Not quite three years ago, I signed up for Amazon Prime, which offers free two day shipping and discounted overnight shipping ($3.99/item) with no minimum purchase requirements on millions of items. If an item is eligible for “Super Saver Shipping, ” then it’s generally eligible for Prime.
In short, I love this service. Yes, I could wait until I have at least $25 worth of items to order, and then be patient as my items slowly work their way across the country, but with Prime I don’t have to. Amazon Prime also lets me ship last minute gifts directly to the recipients
Of course, this convenience comes at a price… Amazon Prime costs $79/year, but guess what? It’s now available for free to students or just about anyone else if you’re willing to jump through a hoop or two.
Free Amazon Prime for students
For starters, if you’re a student, you can get a free year of Amazon Prime by signing up through this link. While you have to be prepared to show proof of enrollment upon request, it appears that the primary means of validating your eligibility is a valid .edu e-mail address.
If you’re not a student, but you have a valid .edu address, use this at your own risk. If you are asked to provide documentation, and you fail to do so, you may have to reimburse Amazon for the benefits you’ve received.
Free Amazon Prime for parents
The other major promo that Amazon is running right now is free Amazon Prime for parents. To get started, you have to join the Amazon Mom program, though you don’t technically have to be a mom to sign up.
Amazon Mom is a free membership program aimed at helping parents and caregivers, from the prenatal days through the toddler years, use Amazon to find all the products their family needs. To join, simply sign into your Amazon account and tell us whether you are a Mom, Dad, or other caregiver of a child…
Despite the name, Amazon Mom is open to anyone who is responsible for caring for a baby or young child – “Amazon Primary Caregiver” just didn’t have the same ring to it.
With Amazon Mom, you’ll start out with three months of free Amazon Prime. From there, you can extend it by spending money in the Amazon baby store. For every $25 you spend within a single order, you get an additional month. You can earn up to an additional year from when you signed up.
In addition to the above, Amazon Mom members get discounts on baby products, such as 30% off select diapers and wipes. Whether or not this is a good deal likely depends on brand preference – I haven’t investigated because our kids have been out of diapers for several years now.
I signed up for Amazon Mom despite being a dad. We have been ordering more frequently from amazon since our baby was born. Even before that – that’s where we set up our registry (simply for the fact that our friends and family on both coasts could see it.)
I do wish they would throw more than a one-sentence bone to us non-female caregivers. In my house, when my wife wants to order something from Amazon, she looks it up and then emails me the link. We each make about half the buying decisions (and I change roughly as many diapers as she does.)