Commenter Jay B. suggests using Netflix and the library to avoid media purchases. Amen, I say! While I don't plan on getting a Netflix sub, I do love love love the library. We get the bulk of our media there, books, movies and music. I have around 100 items on my holds list most of the time. When a movie I'm interested in is moving from the theatres to DVD, I just pop it on my holds list. Now, yes, sometimes you'll wait. And wait. And ... wait. We just came to the top of the list for Pirates of the Caribbean 3, and that's been out how long? There's the Netflix advantage, a lot less waiting! Still, I don't mind the waiting to save the $20-$30 a month.
There are some movies that I'll still buy. Back before Netflix existed and buying or renting from the local shops were the only options, my rule was, if I knew for sure that I'd watch the movie more than three times, I would buy it. When we got our first DVD player, I was more liberal than I would normally be, because of the novelty of the new form. Wow, a disc can hold a whole movie and special features! I've become a lot more discerning.
Why buy at all? We love to watch movies. We don't watch any broadcast TV. For example, I own the Lord of the Rings trilogy extended editions and I've watched each one at least ten times (yes, that's a lot of screen time). I like owning them, I can watch any time I please, no waiting, thank you ma'am. For the Ocean's Thirteen example, that's a movie I really love (I'm a sucker for caper movies, and add in George Clooney, well, there you go). I've already watched it twice since we bought it, and will watch it many more times.
A couple of years ago, we culled our DVDs and sold the ones we didn't feel we needed to keep. There were some early mistakes, ones we'd bought on impluse when the medium was knew. We just don't do that anymore. We've made the choices mindful.
Those who've seen my bookroom may be surprised to learn how few books I actually buy anymore. Most of my collection was amassed long ago, when I was in high accumulation mode. For the past five years, I've purchased very few books. The ones I do buy are ones I either know I will read again, ones I plan to read in compromising situations (while traveling, on the beach/boat, in the bath). It's worth $.69 to me to not worry about the condition of a book while I'm reading it, and likely, I'll either pass it on to a friend or use Paperback Swap and exchange it for something else.
How do you handle your media purchases? Do you buy or rent, borrow or rip?
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Ahhhh media. My hubby and I do belong to Netflix and have the four at a time plan. We have made it a rule that if we can't go through at least double that in a month there is no reason to have Netflix for the price or we need to drop our plan to a lower amount of DVD's at a time.
We are actually going to call our cable company and go to basic cable from extended basic which will be a savings of around $45 per month.
We received a notice in the mail for a new internet provider with a guaranteed monthly service price for life that is $15 less than we pay now. If our current internet provider (also our cable provider) can't match it we will be going with the new service.
We do enjoy our movies and we do buy ones on DVD that we will watch multiple times. I would personally love it if there was a digital storage system available like you can do with your iPod. Once you own the movie you can keep it digitally and not have the bulky case. You could have the option to buy just the movie or the movie and all the extras or upgrade if a newer version you want comes out for a lower price than buying the entire brand new disc which would mean people may opt to do that more (my hubby like ALL the extras!). There is nothing that I know of available yet but if they can do On Demand they can do that!
Speaking of CD's, we have not bought new ones in forever and the ones we do have are in a 200 disc changer. The jewel cases (in case we ever want to be rid of them) are stored in our storage unit but don't take up that much room. (Our storage unit that came with our condo that we don't have to pay extra for).
I LOVE LOVE LOVE my iPod and this is an awesome solution to owning music!
Well, I have taken up too much time here. Love your blog!
~Pasley Penguin - fellow Washingtonian
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