I’ve heard folks are pretty unhappy about the Amazon Prime increases. Not me. Although I obviously would like to keep the fees the same, at $99. it’s still a bargain.

One added benefit that many don’t know about — you can add up to four household/family members to your Prime membership. They get the same two day shipping benefits, but do not get the video and library downloads.

I buy from Amazon all the time and with two day delivery, it’s just super convenient.  I know I’ll hear from those who like to buy local, so do I. But not when it takes half a day and driving across town in hopes of locating that special size or brand.

Here’s the letter received this morning . . .

Dear Barbara A. Crews,

We are writing to provide you advance notice that the price of your Prime membership will be increasing. The annual rate will be $99 when your membership renews on July 23, 2014.

Even as fuel and transportation costs have increased, the price of Prime has remained the same for nine years. Since 2005, the number of items eligible for unlimited free Two-Day Shipping has grown from one million to over 20 million. We also added unlimited access to over 40,000 movies and TV episodes with Prime Instant Video and a selection of over 500,000 books to borrow from the Kindle Owners’ Lending Library.

For more information about your Prime membership, visit our Prime membership page.

Sincerely,

The Amazon Prime Team

Years ago when the Roerig’s cookie jar newsletter was being published, Keith Lytle had a few columns on ugly jars. People would send in pictures of their weirdest/ugliest/strangest cookie  jars and folks would get to pick the one that fits the title — Ugly Cookie Jar.

As any collector knows, no jar is really ugly and we all know beauty is in the eye of the beholder, so this is strictly for fun. And the owners of these jars are the folks that submitted them via the Cookie Jar Net Facebook page. Some really are ugly, one is definitely x-rated and then there are a few that are simply different.

Now it’s your chance to pick the winner. We’ll be leaving the poll up for a month.
>>> Pictures and Poll

Celebrity Home Raiders -the newest reality show features celebrities and their stuff. The show is  on the Lifetime channel and premieres on Thursday, March 6, 2014.

Julien’s Auctions visits the stars in their home, finds something memorable to sell and then it hits the auction block for charity.

While I’ll be especially interested to watch when favorite personalities are on and to see what their stuff sells for, the Gladys Kravitz in me wants to see what their house looks like. Especially Ice T and Coco!

• March 6 – Gene Simmons and Ice T and Coco
• March 13 – David Hasselhoff/Fran Drescher
• March 20 – Rick Harrison
• March 27 – David Cassidy
• April 3 – Debbie Gibson
• April 4 – Lance Bass

The one strike against with the show from the beginning  — it’s on Lifetime, the folks who also bring you the bully show Dance Moms.