How to Save Money on Textbooks in College

College is expensive. Aside from tuition, housing, and food you have to spend money to buy your own textbooks, too. This can all lead to quite a bit of debt, not to mention old books that you bought in college and that are useless to you and taking up space in your room.

So how do you keep the bookstores from robbing you of your hard-earned cash? The best advice is to avoid bookstores altogether. At the risk of sounding bitter, bookstores are money-grubbing evil entities. They sell books at ridiculous prices and that's nothing compared to the buy back rates you'll get from your local college bookstore. Even if a book was brand new when you bought it and you never used it, you'll be lucky if you get a third of your money back. So rule number one: avoid bookstores!

But before you even decide where to get your books, you should decide whether you should get your books. I quickly learned after my first year of college, that I didn't need to be spending an extra $300 a semester for no reason. When I first started school I bought my books before classes even started. That's a classic rookie mistake. Most of the time, you don't need your books. So to be on the way to saving money, you should first determine which books you need and which books you don't. You can ask other students who have taken the class or look up the professor's ratings online to see if their tests come from the book or class notes. Most teachers rely more heavily on their notes than books.

However, if your tests are going to be book-based or if you have regular assignments to complete, then it's time to go textbook shopping! In the spirit of supporting fellow students and keeping your money from the bookstore's greedy pockets, the first place to look is local online networks. Some schools have a website where students can trade books among other things. You can also use facebook marketplace and craigslist to find the books you're looking for. You will probably get a good deal and help out another student who already took the class and is trying to make some money back. This is also a good option because you can find someone immediately and figure out a meeting time to get your book.

If you don't mind waiting for your book to ship, the best places to find cheap books are internet stores like half.com and amazon.com. Aside from already low prices on most books compared to your bookstore, the advantage of these sites is that you can find old editions. One thing to realize is that when books are republished, there is usually very little change in content and the prices of older editions plummet immediately. So if you buy a book that is one or two editions old you could get a $100 book for less than $10. If you're going to do this it is helpful to have someone you know in the class to make sure you are studying the correct material.

This brings me to the other ways to save money on books. If you have a friend who previously took the class, you could borrow their old book. If you have friends currently enrolled in the class with you, you can split the cost of the book and then split whatever you make back if you sell it.

You can also try to get the book from your school library but this is usually fruitless. Most schools only have one or two copies of textbooks and often times these are checked out and never returned.

Another unlikely way to save on books is to see if you can find parts of the book online. Sometimes sites like amazon.com or books.google.com offer previews of the books which include random chapters or pages. Sometimes even the publishers have book previews online. This seems ridiculous but can be effective. For example, if you have predetermined assignments and the pages you need happen to be online, you don't need to buy the book. This method is also helpful if you are assigned a paper or project on a specific chapter in a book.

These tried and true methods will save you tons of money in a time when money is already a little tight.