Amazon Free Month

I may declare May into June to be Amazon Free. Meaning I don’t buy anything from them during the rest of month of May and half of June.

I’m starting to get all manner of innocuous crap from them that I could’ve just as easily gotten somewhere local. Hell, their prices aren’t even that good anymore.

For instance, I’m running out of industrial razor blades. You know, those one sided blades in scrapers and some box cutters. I think I’m down to my last three or four. So I went on the interwebs, every hardware store near me – Lowes, Home Depot, Ace, all have them in stock, 100 to a pack, all in the $7 region. Amazon has them for $9+, Wally World doesn’t have them whatsoever. They show a 10 pack at the store near me. Hell if I could find them. All I saw was a plastic version.

I’m finding I spend more money on more stuff that I could just as well do without.

The problem is with the the supply chain issues, a lot of stuff I’ve bought isn’t available locally.

Loose tea is something I’ve found nowhere local. At least not the good stuff.

I wanted a Ryobi driver/drill set but it wasn’t to be found in stock anywhere. Matter of fact, what I found was a dearth of actual power tools. Sure they had the displays, but on the shelves, pickings that you could take home were slim. So I picked the set up on Amazon.

But did I need it?

Yes and no. My old cordless still works, but is getting wonky. And they are tools I use nearly every day.

But as I looked back, a lot of what I bought I probably should’ve gone local. Having to go out for something pretty much keeps me from impulse shopping. During April, of the 16 purchases I made at Amazon, I really needed 3. The rest, while useful, I could’ve just as easily done without.

I’m going to peel way back, buying only if there are no other options and see how it goes.