A month ago my investment advisor suggested that I say goodbye to online retailers for a time, and cancel my Amazon Prime subscription. Instead, I would commit to only purchase products from local brick-and-mortar stores that I drive, bike, or walk to. From her perspective, this new commitment would help me stop making impulsive purchases that divert from my goal to pay off my credit cards.
But breaking up is hard to do!
Whether streaming television series and movies, purchasing home goods, books, and cds, and most recently film and photo equipment, Prime became a friend with an answer for my every need and want. I even came to enjoy the anxious rush of waiting for packages to arrive, and the mad dash to pick them up before…
My first Amazon purchase was made 25-years ago during undergrad when I first clicked the magic “add to cart” to purchase Creativity : Flow and the Psychology of Discovery and Invention. Now, thousands upon thousands of purchase dollars later, as I sit down to write this post, I cringe after realizing that Amazon knows more about me than I do.
As reported in The Guardian, “Continuous analysis of customer data determines, among other things, prices, suggested purchases and what profitable own-label products Amazon chooses to produce. The 200 million users who are Amazon Prime members are not only the corporation’s most valuable customers but also their richest source of user data.”
Now a month later, turning Amazon Prime off and focusing on buying from local retailers has been an amazing exercise in discipline—as well as one more step on my way to financial freedom.
ZenCents 