T for Textbooks

I’m going to warn you in advance that this post will probably be pretty boring for most of you.

I found out pretty quickly that college credits, even at Community College, are expensive; I expected that. What I didn’t expect was how expensive textbooks are. I cannot believe the prices on some of the textbooks I’ve needed so far!

I knew that the college bookstore was probably not the cheapest in terms of price, so I set out to find the best deals on textbooks. I found many places all over the internet to buy cheap college textbooks. Some provide better deals than others, depending on the book, so it is important to cross reference a few resources; which is quick and easy when one utilizes the internet.

A couple weeks before new classes start, I go out to Community College’s bookstore website to look up the books I need and to get the bookstore prices. I keep the list with title, ISBN, and prices open on my computer desktop as I search online for the best prices. Of the over half a dozen textbooks I’ve purchased so far, I’ve found every single one online for cheaper than the used price offered by the bookstore, and that includes paying shipping!

My favorite sites to search for textbook deals are: DirectTextbook, Cheapest Textbooks, and Cheap-Textbooks. These sites search among many textbooks sites, including Half.com, and provide a list of online sites that have the book for sale along with prices for the book. By utilizing these sites, I’ve saved myself anywhere from 10-50% on textbooks!! Granted buying books online isn’t as quick and easy as the bookstore, and usually there are shipping charges, but the savings I’ve found have included paying for shipping (and I’ve never paid more than $3.50 for shipping).

An example: The college bookstore listed my English textbook as $46.65 used. I was able to get it for $23.49 (including shipping), which is a savings of $23.16 or almost 50%!

Now, if you’re like me and hate the idea of buying a book that someone else has used, which means it could have germs, and food particles, and god knows what else on/in it, you might prefer to stick to purchasing new books. The savings won’t be as large, but I have still found new textbooks online for cheaper than college bookstore prices. When I realized the cost benefit, I quickly got past my fears over buying used textbooks. I stick to purchasing those listed as “like new” or “very good” condition, and I haven’t had a problem yet. No gross findings in my books, and really, germs can only live for so long.

I also found out that it’s possible to rent textbooks. The cheapest rental site I’ve found is Chegg. Chegg’s rental options include a 60-day, a quarter, and a semester rental; they also provide the option to extend rentals by anywhere from 15 days up to a whole semester. One must pay shipping to receive the books—I paid $3.99—but return shipping is free. I’m renting books for the first time this semester, and I’m pretty excited about the savings.

An example: My Geology textbook was listed at the bookstore for $100.05 used. (I know; it’s crazy, isn’t it?!?) Since I only need it for 8 weeks, I rented it for a quarter; which is a few weeks over what I needed but was the best option price wise. The rental price was $45.53 and shipping was $3.99 for a total of $49.52. That’s a savings of 51%!!

I think renting is the way to go for books that I don’t see myself hanging on to, because I won’t need to refer to them in the future. Not only is there quite a bit of savings, but I won’t have piles of unneeded/unwanted books sitting around my house waiting for me to get off my butt and try to resell them. Another thing that is appealing to me about renting books, especially from Chegg, is that Chegg plants a tree for every book that’s rented. Two trees were planted as a result of my renting the Geology textbook and workbook, and I got to pick where they should be planted. (I was given three locations as options.) I think that’s pretty cool!

I do have one caveat to the rental route. I found out that the Geology lab manual I rented was missing quite a few pages. Unfortunately, I was in the middle of class, and the missing pages included a lab we were supposed to do. I was not pleased, to say the least. Thankfully, the professor had made a few photocopies of the needed pages because so many students hadn’t shown up with materials, so I was covered.

I will be exercising Chegg’s 30-Day “Any Reason” guarantee. According to this policy, I have 30 days from the date my order was placed to return the book and get my money back. Good thing I realized the problem with this book early enough to exercise this option. I went to half.com (my go-to site, because they have cheaper prices and fast shipping) and order a new lab manual for about the same price I paid for the rental.

I’m always, always searching for the cheapest option, so if any students out there have a resource that I haven’t mentioned here, I’d love to hear about it!

NOTE: None of the website I've listed in this post asked me to write this review, nor was I compensated in any way. The opinions expressed are mine, and mine only; your experience with these particular sites may vary.