopping on Prime Day at all, you need to go ahead and sign up for that right now if you can. In 30 days, you don’t have to continue your membership; but you will need to manage your account so that it doesn’t automatically charge you when the trial period is over. You can even have it set a notification to send you an e-mail right before the membership is about to expire (that includes folks who pay for their membership because I just did that!) so you can alter the settings later.
Are you a college student or know one? You can get a free six month Amazon Student account to get the deals, too. Join Prime Student FREE Two-Day Shipping for College Students.
4. But Where Are the Deals?
You can already see some of the deals listed when using the Amazon App but not their specific prices yet. So if you’re in the market for specific products, you can browse through the Amazon Prime Day Page and mark deals you’d like to mark. Just be careful you don’t fall down the rabbit hole. In the past, Amazon has made the deepest discounts on their own products like Fire Tablets and Echo. We won’t see those specific prices until the day begins though.
You’ll also want to follow Amazon on Facebook and Twitter for more deals. It wouldn’t hurt to check out the #PrimeDay hashtag either. The deals begin at 3 PM on July 16th and run for 36 hours (midnight July 17). Below some of the fantastic offerings from Amazon’s products are listed.
- Amazon Echo Show $129.99 (regularly $299.99)
- Amazon Echo Dot $34.99 (regularly $49.99)
While they aren’t yet listed price wise, Amazon teased that there will be deals on:
5. Use Amazon Assistant
Looking for deals on specific products? Consider downloading the Amazon Assistant tool bar. You’ll be able to set up shortcuts and monitor prices on your favorite items. Not only can Amazon Assistant send you notifications on your favorite deals, downloading it will give you $5/$25 on Amazon Prime Day.
6. Download the Amazon App
You don’t have to stay planted at your desk all day to get great offers. Consider downloading the Amazon App to save money on the go. It will be one of the very best ways to monitor deals right from your own smart phone.
7. Don’t Forget Prime Now
Amazon’s Prime Now service will also be participating in all of the great fun. You can search for deals that will be delivered within an hour’s time.
Other great money saving opportunities:
- $5 Off Select Prime Day Deals when you try out the camera features within the Amazon App.
- Get 3 months of Kindle Unlimited Reading for $0.99.
- If you’re a Prime Member and a Whole Foods Shopper, you can scan your code or use your phone number at checkout in store and get a $10 credit to spend on Amazon Prime Day when you make a purchase of $10 or more. There will be in store specials for Prime Day, too!
- If you’re a gamer check out the Twitch Prime FREE games – up to 21 are available.
- Get Amazon Unlimited Music for $0.99/month for 4 months (regularly $10.99/month).
- $4.95/month for Audible for your first 3 months (regularly $14.95/month).
- 20% Amazon Basics (this is where I’ll be looking!).
- Check out the Prime Day Guide for more information.
Be sure to follow The Queen of Free’s Favorite Bargains on Facebook for deals during the actual day! AND P.S. Target is having online sales on the 17th too!
Your Money, Your Marriage releases September 25th from Zondervan Harper Collins Christian and is already available for pre-sale now everywhere books are sold.
My book is now available: Slaying the Debt Dragon: How One Family Conquered Their Money Monster and Found an Inspired Happily Ever After. You can also check out The Debt Free Devotional
This post contains an affiliate link. That means when you get a great deal, learn about a way to save, or maybe even something for free, I may end up making a small commission.
