STOP - Don't buy your textbooks from the school bookstore

So far I have purchased the majority of my books online and have saved quite a bit. My favorite purchase was a mathbook that the book store sold used for over $100 and I bought it online for $18, including shipping That is the BEAUTY of having a math department requiring all teachers to use the same text and not feeling the need to replace it every 2-3 years just cause someone feels like they found some other text that can teach algebra or calculus in some new and improved way.

Unfortunately I found that this year I won't be saving nearly so much. I think, in total, my books for my first semester of nursing classes will run me about $330 if I buy everything new from the bookstore, but my searches online will only save me approx $50 total. Every little bit helps though, right?

This is so true I got a book off line for $40 the school charged $130. It does pay to find out what books you need for your next class and order them a few weeks before.

Someone suggested this site to me a while back...

http://www.betterworldbooks.com/

Free Shipping in the USA, $3.97 Worldwide.

I try to buy as many books as I can online. Sometimes I can't find a deal, so it is easier to buy from the bookstore if it's the same price (no shipping costs).

My bookstore also does not let you have free reign of the books. Same as stinebean you hand them your schedule and they bring you back the books. I hate this because they always give you the new edition, and never ask if you prefer a used, plus they sneak the "recommended" things like extra books and barcharts in there.

However we do have a website which is pretty good about posting the Author, Edition and publisher so I can usually find the books online.

This year though, they told us we HAD to buy certain books from them.. I was thinking Yeah right, I'll get mine online.. until I saw on the website it was a boxed set and didn't list the contents. I ended up just buying those from the bookstore because it was something like 10 or 11 books and I'm sure the shipping on those would've been outrageous, especially if they were from different websites. Some I am hoping I will use for a while/more than just 1 semester, like a book for Nursing diagnoses, med calculation, medical dictionary, lab values etc.

I'm also renting for the first time .. but not any nursing books. I'm renting a human development text, and microbiology text and lab manual. I'm hoping it will be easier to ship back the book instead of a) buying and keeping it, therefore losing money (pay more to buy than rent) or b) attempt to sell it somewhere else. For the lab manual, I plan on copying any sheets that I need to write in .. did this last year for A&P lab manual when our teacher had us hand in the homework at the end of each chapter. It worked out pretty well, especially if you mess up, you can just make another copy of that page. (my printer has a copier built in .. lol i do not go to the library to copy my books)

ETA: Even with buying the bundles from my school, I saved over $250 buying and renting the others elsewhere

This is so true! Im glad that our school gave us a list of books with the ISBNs listed! I needed 13 books for this semester and it wouldve cost me at least $900 bucks, but thank God for amazon, half.com, and ebay I only paid like $450 in total! We are in a Recession, gotta save as much as u can!

For me, the trick to saving the most money has been purposely buying old editions. I have been doing this for years (my undergrad and now nursing). For example my nursing peers may spend $600 a semester in the bookstore (brand new), others may purchase new editions (but used) online for $300-350 (shippping included), while I purchase old editions online for $100-150 (shipping included).

I'll admit that there may be changes especially with drug books but the truth is that drugs change all the time and for me it has been worth the rare inconvenience. I have shared my book buying strategy with many and find it quite surprising that some students feel that online purchasing isn't worth it. If you are organized and start early, it's quite rewarding.

I am happy to know that I am not the only one out there who sees the advantages.

If you can't get the ISBN number from the bookstore, you could just ask the teacher for it. All the teachers I know care more about their students getting the books than they do about the bookstore gouging them. You can also ask previous students.

You can also search Amazon with the author name, textbook name and edition, and get the ISBN that way, then use that to shop elsewhere.

Me, I used Amazon. My shipping came to $14 on three books, and I'll be getting them in the middle of next week. I saved around $150 from what the bookstore would have charged me. I really like that you can go read the feedback - it made me feel much more secure in ordering.

A bookstore I worked at did this- it was a shoplifting prevention thing. You absolutely could go, wait in line, get the books, write down the ISBNs and hand the books back. They also didn't give out ISBNs over the phone- because that was too time consuming. We were already dealing with long lines of students in the store, and the priority was to get them through as quickly as possible.

Our school holds back financial aid disbursements until 2-3 weeks after school starts. You get a line of credit at the bookstore to use, so it makes buying books elsewhere prohibitive. Especially if you are unemployed/don't have the cash on hand/credit card to buy them. I certainly can't wait that long to get my books! I'll hold back some as a "book allowance" for next semester though!

What the heck are you supposed to do for books for the first 2-3 weeks of class? If you've got a 12 week semester, you can't spend 1/6 of the entire class doing review!