Renting your textbooks?
I recently came across a website that lets you rent your textbooks for a semester (or quarter or summer). It’s called Chegg and you actually rent the book and send it back after you’re done. They boast that you can save up to 80% and help the environment. For every textbook that you rent from Chegg, they will plant a tree.
I tried it out and got an art book for the fall semester for only $50. Used ones even from Amazon were quoted at over $90. Chegg sometimes orders the books from resellers (such as Amazon) and has them sent directly to you (in the case that they didn’t have any on hand). You can do some light highlighting, but no writing in the books. It’s a pretty good service and I’m happy with it so far. The book arrived about four business days after I placed the order.
Wow, I will have to try this out next semester. I spent close to $500 on books for three classes (the other two I was able to get on Amazon). Ridiculous.
This is a great service, especially since students always seemed to be strapped for cash. Good way to encourage saving money in order to pay down on the student loans. Thanks for sharing.
I’ve noticed some times with just a little more searching you can find used or even new international copies and other discounts that make buying books alot cheaper then renting, and you can do whatever you want with the book. The best service i’ve found so far for this is Bigwords.com. The reason I think they’re the best is that they compare many items at once, and calculate the best combination of stores to buy at, including coupons and shipping. They also let you include or exclude international editions, and even renting is an option through Bigwords.com. They let you choose the ship time and then calculate the lowest price using the right shipping type at every store. Pretty neat huh!!
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What a great idea?! Renting textbooks! Wish I’d have thought of that first.
“For every textbook that you rent from Chegg, they will plant a tree.”
Wow! This is a cost-effective way to get the books you need while helping the environment too. This is clever.
That’s a great idea to save money. I’m always on the look out for college good personal finance tips. The only thing I would worry about is the time it takes for delivery. You would have to deal for those four days while your book took time to ship.
A very good idea. I used to do that as well when I was at school and it was a perfect way to earn some extra money. You just have to be careful and make sure that all the books will come back to you and in a good condition.
This is a great way to save money. We all know that students have some money problems and everything that helps them save some cash is a blessing. I rented my books to younger students while I was in college and it really paid off.
Recently on Sharktank I came across another similar service which is for helping students buy/sell college notes. http://www.notehall.com
It’s both a great way to help students who don’t take the best notes, or who miss classes, as well as a way for students to make a little extra money for doing something they do anyways!