How To Save Money on College Textbooks

Usually when I want to save money, my first strategy is to find a way to Make My Own homemade version. Most of the time that strategy works, but sometimes, things just can’t be homemade.

Like a college textbook. Yup, I just can’t make my own college textbooks. *Sigh*

But I did discover there’s another great alternative and that’s RENTING a college textbook. What a great idea!

campu book rentals

Hungry Son is going back to college to pursue computer programming and so we’ve been investigating some creative ways to save money on college textbooks. One alternative is Campus Book Rentals where you can save money by renting the textbooks instead of buying them.

Campus Book Rentals was founded in 2007 and since that time has rented over a million books on 5,500 college campuses. They’ve got some great perks too that show they understand what college students need such as:

  • Free shipping, with a prepaid envelope to ship the book back when you’re done
  • You can highlight, underline, and makes notes in the margin in any of the books you rent
  • Flexible renting periods to help you work around your class schedules
  • Savings of 40% to 90% off bookstore prices
  • Easy to search their site by book title, ISBN number, keyword, or author

So if Hungry Son will need a computer programming book like Guide to Operating Systems that has a list price of $170, he will instead be able to rent for $63.43.  And we’re not stuck with the book when the class is over!

AND with each textbook that’s rented, Campus Book Rentals donates a portion to Operation Smile, an organization that performs cleft lip and palate surgeries for needy children around the world.

So maybe we can’t make our own textbooks, but this is definitely an option for saving some money that I wanted to pass along.  If you or someone you know is in college or getting ready to go back to college, check it out! 

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