Amazon Archives - Empathic Finance | Mike Pumphrey, AFC®

Simple financial moves: Cancel Amazon Prime

Posted by Mike Pumphrey on January 29, 2024 | Featured

Cancelling Amazon Prime is one simple way of taking back control of your finances from a company that entices you to spend without thinking. … Read More

Tags: Amazon, Amazon Prime, habits, intentionality

Why you should get a refund and not store credit

Posted by Mike Pumphrey on May 9, 2022 | Featured

When you make a return, many retailers want to refund your money to store credit or a gift card, but here’s why you don’t want to do that. I had to return an item the other day on Amazon. It … Read More … Read More

Tags: Amazon, refunds, returns

Smart speakers are terrible for your finances

Posted by Mike Pumphrey on December 6, 2021 | Featured

I discuss smart speakers and how easy it is to spend money unintentionally (and potentially recklessly) with them. Leading the list on the worst blog ideas for me to write would be one with reviews of the latest tech gadgets. … Read More … Read More

Tags: Amazon, Amazon Prime, smart speaker

Amazon Prime doesn’t save you money

Posted by Mike Pumphrey on October 18, 2021 | Featured

You may think you’re getting one over on them when you have Amazon Prime, but Amazon is laughing all the way to the bank. I want you to cancel your Amazon Prime subscription. I don’t say this because I hate … Read More … Read More

Tags: Amazon, Amazon Prime, Las Vegas, shipping, smoking

Is it time for a Slow Shipping movement?

Posted by Mike Pumphrey on March 8, 2021 | Featured

I propose the creation of a Slow Shipping movement, like the Slow Food movement, to promote the pleasure of waiting for items to arrive. Have you heard of AliExpress? I hadn’t until recently. As far as I can tell, it’s … Read More … Read More

Tags: AliExpress, Amazon, Amazon Prime, shipping, slow food, slow movement

Amazon Prime just raised its prices by 20%. What’s 20% of $0?

Posted by Mike Pumphrey on May 3, 2018 | Featured

The news was electric. Amazon, the great dark god of retail, was going to raise its prices on its popular Amazon Prime subscription service, from $99 a year to $119 a year. That wasn’t the electric part though. That was … Read More … Read More

Tags: Amazon

How to offload (or combine) unused gift cards

Posted by Mike Pumphrey on April 12, 2018 | Featured

After the debacle of trying to use a prepaid card to anonymously purchase VPN service, only to find that I couldn’t use it for purchases outside of the U.S., I decided to just buy the VPN service outright. But I … Read More … Read More

Tags: Amazon, gift cards, prepaid cards

Forget Amazon, I’m going with Jet

Posted by Mike Pumphrey on August 17, 2017 | Featured

I talked about how Amazon has recently taken to requiring you to join Amazon Prime in order to purchase some of its products. To me, that seemed like a bridge too far. And so I began researching alternatives to Amazon. … Read More … Read More

Tags: Amazon, Jet, online purchases

Why Amazon is starting to remind me of the mob

Posted by Mike Pumphrey on August 14, 2017 | Featured

If you recall my time on the Slow Carb Diet, you may recall that I’m a big fan of Vega protein powder. The one I use has a good amount of greens and antioxidants, a tasty flavor without sugar, and … Read More … Read More

Tags: Amazon, Amazon Prime, online shopping, Vega

The time I almost thought that Amazon Prime was a good deal for me

Posted by Mike Pumphrey on October 13, 2016 | Featured

I’ve talked about Amazon Prime before. My general take is that it’s probably not worth it, unless you would be paying for the music/movie streaming service, or buy a lot of stuff from Amazon. Amazon really really really wants you … Read More … Read More

Tags: Amazon, convenience

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