_Free 6-month Amazon Prime membership for college students (and why Prime is awesome!).jpg

HOT DEAL! Right now Amazon is offering a free 6-month Amazon Prime membership to college students who are enrolled in at least one class (and have a .edu email address).

You get full access with FREE 2-day shipping on you orders from Amazon, plus access to Amazon Prime Video and the Kindle Lending Library.

After the trial, students can choose to cancel the membership or continue with Prime membership at a 50% discount!

It's no secret that I LOVE Amazon. Let's face it, I love any opportunity to shop and not have to put on real pants.

Three years ago my husband and I decided to dish the dish and opt to use Netflix and Amazon Prime. I wasn't convinced Amazon Prime was worth the money, that was because I didn't understand ALL the benefits.

1. Streaming. Okay, so everyone knows you can stream movies through Amazon Prime.

But did you know that Amazon offers some pretty good children's content? Last week my boys watched Creative Galaxy and I was really impressed with the quality of the content.

I am pretty picky about what I let my kids watch. I really want it to be educational and a lot of the shows produced by Disney or Nick Jr. just don't do it for me. Creative Galaxy reminded me of something we would watch on PBS Kids. I was very impressed.

2. Music. Amazon offers a LARGE catalog of songs and albums you can listen to. You can download an app to your smart phone and listen to the music anywhere without using your cellphone data! And it's commercial free.

The app will also download any music you've already purchased from Amazon AND retroactively download any physical CD you ever purchased through Amazon.

3. Free movie rentals, songs and books! You probably already know that Amazon Prime comes with 2-day shipping. I don't call it "free" because that's the reason you purchased a membership to begin with. You've already paid for the shipping.

However Amazon will occasionally offer you $.99 credit to put toward movie rentals, music and ebooks. You can bank these credits and use multiple credits at one time. I save these for date nights at home.

4. Photo and file storage. Prime Users get to take advantage of the Amazon Cloud Drive for free. Members get unlimited photo storage plus 5GB for videos and other files.

As a blogger and small business owner who manages content (including photos) for my clients this photo storage is invaluable to me.

5. Kindle Lending Library. You can borrow books from Amazon's vast library of lendable books including Harry Potter and The Hunger Games to name a few. And you don't have to have a Kindle. You can download the app to your smart phone or tablet and read the books wherever you are.

6. Free Kindle First Books a month. Kindle first is a program that allows Prime members to get one (sometimes two) free books BEFORE the books are published. These are usually books from a large publishing house. The idea is that you will read the book and rate the book before the book is officially released.

It's a marketing ploy and it works. I have scored some great free books this way.

7. Early access. Amazon will allow Prime members access to sales and deals before letting nonmember know they exist. It's a short window, only 30 minutes. But this is great for items that are going to sell our fast like sneakers and televisions.

I really do think that the $99 we spend each year on Amazon Prime is well worth our money, we definitely use all of our benefits.

Bonus: If you use Subscribe and Save you get giant boxes that can be pirate ships, space ships or race cars.

Remember: You can sign up for Amazon Mom and save 20% on diapers! With Amazon Mom you automatically save 20% on diapers and free 2-day shipping. It's free to sign up and all parents, and caregivers (grand parents!!!!) are eligible. Sign up here for Amazon Mom (it’s FREE!)

Also, you can sign up for a a free 30-Day trial membership to Amazon Prime and get free shipping on lots of baby items.

What about you? Do you have Amazon Prime?