In April of 2003 I began working for Blockbuster as a lowly worker-bee. The best part about this employment (which was part-time in addition to my full-time job) was that I got five free rentals a week. This included movies that weren’t hitting shelves until the next Tuesday.
I stopped working there in January 2004 for personal reasons. The company had been great, the people I worked with were fantastic, especially my manager, and I loved the free rents, but life dictated other things. So after about a month I signed up for the Movie Pass program, which gives you unlimited rentals in a month for a flat monthly fee. The first month I did this I rented 40 titles. Just to break that down, I paid $24.99 for the Movie Pass. 40 titles at $3.99 a pop would have otherwise cost me $159.60. The second month I had the pass for I rented 20 movies ($79.80 worth).
I had been thinking about buying another pass and kind of knew it would be sometime in the next few weeks when I saw a commercial advertising a $14.99 sale when you buy a new Movie Pass. Couldn’t resist. I went that morning and bought one. Rented two movies when I bought it, so I have already used $7.98 of the total cost. Two more and I’ve gotten my money’s worth and everything else is gravy.
Gotta love a sale.