I didn’t get an Amazon Prime membership until the pandemic, when the lure of delivery finally outweighed the annual cost for me.

I was impressed by the convenience and never looked back, until three months ago when my Prime membership was up for renewal. My budget has tightened and I thought if I had lived without it before, surely I could do it again, right?

Plus, I knew I’d save money when ease of ordering was no longer an option. There have been too many times when I regretted late-night purchases that I wouldn’t make in daylight. Over the holidays, for example, I woke up to see if I could cancel the $25 Amazon order of gourmet gummy bears I’d placed the night before, but it was too late.

I felt free after canceling, but I was also scared.

I knew that letting Prime go meant having to run more errands again, but errands are something I realized I wanted more of, not less of.

I’ve come to miss running out of food even for silly things, like milk for my coffee and cereal the next morning. So the idea of ​​being forced to find all my favorite things in the physical world again was appealing to me. I just wasn’t used to it anymore.

Now I’m adjusting to making lists of things I need and planning errands, but I didn’t realize that I wouldn’t know where to buy anything anymore.

Once I saw the level of dependency I had developed on Prime, I didn’t want to use it anymore.

I became determined to find out where my favorite products were available and sometimes opted to order directly from the company instead of going to a big box store to buy the same thing. I may spend more because of shipping costs, but I feel better supporting a smaller company. I also feel like I’ve made a connection with the people behind the business, as if my direct sale is a direct thank you. Plus, I often get some kind of bonus, like free samples, discounts for later, or a nice souvenir.

In some cases, I even found new products to replace those that, for some reason, I could only buy through Amazon, such as certain vitamins and supplements, and abandoned other products altogether, realizing that in their absence I didn’t really need them.

I’ve returned to a more conscious shopping experience, where I consider the quality of what I’m buying or what I could be supporting with my purchase. This way, I feel more involved in my purchasing decisions again and like I have regained some of my purchasing power.

I realized how much I gave up for the convenience of delivery.

I’ve learned that it helps to give myself a pep talk that I’m just going to go in and buy whatever I came for. I have failed most at this in second-hand bookstores and bargain stores. For example, I walked into Five Below specifically looking for a dog bed and walked out without one, but somehow spent $60 on other amazing finds. While I love everything I found that day, I didn’t necessarily have the budget for it. This way, running errands again has gotten me into trouble several times.

I knew I missed getting ready to run errands in the morning or afternoon, but what I had forgotten to miss were the smaller things: listening to the right song in the car, treating myself to coffee for errands, physically examining items like clothing in a store, and the simple pleasure of just browsing.

And sometimes it seems too simple, because I would never have thought that adding more to-dos to my life would finally bring me so many things.

I hope the shiny new feeling of running errands doesn’t wear off, because what once seemed like chores now feel like these mini adventures that I’ve been having a lot of fun on.