Think about this next time you want to rent a movie

A couple of weeks ago my wife and I wanted to watch the first installment of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows before going to the theater to watch part 2. Yes, I know, going to a theater to watch a movie isn't exactly frugal. But we had been planning for this. Anyway, we were fully prepared to go out to a video rental store and rent the DVD. That's when we realized that the nearest place to rent a DVD was just under 4 miles away (or almost 8 miles round trip), plus the cost of renting it (usually a couple of dollars), and the time to return it (another 8 miles). I have a 15 inch Macbook screen, so I suggested to her that we could rent it online for $0.99 (from iTunes). I rented the movie, and let it start downloading for about 10 minutes before watching. Once we started the movie there was no problem! Not only did we save money on the rental (we rarely, if ever rent a movie), but because the movie viewing period expires automatically we saved about 16 miles of driving (at almost $4/gallon).