Online Shoppers Blog - Become's Pocket Change

My latest indulgence (non-apparel wise) has been movie rentals. And it’s not from the theatre, TV, Blockbuster, Netflix, bittorrent (which by the way is still completely mystifying), or my friend with the largest collection of burned DVDs known to mankind. No. I am getting my fix at the good ole local Safeway. I put my Netflix subscription on hold after getting extremely frustrated with the wait list for new movies. (Dear Netflix, why was I on the waitlist for a month for “She’s the Man”, even after putting it as my #1 before it came out? Clearly there are a lot more closet Amanda Bynes chick-flick fans than I imagined.) Anyways, with Netflix, it’s always the same old story. Being doomed to a painfully unsure wait for new movies to become available while adding a bunch of random filler movies to watch in the meantime. So on top of paying for a monthly Netflix subscription, I was making visits to the local movie rental shop to get my hands on the new releases and forking over another $4. Anywho, I stumbled across a kiosk on my way out of Safeway a while back, and happily discovered that it rented out new releases at a daily rate. Since I have a tendency to make late night runs to the supermarket for candy and flavored water, a cheap movie is the perfect entertainment fix for an otherwise tame night.

The first day comes out to $1.61 (except Mondays, which are 50 cents cheaper), and every day after that is 99 cents. Not bad, unless it takes you over 3 days to return your movie. No membership is required. It only accepts credit cards. For every day that you have it out, it simply deducts 99 cents from your account. Your first movie rental from the kiosk is free.

In the past couple of weeks, I have seen: Devil Wears Prada (again), Tallageda Nights, Step Up (worse then you’d think), Click, Superman Returns, and Pirates of the Caribbean. Little Miss Sunshine is next.

Now, if you do not live close to a movie kiosk, this is probably not a good deal. This is a pretty handy service for people who want to watch the newest movies in a day or two. It’s all about instant gratification.

Sherry

P.S. TechCrunch notes a pretty sweet new deal from Blockbuster. I'm definitely going to give it a go.