Netflix Five Month Review

Back in April, I signed up for Netflix.  I let myself get talked into it, but I figured I would try it out for a while and see what happened.

So far, I’m a happy customer.

I’m on the three DVDs at a time plan right now.  I started out with two, bumped it up to three, thought that might be excessive, then caught a bad cold and was stuck at home, very glad I had three movies to watch.  According to FeedFlix, I’m spending an average of $1.26 per movie (both DVD and instant watch).  Admittedly, that’s a bit high, especially since I was using Redbox to rent movies for $1.  What happened?  Well, I had three weeks in a row that were absolutely crazy and I then kept the same three movies for all three of those weeks.  That raises the average cost a bit.

Of course, that’s where Netflix makes their money.  I know people who have had one Netflix DVD for months because they never get around to watching that particular movie, but they still won’t return it.  Why, I’m not sure.  Perhaps they think they’re wasting the rental if they return without watching.  Clearly, we see the flaw in that logic.

But even at $1.26 a movie, I’ve been very happy with my Netflix subscription.  The turnaround rate is incredible.  I dropped some DVDs in the mail on the way to work Monday morning and they will show up today.  I’ve been able to watch a ton of movies on my “to see” list – both blockbusters and little indie flicks that are harder to find.  I’ve also discovered some movies that I never expected to enjoy thanks to the Netflix recommendations.

Of course, now that the regular tv season is starting up again and my life is getting busier, I might not have the time I had to watch movies.  I’m not a couch potato movie watcher – rather I turn one on and get chores done, like ironing and laundry folding, filing, budget updating, and pretty much anything else done on the computer.  But with a DVR, I’m not sure I’m still going to get the use of my Netflix subscription that I did over the summer.

So we’ll see what happens.   I’ve managed to set up a queue of over 200 movies/tv shows that I want to see, so this subscription might be sticking around for a while.

Megan Smith

Megan is a 30-something government employee in the Washington, DC area. She got interested in Personal Finance when she got out of college and realized that her paycheck wasn’t going to go as far as she had hoped. Since starting this blog, she has managed to buy a house and make a solid start on her retirement goals, and hopes to help others do the same. Here is her story:

In 2007, I was a gainfully employed 20-something with no debt but not a lot of knowledge about personal finance.  It was a co-worker’s comment about Roth IRAs that sent me to the internet, searching for information.  It was then that I realized that I really didn’t know a whole lot about personal finance and that my current financial situation was due a lot to inherent frugal tendencies, generous family members, a fear of debt, and good luck.  While that was working for me, clearly I needed a better plan.

While I had no debt, I was also pretty much living paycheck to paycheck and not worrying about going over budget (I say this as if I had a real budget) because I had an emergency fund set aside to cover any overages.

Except that’s not what an emergency fund is for.

So I did a lot of research, read a lot of blogs, and decided that I needed a plan.  I needed to budget.  I needed to know what I was spending my money on.  I needed to prepare for the future.

I decided to create a blog not only to make myself accountable to others but also to share the knowledge that I gained along the way.  I’ve learned so much from my fellow bloggers, and I hope that my readers can find something useful in what I have to share as well.