60 Days Without Amazon

It's been 2 months since I let me Amazon Prime membership expire. In case you're wondering how it's impacted my life, it hasn't. Seriously, I'm shocked at how easy it is to not spend money with Amazon. I haven't spent a dime there since late November.

• Health & wellness type stuff we now order from Walmart at a cheaper price, or just pick up at our neighborhood Target.
• 25 pounds bags our our dog's food are actually cheaper at the neighborhood independently owned pet store.
• I picked up a used Kobo e-reader and now buy my e-books from Kobo, which funnels money via an affiliate commission to my local indie book store. So win-win there. In every case so far e-book prices have been the same at Amazon and Kobo.
• Digital music I now buy from 7 Digital. Prices are pretty much the same as Amazon.
• I didn't really use Prime Music so no issues there. I prefer to stick to my personal collection, or just use Pandora when I want background music.
• I will miss a couple of shows on Prime Video, but I can always buy them and binge watch if I really want to. I've got a 10 year watch list on Netflix anyway, so it's not like I'm hurting for video entertainment.

Overall, it feels like we are spending less money. We put everything on a credit card and pay off the card weekly. That weekly bill has seemed smaller in recent weeks, but that might just be the post holiday adjustment. I have the data to check, but that seems too much like work.

The bottom line is if you feel squicky about Amazon's business practices it's really not that hard to just not spend money with Amazon. People living in the middle of nowhere may not have enough local options to replace Amazon. But if you live in a major metro area you can quit Amazon and probably save money by doing so.