How I saved $314.26 on the cost of my textbooks

If you are like me you have to buy textbooks for yourself or someone in your family soon. And you probably can’t stand the thought of paying all that money for books for one semester and then getting little to none of that money back during the college store buyback event.
Now I have a confession to make…most years I just buy my books USED from my college bookstore but with funds being tight this year I decided to try and save some money. Here is how I saved myself over $300.00 and I saved nearly $400.00 for a friend (yes, he does think I am an angel…but this is just the latest reason)

STEP 1: FIND THE TIME TO SIT AND DO THE RESEARCH

This may seem like a stupid first step or a no brainer but if you set aside 45 – 90 minutes to do this chances are it will not be all that difficult and you won’t overlook a GREAT deal like I almost did.

STEP 2: GATHER A FEW NEEDED SUPPLIES

I found that keeping all the numbers in my head for more than one book was impossible, so I suggest that you gather:
1. Your Class Schedule
2. A pen
3. Paper or a notepad (or you can download this Microsoft Office 2007 Document and just fill in the blanks…Here is the Microsoft Office 2003 version if you need it) . I generally record every price option for every book and then buy each book from its cheapest location

STEP 3: GET THE ISBN NUMBERS OF THE BOOKS THAT ARE NEEDED FOR CLASS

You can do this with just the title and edition of the books but having the ISBN for each book just makes it so much easier and faster to find the exact book you need every time.
I usually get this information by e-mailing my professors but you may be able to get this information by logging on to the website for your school bookstore…if you can’t get it online don’t be afraid to reach out to your professors, they generally will not bite and they are human…believe it or not they do understand trying to save money.

STEP 4: FIGURE OUT YOUR “WORST CASE SCENARIO” COST

To me this means having to buy the books brand new from the college bookstore. This is the price you will now try to beat.

STEP 5: WHAT IS THE USED COST FROM THE BOOKSTORE?

Now, go back and select to purchase the books used from the college bookstore. Did it make much of a difference? If it made enough of a difference to your budget you can stop here but you might want to keep going with the pricing options below.

STEP 6: BUYING FROM AMAZON.COM

First things first just price each book and record for future reference. I usually find that I can buy the textbooks brand new from Amazon for the same price or slightly less than I can buy them used from the college bookstore

STEP 7: BUYING FROM 3RD PARTIES ON AMAZON.COM

This year I tried purchasing from third parties and found some really great deals.

STEP 8: BUYING FROM BARNESANDNOBLE.COM

Price the same way you did amazon.com

STEP 9: BUYING FROM 3RD PARTIES ON BARNESANDNOBLE.COM

Price the same way you did amazon.com 3rd parties

STEP 10: BUYING FROM HALF.COM

I actually came to this site looking to make plans to sell the books back at the end of the semester. It shows you a best price for the book, but the key is to scroll all the way down to the ebay.com purchase options I got a book that was nearly $90.00 for $6.54 total

STEP 11: REVIEW YOUR PRICE NOTES

Now that you have all that information, go back to your notes and figure out where the cheapest books are and get ready to make purchases…me I decided to purchase all of mine through Amazon.com 3rd parties and it turns out that I could have saved about $13 more than I did and, yes, I am kicking myself over that (it is the cost of a textbook for me after all) but getting my total bill down from $465.20 to $150.94 is not too bad. A total savings of over 67.5% as compared to buying them all new in the school bookstore

STEP 12: MAKE PURCHASES

I know you know how to make purchases on line so now have fun shopping!!!