Been there, done that RN Students: Rent or Buy

kiszi, RN · Jun 15, 2015

Disclaimer: these recommendations are based solely on my own experiences, so any relation to how they relate to your school may or may not be purely coincidental.

Fundamentals of Nursing, Author: Potter, P., Perry, A.G.

Definitely buy

Pediatric Nursing: The Critical Components of ..., Author: Rudd, K; Kocisko could probably rent

Cyclopedia Medical Dictionary, Author: Taber's

A Taber's looks nice on your bookshelf, but you probably won't use it that much. Get a used one a few years old for a few bucks if you must have one.

Basic Pharmocology for Nurses, Author: Clayton, B.R.; Stock, Y. Coope Buy. Can most likely find it used.

Nutrition and Diet Therapy for Nurses, Author: Tucker, S

You will probably never use this book.

Comprehensive Handbook of Laboratory & Diagnostic, Author VanLeewen, A. Buy

Nursing for Wellness in Older Adults, Author: Miller, Carol A. I dunno

Electronic:

Vsim Gerentology Student License - no idea

kiszi, RN · Jun 15, 2015

P.S. Don't buy from your school's bookstore unless you like spending extra cash unnecessarily. Amazon and abebooks.com are good resources.

besrey · Jun 15, 2015

Thank you so much for your insight. I figured some I would probably never touch after the semester.

direw0lf, BSN · Jun 15, 2015

I was able to buy the Potter and Perry Fundamentals book 8th ed very inexpensive from a recent nursing student graduate, cheaper than it is to rent. And there was more than 1 person willing to sell. I intend to pay it forward when I can when I'm done with school or the books and do the same. But I just wanted to encourage you to look on nursing groups like facebook for inquiring about books if you need to save money and don't want to rent.

About dictionaries I like Tabers better than Mosby. It's much more comprehensive. But I can't see myself using either because I usually just look up definitions online if that's what I need to do. Kaplan had a good pocket dictionary I was looking at in the bookstore and it included terminology also now that's something more useful to carry around than Tabers.

GuEsT78 · Jun 15, 2015

As Kiszi pointed out, buying from the nursing school's bookstore is often a bad idea. The market price of new and used textbooks particularly the more common ones, can move up and down quite a bit. The key is to catch one of the downswings. There's a trick I use to save money when I can afford to wait. You have until August, so this may work for you.

1. Find the book on Amazon and copy the weblink up to the end of a long series of letters and numbers that is Amazon's ID number for the book. It will look something like:

Fundamentals of Nursing, 8e: 9780323079334: Medicine & Health Science Books @ Amazon.com

2. Go to CamelCamelCamel.com and start an account. Don't worry. You're only giving them an email address for alerts. You won't get junk mail. They make their money from Amazon Associate referral fees that cost you nothing.

3. Paste in that Amazon web link into a box at the top of the Camel webpage and hit Return.

4. If someone has already set the book up in Camel's database, you'll get a price history for that book sold as new from Amazon, new from third-parties and used from third-parties such as Abebooks. These prices are Amazon's for those categories. Camel is merely collecting them several times a day.

For example, your Fundamentals of Nursing is currently selling new from Amazon for $111.33, third-party new for $79.99 and used for $32.29. That's a huge range.

But Camel's price history well tell you even more. Amazon's new price has ranged from $77.49 to $124.45. The third-party new price has ranged from $34.99 to 118.76. And the third-party used price has ranged from $28.37 to an absurd $156.84. This link may show you that information:

Fundamentals of Nursing, 8e (0323079334) | Amazon price tracker / tracking, Amazon price history charts, Amazon price watches, Amazon price drop alerts | camelcamelcamel.com

That will give you an idea what a good price is likely to be. You could just watch Amazon for that price or less to come up, but good deals often go quickly, so you'd need to check several times a day to be sure of getting a deal. That is where Camel helps. It is far better to set an alerts with Camel. When the price drops below your alert, Camel will send you an email. You will usually want to act quickly when it does, since others may be getting that same alert.

The alerts are not just for books. They work for almost everything Amazon sells but Kindle ebooks. I've used it to get some quite good deals on household items. If you're patient enough, you can sometimes get a really good deal. In one case there was academic book I wanted that was such short supply, it was selling for almost $200. I set an alert for $20. A few months later a used bookstore that hadn't been checking the selling price had it for that. I saved about $180.

If you know how to do geeky things or have a friend who does, you might want to make sure you don't miss that alert when it comes in. I've got my email program set up to beep my computer when an email comes from Camel, display the email in red, and also send a text message to my iPhone and iPad. On one occasion something I wanted was briefly 40% off in the middle of the nightâ€”Amazon was selling a new but returned item for that price. When my iPhone by my bed beeped, I saw what it was. I got up, ordered it about 2 a.m. and went back to bed. By the time I got up the next morning it was gone. (I've not used the option, but Camel can also sent you the alerts through Twitter.)

You may not want to be that 'wake up in the middle of the night' radical, but Camel can save you enough that it should be well worth setting up those alerts. Just keep in mind that the longer you can wait, the better your chance of getting a really good deal. Setting up the alerts in early August when you will need to book by late August is not a good idea, particularly since shipping could take up to two weeks.

One disclaimer for third-party purchases. I've only had one problem in all my purchasing. A book came in five volumes and I only wanted the first. I ordered what was supposed to be the first and it turned out to be the fourth. I could live with the mistake, since I just wanted to see how the author (Winston Churchill) handled historical writing. For that, any volume would do.

With nursing textbooks, volumes won't be an issue, but it is possible that you'll need the 8th edition of that Fundamentals of Nursing and will get a used seventh edition instead. Remember these are typically small used bookstores or Goodwill stores not nursing school bookstore experts. You can either take a chance and insist on a return if it proves wrong, or you can query the seller with an email asking, "Is this really the 8th edition, the one with all the swirling colors on the cover?" Almost all sellers are helpful, since you get to rate them after your purchase.

Good luck with nursing school and with keeping those costs down. Planning ahead is smart.

dorkypanda · Jun 15, 2015

I agree with what others said. I've been told by my program's 2nd year and 1st year students that we should rent speciality books like peds, psych, OB/maternity and buy the books you need throughout like funds, med surg, care plan book.

turtlesRcool · Jun 15, 2015

I'm also a big fan of buying the previous edition of a book. Several times I was able to get the previous edition for a fraction of what it cost to buy, and even less than the cost of a rental. Very often the differences between editions are very slight. You might have to do a little work to figure out different pagination with your reading assignments, but I never had a problem with the content itself.

Some professors will even be upfront if you ask them. My Community Health professor flat out told us there was no real difference, and provided equivalent page numbers in the older edition. The bookstore was selling the current edition for something like $120, and I got a used book one edition back for something like $11 on Amazon including shipping. My Peds professor warned me the information in the previous edition might not be up-to-date, but it was, and although she tested a lot from the book rather than the lecture, I still got an A.

besrey · Jun 15, 2015

I would get up in the middle of the night to save almost half off of something! Thank you for the website and advice. Will def be looking into it.

besrey · Jun 15, 2015

Thank you guys. As many have suggested, I will be renting specialty books and buying those books that I will be needing throughout the program. I appreciate everyone's advice. I just couldn't believe the number of books we would need for one semester. This will crazy I can already imagine but I can't wait.

KelRN215, BSN, RN · Jun 15, 2015

Buy online at half.com. Sell the book after the class is over for a profit. I once bought a book for $8 and sold it for $32.

BuckyBadgerRN, ASN, RN · Jun 16, 2015

I bought all of my last year of books from a friend who was graduating for less than $100. I'm a huge hi-lighter, so renting was never an option for me, LOL