You know how you hate those stories from your parents that start off with “When I was your age I had to walk 5 miles in the snow?” Well, I have one of those stories. Not that many years ago, I was an adult reentry student with two kids and a tight budget going to college. I spent hours trying to find ways to save money on my textbooks. I would for example purchase the single story from a text book if I could find out that we didn’t need the whole one. I would spend hours on the Internet and in Half Price Books stores searching for used books, and of course I would be shoulder to shoulder jostling with other college students trying to find a used book I could purchase, even though most of the time it meant that I was really only paying dollars less, but every penny counts.
Now that my son is in college I recently found out about a program were you can rent textbooks. I think many college students and parents would agree that this sounds interesting. No longer do you have to purchase a $125.00 text book in a subject that you have no interest in pursuing in the future. For example, my Biology book was great for class, but there was no need for me to use it again since then.
It’s really easy to rent a textbook. Just visit the website, look for your book using title, author or ISBN. Next, set up your account and pay using a debit or credit card. You can even make $5.00 when you refer a friend and they use this site too.
So here is what I found,”The Complete Works of Shakespeare 6th edition” (which as an English major I would keep but not many others would) is available at an online bookstore for $81.31. Or you can rent it for a semester, quarter, specified period of days or state your own timetable. Here is it $40.00 for the semester. That’s a savings of 50% and you don’t even have to worry about paying full price then returning the book to save the cash. I don’t know about you but I’d rather have the money instead of later.
Here are some perks other than saving money:
- free shipping to and from
- flexible rental periods so every schedule works
- you CAN highlight in the books (I was big on highlighting
- good for the environment because books are being reused – reducing waste
- and, (I love this!) with each rental a donation is made to Operation Smile, the program that offers surgical procedures to children with cleft palate.
So what do you think? Could this save your college student (or you) money? I know it could me. I just sent my son a text and asked for a list of his books for the next term, I don’t mind letting my fingers do the walking on the keyboard if it means I can help him save money next term.
Give it a try and let me know what you think below in the comments. Feel free to tell me which book your college student could be saving money on by renting, not buying a text book for college.
If you have questions about exactly how this works, this video can help.
Great post. I really wish I would have looked more into buying books when I was a freshman. I wasted so much money.