College books

[undertheradar]

It will depend upon how popular the books are. We have bought new, used, rented, from Amazon, bookrenter, Barnes and Noble, overstock, chegg, ebay, and the school book store. To get the best prices you have to do a lot of searching and be prepared to obtain your books from multiple sources.

 

[HM]

This year we used chegg.com, abebooks, and amazon.com to buy used books and rent books for my son. We did a search of the isbn numbers in each place and figured the best price. One book was only avaiable at school so used the bookstore for it.

 

[tinkmom2]

Because I have financial aid I buy my books directly from the bookstore. My total for 9 credits, the books alone $450.00 That's not including my lab coat and glasses. My one instructor refuses to use the text book assigned for the class. (Economics) I looked everywhere for the one he wants to use. It ranges from $40-80 out of pocket. I looked into downloading books on my Nook but it wasn't really that cheaper, still $80 for my Economic book. I have been back and forth with the bookstore and found out this is not only against school policy but federal guidelines.

My school also has books that are specially made for them. For example my Math book from summer had an exclusive code and I had to do all my homework over the computer. Same thing with my Medical term book. It was a workbook and not resalable. It makes it hard to buy those books used. Same thing with my Spanish class this semester. The books were $140 but I can't resell them because they have the computer code and the workbook that I write in.

I found the Economics book on Ebay. Some professors are very specific about what books you can use. I would make sure that it's the book before purchasing.

 

[ExPirateShopGirl]

Also, in regards to Amazon prime membership ...

After the initial 'free' year, student prime costs $39/yr. Student prime only comes with membership for one person and the only benefit is 2 day shipping.

However, we found out after wasting money last year on it - it was better for my husband to buy a regular prime membership for $79/yr. It allows him to invite 3 others to share the prime membership - so my daughter and I get free 2-day prime, and we all get access to prime eligible free video streaming (and e-reader books) - something that my daughter loves up at school. For us it was worth it since we were able to get rid of Netflix.

Once you start paying the $39/yr student price you get free video streaming. My kids' Kindles are registered to my account so we all share the benefits.

 

[jgreco]

DD goes to private high school, before I was wiser I paid full price from the school bookstore, even the used ones were priced ridiculous. Year one I paid over $400. Last year and this year I bought on Ebay, Amazon and half.com and paid less than $200. I was able to resell her old books through Amazon to at least pay for part of this year's books.