Tips, Tricks, and Coupon Codes to help you save money in college

BUYING:

8/25/2013

Abebooks, Valorebooks, Ecampus, and Amazon are all about the same in terms of price and reliability, but search all 4 directly to find best bargain. Earlier you search for books better chance you have of finding cheap used versions.

Abebooks

Use this link and coupon code A59RMN $3 off $30 or A68RMN $2 off $20

Amazon Market

Best deals are on used books, but sometimes Amazon main page actually has better deal, they also have cheap electronic copies. Great buy back program come end of semester...

Amazon Student:

FREE two day shipping and movie streaming. Get 6 months free with a .edu email address just set reminder to cancel else get charged $39 for 1 year (But still that is 50% off full price prime membership and if you are buying a lot or want movies this is GREAT deal. CLICK HERE

eCampus

FREE shipping over $59 which can add up if you are buying couple different books, coupon "BELOYAL" for 5% off

Valorebooks

Very similar to abebooks. (Good Renting)

TO RECEIVE A REMINDER AT START OF EACH SEMESTER OF THESE DEALS AND NEW ONES SIGN UP HERE!

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RENTING

8/25/2013

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Depending on how much time and willingness you have to sell books back renting can be your best bet. ALL of the above sites offer renting options on some of their books as well.

Skyo

Might be my overall FAVORITE. Type in the class and section and it tells you all the books you need and tons of options for renting. Really cool and fast.

Chegg

One of the most popular sites to use for renting books. Use this link and Coupon Code: "SEODISC05" to get 10% off Can also get step by step answers to problems and other cool things

BookRenter

Couple people mentioned they were easy to use and good prices. I rented one from them for this semester.

TO RECEIVE A REMINDER AT START OF EACH SEMESTER OF THESE DEALS AND NEW ONES SIGN UP HERE!

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General Tips for Textbooks

8/25/2013

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The library has copies of all required textbooks, can just borrow for free if won’t need book often. Can only borrow for SHORT periods but just renew as needed and go to library whenever need it

If online book won’t be in on time just buy it from bookstore to get you by until cheap copy arrives then return (sounds like can return within first 2 weeks for full refund) KEEP RECEIPT

Search sites like coursesmart.com and epubbud.com to find free/cheap electronic downloads and print off to make “book” A lot of the sites I metioned for buying and renting also include electronic books. (or even try googling for free copy"

International editions: most people say they haven’t found them to be any different than USA editions and A LOT cheaper (sometimes the end of chapter questions are different, but if get assigned those problems just take picture of classmate’s)

Older editions: typically safe going back 1 or 2 editions without massive differences. A lot cheaper but check with professor first

Ask around to upperclassmen to try and find someone who took class before you and selling book you need

If I am missing anything or have other suggestions/have had a good/bad experience with one of these sites please comment so I don't have to repost on Facebook again!.

TO RECEIVE A REMINDER AT START OF EACH SEMESTER OF THESE DEALS AND NEW ONES SIGN UP HERE!

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My Textbook Search Saga

8/25/2013

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I was SHOCKED when I saw how much the book store was charging for a textbook that I was only ever going to use this one semester and then it would just become a VERY expensive paper weight so I started looking online since EVERYTHING is cheaper online right? Well as I started my search I quickly became overwhelmed with how long it was taking me to search through the hundreds of results for cheap textbook sites to find the ones that seemed legitimate and ACTUALLY had cheap textbooks. After a lot of searching I just started emailing tons of professors and friends I have that are upperclassmen asking for advice for best sites to use and ways to save money and got tons of responses that have helped me a lot. So I made a little "cheat sheet" list for myself of the sites that multiple people kept recommending as best bet for finding books and suddenly those $200 textbooks were sometimes as low as $24.67 and it was no longer taking me hours to search through tons and tons of sites that ranged from expensive but well known to super cheap and sort of sketchy.
I then posted this list on our class of 2017 facebook page to try and help everyone else get through these 4 years without being TOTALLY poor at the end. Quite a few people told me to find way to make this list more permanent so I made this free little blog real fast so that you can either bookmark this (that's what I did) or I am trying a mailing list (assuming I remember every semester lol) and I will resend you the list come book buying season.

Not really sure what else this site can be used for but I am open to suggestions, I will try and find some other cool student deals we could use and see what all is out there for us to save money. (Or maybe I will forget this even exists lol) but let me know if you guys find anything and I will share it...

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