The Half.com, Amazon, Overstock, College bookstore challenge
Is there a best place to pick up your college books from? That's what the Mrs. set out to discover just yesterday.As many of you know, Mrs. Budgetsaresexy is starting grad school this month, and is thus trying to find the best bargains out there for her reading material. And I gotta tell you, a LOT has changed since my days at the old university!
One of my favorite things to do was to visit the bookstore and see the hundreds of students mingling around, all excited to be back in school and ready to party ;) In fact, i liked it so much that i even worked there! I tell you one thing, it's a helluva way to meet
But anyways, back in the day we only had one real way of getting these books - the college bookstore. It was the #1 cash drainer for our pockets, or should I say some of our parent's pockets (i love you Mom! not that you know this site exists). But these days? Not anymore. There are a plethora of ways to get our hands on them now, and sometimes for much cheaper.
Mrs. Budgetsaresexy literally JUST emailed me a spreadsheet she put together to calculate the best bargains out there for her newest list of books needed. It was intended for MEO (My eyes only), but i got her to share it with us :) There's nothing graphic in there, so why not right? haha...
So, here's the email she sent me word for word which summarizes her findings, minus a few identifying details: (the spreadsheet can be found here, for all you visual people)
As you can see, going with JUST the college bookstore in this case fails miserably. It seems the best route to take is to pick and choose from a combination of Half.com, Amazon, Overstock, AND the college bookstore. It's a little time consuming, but the $100+ we'll be saving is well worth it!"Dear sexiest man alive (editor's note: i put that in...he he)
i compiled a spreadsheet of all the books i need, and their respective costs in 4 places: amazon, half.com, overstock, and the college bookstore.
if the edition or translation of the book was questionable in terms of what the professor wants, and/or if the cost difference wasn't significant enough to matter much (a few cents to a dollar or so), i went with the default college bookstore to make things easier. for all other books that were pretty much standard editions everywhere, OR where the price differentiation was HUGE (was for at least 3 books), i went with any of the other 3 online dealers.
to make a long story short, if i went ONLY with the college bookstore, my total spent on books thus far (not counting whatever i have to spend on my 3rd class), would have been : $254.50. my grand total for what i spent using the methods above? $145.99. i SAVED a total of $108.51!!!!
now, let's just hope that all the books i ordered online arrive on time, AND are the right version of what i need and all. but if they all are? well hot diggidy, i think i am a hefty little save-a-roo!!! :) "
The Winner: Combination of all 4 places! (Anyone wanna guess what her major is?)
Labels: bargains, education, grad school, link lovin, mrs. budgetsaresexy
posted by J. Money at
10:14 AM
16 Comments:
When I was in college, I found that the best prices could be found in... dun dun... England! Seriously- I bought my science textbooks at amazon.CO.UK, as opposed to amazon.com, and the price was 1/3, even after the exchange rate was accounted for. I paid a tiny bit more in shipping, and had my books right away. With the current $/GBP rate, I don't know if this discprepancy still exists.
The key is that textbook re-sales are so prevalent here that publishers have to charge $$$ to compensate for the fewer books they sell. I guess this is not the case in England, thus publishers can offer the books for less.
I never had a problem with any of the books I purchased this way, except maybe some spellings or something. Depends on the subject material, I guess.
Sorry for the double post, but looking at your list of books, I doubt buying them overseas would benefit you much. My engineering textbooks sometimes cost $150+, and I could buy them for 36 GBP at amazon.co.uk, which comes out to almost half price.
I used to get some of my books in the college....LIBRARY! Specifically the math and engineering libraries usually. You just check them out for free. Usually it was an edition or two behind but good enough.
You of course do run the risk of the library calling it due (without being able to renew it) but might be worth checking out...
Oh yeah, I used to borrow the $$ ones from the library, too, but then right around finals it would be nearly impossible to check them out. So be careful about the end of the term! I only did this for books that I didn't think would be useful as a reference for future classes, since most engineering courses build on past material and actually having the book can be useful.
I've done this in the past as well. Though I haven't always been very lucky with it lately. This next term's books are mostly in packages and so I don't know what is in them to order elsewhere. Last term I had the problem of not being able to find the correct editions. So though I keep on looking sometimes it's easier (though not necessarily cheaper) to just buy from the college bookstore. *sigh*
Congratulations to your wife for going back to school and being so successful with her textbook savings!
I always knew the campus bookstore was a ripoff!! Fortunately, as a English major a lot of my "textbooks" were novels, so hello, Used Bookstores!! Five bucks for a paperback copy of Great Expectations? Sold!
You guys are sneaky! I f'ing love it....whatever works, right?
MBA? That is my guess since she is such a smart #s lady! :)
I did the same when I was in grad school. I would shop around for the best deal! I even purchased on half.com. She will then have to sell these books on half.com or amazon when she is done. She will get more back that way than the book buy back at the college!
that's awesome! i'm waiting for my college to publish the list of books that i will need. then i plan to shop around, as well. it's always cheaper for me to get them elsewhere, the college is SO expensive and i have to stand in line for HOURS there. horrible horrible.
political science?
political science?
Kayla and Donnie, you guys win! She's actually Political Theory, but close enough :)
Briana - good guess! she loves putting those things together...and it's perfect for me cuz then i can have visuals for my posts ;)
My sister starts law school in a few weeks and we recently did the same thing! I love spreadsheets and I love saving money. :)
She was able to save money like your wife, but unfortunately her total was still around $1,000! Way too much reading...
Check out www.bigwords.com You punch in the book(s) you want and it gives you a list of which store has the cheapest price for each book and for all books combined. It's great.
where does she go for school? i'm undergrad and the cheapest book on my list is 78.75 for a used macroecon. book. and my most expensive is almost 200!
granted, i only need 5 books.
Check out this site www.bookase.com, A price comparison search engine for books and textbooks. It searches for the lowest prices among the major online stores worldwide and also offers discount coupons. You can also choose among various shipping options to calculate the lowest price
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