How to Decide Whether to Rent or Buy a Movie

Movies today are so inexpensive that it may seem smarter to buy them outright than to spend about half the price just to rent them. However, those seemingly great purchases can suddenly become more trouble than they are worth when you are forced to try to find places to store them. Unless you are a true movie buff that tends to watch the same movie over and over again, renting could be the smarter action. But how do you decide whether to rent or purchase? The following the steps are designed to help you make the right decision.

Instructions

Difficulty: Easy

Things You’ll Need:

• A list or catalogue of the movies that you are interested in renting or purchasing;
• A price list for those movies that you might want to purchase;
• Movie review resource materials;
• A pencil or pen; and
• Paper.

How to Decide Whether to Rent or Buy a Movie

1. If you have an existing library of movies, make a list of everything you already own. Be sure to list its format (tape or DVD).
2. Make a list of all of the movies that you want to see (within a given space of time), eliminating all of those you might already own.
3. Make note of each movie's estimated date of release for rent or purchase; the formats in which it will be available; and its estimated cost.
4. Eliminate any movies from your list that are only available in a format that your equipment cannot handle. For example, if you only own a VCR, movies that are only available in DVD format won't be an immediate option.
5. Review your list of potential movie rentals/purchases and prioritize them with one being the movie you most want to see and the remainder listed in descending order.
6. Reviewing your prioritized list, make note of those movies that are in categories of particular interest to you or your family, such as science fiction, horror, or animation. Also, make note of movies that contain the favorite actors or actresses of your various family members. Finally, make note of the movies rating status like G, PG, R, or NR.
7. Eliminate any movies for purchase that don't fit into a category of interest, contain favorite actors or actresses or fall within unacceptable rating status for you or your family.
8. Compare your list of films against any and all movie review resource material you can locate with an eye toward eliminating those that reviewed poorly among multiple critiques.
9. Make note of the movies on your list that you have already seen but are eager to view again. If you have seen the same movie multiple times and are still eager to see it again, put a star by its name.
10. Reprioritize your movie list putting those films that are in your categories of interest, have favorite actors or actresses, fall within your acceptable ratings status, and have stars indicating that you want to view them again at the top of your list.
11. Review your new movie list against a price catalogue, determining the estimated cost of each film.
12. Eliminate from your list or move to the "rent" side of the list any film that falls outside of your acceptable cost parameters for purchase. Keep in mind that movies often go down in price after they have been out for a while and you can choose to purchase them at that time if you so desire.
13. Divide your remaining list into films that you want to purchase versus those you choose to rent, keeping in mind that you can always purchase a pre-owned movie at reduced costs later on if you so desire.

Tips & Warnings

• Determine, up front, how many movies you have space to store and limit your film purchases to that number.
• Determine the maximum amount of money you are willing to spend on a movie purchase and stick to it.
• Consider waiting to purchase a pre-owned movie at reduced cost instead of buying a new one at the full retail amount.
• If you have children, consider eliminating any movies in R, X, or NR categories unless you have a place to store them that you can lock.
• Before making a movie purchase, check multiple retail sites and stores in order to obtain the best price possible.
• Never purchase a movie when it first comes out unless it is one of your all time favorites.
• Resist impulse movie purchases because a movie is popular as a whole, cheap, or supposedly only available for a limited amount of time.
• Don't purchase a movie that has been summarily "panned" by the critics until you have viewed it for yourself and deemed it worthy of owning.
• Don't purchase movies in a format that you cannot play with your equipment.