"Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player that struts and frets his hour upon the stage and then is heard no more. It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing."

Wednesday, October 8, 2008

DVD Rentals

This is my first OIT-only post in ages. Just when I thought there was no longer a point to keeping two blogs!

I'm trying to figure out why people still rent movies. When I was in Cochrane, I went to the Blockbuster to rent a movie and found out that rentals are now SIX DOLLARS. That's six dollars for something I'm going to bring home, watch, and return. I left the movie there.

This confirmed to me that what I've been doing the past couple of years is the most sensible way to enjoy movies, if you don't mind not getting the most current stuff right away. I stalk the '2 for 10$' bin at Walmart and the 2.99' bin at Zellers. That's right. I'm buying movies for a lot less than I would pay to rent them. The choice at Zellers isn't very good, but I get the odd gem like On a Clear Day. But the choice in the Walmart bin is fantastic. While not holding anything extremely current, it does hold big name titles, some of which are quite recent. A couple of years back, I scored both Batman Begins and the new King Kong in this bin, just months after they came out on DVD!

If I get a dud, like I did yesterday with Follow the River then I just leave it in a laundry room for someone else to watch. I'm still more ahead than if I had rented a movie. Then there are the times when I really get a good deal. One day, I found a fantastic four hour mini-series bundled with a music CD I actually enjoy as well as a couple dozen Hitchcock movies, all for 10$.

Since I'm storing my movies in small cases that don't take up much room, I'm not adding a lot to Miranda's payload, nor is my 'habit' taking up a lot of room, and it's definitely cheaper than going to the movies.

4 comments:

1001 Petals said...

I think that is still wasteful, to the environment. I also rarely re-watch movies. I do love movies though, I usually watch 1 a day (sometimes 2 :)) So we pay $15/month for the movie network channels, which includes these "on demand" channels (lots of movies available, and tv series too.) We live in a building that has a lot of perks, like free cable and digital terminal, so $15 is literally all we pay. There's my thrifty tip for the day!

Rae said...

That's the thing, though. I rewatch my movies. The ones I don't, I pass on. So, it's really not that much more wasteful (if at all) than renting them.

One of the things I like about not having a tv (and cable) is that I'm not tied to a schedule. DVDs are definitely the way to go for me especially since, as I said, I watch movies more than once. My rule of thumb used to be that I would rent a movie three times and the fourth time I got a desire to see it, I would buy it. Now, it's just cheaper to buy it off the bat.

Incidentally, I pass on the empty DVD cases to people (there's a surprising demand for them), so they don't go into the garbage.

1001 Petals said...

They play the same movies over and over again for a couple months, but if you want to see them after then, it is best to just own them. I am phobic about buying more stuff I guess! Disks aren't too much to store though, especially if you don't keep the cases :) It's great you can find people to give them to!

Rae said...

I could buy 100 movies without them taking up any extra room in my coach. Those cases I bought are awesome!

Another thing I like about poking through cheapie bins is that I find movies I might not have otherwise known about and I get access to a really nice variety of material.

To each her own. :-)