College is expensive. These three words could not be any truer, and you've surely found that out by now. You've got your tuition covered, you've put furniture and groceries in your dorm, and you've paid for a hundred other miscellaneous things. Your pockets can't be dug into much deeper.
Then you show up to your first week of classes, and you’re handed a syllabus that tells you that you’re responsible for buying your own textbooks? Ouch.
These things are not cheap. My first semester's books alone - if purchased new from the campus book store - would've cost me upwards of $500, in fact. There's a bit of a silver lining, in that you can resell your books after the semester, but you won't receive nearly as much as you paid, especially selling back to the book store.
For someone still getting his feet wet in the world of constant expenses, that's quite a bit of money, and I for one, am definitely not looking to spend it if I absolutely don't have to. There are plenty of other things I can and would much spend money on. Luckily, my bank account and I didn't have to let go of nearly that much thanks to the discovery of
online textbook rentals.
After a classmate told me about money saver, I went home and did a bit of research. I found a few good websites, all of which had the same basic premise. They charge you a fraction of what you'd have to pay for the book, you get to borrow it for the semester, and you return it when it's over. Think Netflix, but instead of movies, you get books, and you only have to pay once, instead of monthly. The books are shipped right to your door, promptly, and you just mail them back and order the ones you need for your next classes when the time comes. It's beautifully simple, and it turned my $500 expense into a $100 one, which was much more manageable.
I went with
Chegg personally, but there's also
BookRenter,
CampusBookRentals,
BookSwim, and a few others. Shop around between those sites, see which one has the books you need for the lowest price, and take advantage of this awesome service. There's no reason not to, and when every penny counts, I welcome an opportunity to save a few hundred dollars each semester with open arm