Money Saving Chronicles #9: Net Flix Revisited

I wrote about Net Flix a few months and my conclusion was that Net Flix as a program didn’t make a whole lot of sense unless you were on the extreme side in terms of watching movies. It created a lot of comments. Net Flix now has a new program that makes more sense.

The new plan is cheaper: $5.99 a month instead of $9.99, and it comes with a new movie limit. While, I still think you can find better deals on 2 movies in your town, there are some bad buying habits the new Net Flix can help you break:

1) Buying New Movies

I bought my wife Shrek 2 and Spiderman 2 a couple years back. We watched them once and watched the special features once and have never touched them since. The movies would probably ebay for half of what I paid for them.

With the Net Flix $5.99 plan, it makes easy to check out a new release without having to worry about returning it until you’re done with it. This is particularly helpful with movies that kids will watch 20 times or if you just want to see a new movie and feel like you own it.

2) Returning Movies Late

We’re busy folks and so we pay late fees for returning items that just don’t fit into our 24 hours days, with no late fees, NetFlix avoids that.

3) Spending Too Much on Premium Cable:

Again a little bit of Net Flix can get you new releases without the extra expense of HBO. For older movies, visit a library, or if you have a cable, several regual cable channels such as TNT or TBS shows them.

Without the promise of “unlimited” movies, this new Net Flix program also can work well for the busy person who just doesn’t have time for 20 movies in a month.

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