Tips for Purchasing College Textbooks

As you are well aware, moving out of your parent’s home and trying to make ends meet is difficult as a student. Your funds are very tight and during this period of your life you will probably learn more tricks than you ever thought possible about saving money and living on a budget. Here are a few lessons from the field about some great ways to save on text books while you are trying to get an education.

Before you even go to the university book store, shop online for the best prices on used text books. The average student will spend approximately $1000 a year on text books, but there are ways to drastically reduce that price.  Check out virtual libraries that offer free reference material to readers at no cost. It may be difficult to find newer books for free online, but older versions with expired copyrights are easy to find. Try the Internet Public Library for links to full-text books, newspapers and magazines. Project Gutenberg has over 16,000 free e-books available for download, including most of the major classics. Bartleby is another free resource for reference materials and e-books. And try Google Scholar for free e-books and academic articles as well.

Check the campus message board for students selling books from the previous year. There are always other students willing to sell their used text books for a fraction of the book store price. If you are still unable to locate the text you need, use a comparison shopping site like Allbookstores where you can type in the title or ISBN number of the book you need and it will locate the book online and compare the prices of several different resources.

If you can start your search ahead of the crowd, you may try a bidding site like EBay but you can’t wait until the last minute to do this or you might not get what you need in time for class. Other options are Half and Alibris. You can always resort to Amazon if you simply must have a fresh new copy.

However you obtain your school books, remember to resell them at the end of the school year using the same methods. Either post your book sale on EBay, Amazon or Craigslist or hang flyers around campus in the buildings and classrooms where you attended class. Bank the money you save for your student loan repayment.