Shopping for books
It’s a new school year and every person loves to save some money. One area known to all students is books. The University of Colorado Office of Financial Aid website estimates that a CU Student will spend $1,992 dollars on books and supplies through the 2011-2012 academic year. For those who are studying hard sciences or math, this number is most likely slightly higher. This is a great promised land on the way to achieving financial savings.
In the same way students shop for clothes, technology, and plane tickets, one can shop for books. There are three or four options when it comes to getting books: buy new, buy used, get it from a friend, or rent. I personally suggest renting books that cost over $100 dollars because even if you buy new or used, you will be lucky to even get back 40% percent of what you bought it for.
A great place to rent books is: http://www.chegg.com/ . It is an online book store. I rented my EBIO book freshmen year for 75 dollars. Campbell’s 8th Edition with Mastering Biology was priced brand new from $215 dollars to $240 dollars. I didn’t have $240 dollars just to purchase one book, so I asked my upper classmen friends what I should do. They recommended renting from Chegg. They said it would be cheaper, I could highlight/write in the book (as long as I didn’t get too crazy with it), it would be mailed to me in a pre-paid envelop, I would send it back in a prepaid envelop, and I could choose to rent the book for a semester or the year. It also came with Mastering Biology, a necessary key component for being able to do the online assignments. But before I decided to run with this, I looked at various other places to rent books. Three other great and usually decent places to rent I found were: Shipping on the Hill, Colorado Bookstore on the Hill, and the CU Bookstore on campus. In the end the prices were cheap, but none of the used copies came with Mastering Biology (which would have been another $50 dollar purchase). So I went with Chegg. In the end if you aren’t comfortable with the whole online renting idea, I would recommend checking out the other locations. Also recently Chegg added an electronic book rental / purchasing option to their website.
There are various places to purchase books, but one money saver is Amazon, http://www.amazon.com. Regardless of whether you’re buying new or used, Amazon is a great option. It has book purchasing options from various sources: people, bookstores, the publishing company, and even other colleges. Just as an example I will use the Principles of Chemistry book written by Martin Silberberg, which is needed for Chemistry 1 and 2. The CU Bookstore, Shipping on the Hill and Colorado Bookstore will sell you the hard cover book brand new for $175 dollars to $185 dollars. Amazon will sell the hard cover version from $104 dollars to $132 dollars. That’s a pretty big difference in price when you consider that you also have other classes to purchase books for. Amazon also does sell used books. If you purchase and it is not the condition it was stated in or the wrong version, you have 30 days after you receive the shipment to return the book. I personally purchased my book used for $66 dollars, and at the end of the year Amazon offered to repurchase the book for $50 dollars. It’s an extremely useful website for purchasing and reselling books economically.
College is not an inexpensive venture, so every dollar you save could be a blessing for your parents and yourself. If you just shop around and give it a little time, your savings each semester on books could be drastic. Besides the CU Bookstore, Colorado Bookstore, Shipping on the Hill, Chegg, and Amazon, there are many other places to find books and create money saving opportunities. If you have to, look at it as if every dollar saved is another dollar in your pocket to be spent on something else or saved. In the same way students shop for clothes, places to eat, technology, and various other things shopping for, books is a great chance to cash in on the savings.
Samuel, sophomore, integrative physiology and religious studies major