Works for Me Wednesday – Netflix rate hikes and the homeschooler

After reading about it all day on a variety of different forums, my e-mail from Netflix finally came in the wee early morning hours today!

Dear Elena,

We are separating unlimited DVDs by mail and unlimited streaming into two separate plans to better reflect the costs of each. Now our members have a choice: a streaming only plan, a DVD only plan, or both.

Your current $9.99 a month membership for unlimited streaming and unlimited DVDs will be split into 2 distinct plans:

Plan 1: Unlimited Streaming (no DVDs) for $7.99 a month

Plan 2: Unlimited DVDs, 1 out at-a-time (no streaming) for $7.99 a month

Your price for getting both of these plans will be $15.98 a month ($7.99 + $7.99). You don’t need to do anything to continue your memberships for both unlimited streaming and unlimited DVDs.

These prices will start for charges on or after September 1, 2011.

You can easily change or cancel your unlimited streaming plan, unlimited DVD plan, or both, by going to the Plan Change page in Your Account.

We realize you have many choices for home entertainment, and we thank you for your business. As always, if you have questions, please feel free to call us at 1-888-357-1516.

–The Netflix Team

So in round numbers, I’ll be going from paying $10 a month to $16 a month  or $120 per year to $192. 

First I have to say that as a homeschool mom, I love Netflix. I can get educational and even religious movies from them that I can’t get at the library, and although I could probably get them cheaply from Amazon or e-Bay a lot of these movies are just ones I want the kids to see, but I don’t necessarily want to have them on my shelves to take care of forever.
For example, here are some great Catholic films on Netflix:
A Hand of Peace

A Man for All Seasons

After the Truth

Don Matteo

Father of Mercy: The True Story of Venerable Don Gnocchi

Faustina

God in China

Into Great Silence

John XXIII

Karol: The Pope, The Man

Love is a Choice

Maria Goretti

Our Father’s Plan

Padre Pio Between Heaven and Earth

Paul VI: The Pope in the Tempest

Pope Benedict XVA

Road of Hope

Saint Anthony

Saint Francis

Saint Rita

Saints and Soldiers

St. Giuseppe Moscati: Doctor to the Poor

St. Teresa of Avila

The 13th Day

The Jeweller’s Shop

The Miracle of Marcelino

The Reluctant Saint

The Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius

Théresè

Netflix also carries a number of History Channel and Discovery Channel DVDs that I can use to supplement my lessons with.

That all said, I did get the streaming for a few months.  We have it streaming through an old Wii game system that we are only able to use for Netflix (the gaming part having been worn to death apparently!).  While it has been very nice to see some old t.v. shows and movies that I had forgotten about, I’d have to say that overall their streaming availability is very, very limited! If you’re looking for the newest just released movies, look elsewhere!   But I stuck with them because I thought there business plan was to eliminate the DVDs and go to just streaming. Apparently, those plans have changed.

So I’ll probably go to unlimited 2 DVDs per month at $11.99 and drop the streaming altogether.  If we can get better at turning the movies into the mail as soon as we’re done with them, that should be satisfactory.

Works for Me!

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