Sister-Lister
is goin' to college! She’s driving out
in two weeks and I’m so looking forward to all the familiar upcoming facebook statuses
about all-nighters, college parties, crazy roommates, and odd food
creations. A small part of me wants to
go back and relive it, but a large part of me is SO relieved to be in the next
stage of life, and mostly when I start to remember the exams, the cost of rent, lack of sleep, and spending my summer’s
savings on TEXTBOOKS of all things! If I
got to the bookstore early enough (which usually never happened since I always
flew out just a day or two before the semester started), sometimes I could snag
a “Used” book, but usually I’d have to swallow a new one at full price. I got fed up with the prices and started
shopping around at eBay and other used book stores, but it ended up being a lot
of receipts, a lot of shipping fees, different return policies, delays, wrong
editions, etc. etc. I’m getting a sunken
feeling in my chest just writing about this!
Oh, sister, I’m so glad to be out of those woods!
Let
me help out any college-goers with a little tip. Have you thought of renting your books? You could save up to 80% of the cost of
textbooks by renting them from CampusBookRentals! What about shipping? Totally free, both ways! There is also no cost to sign up, no memberships, and no hidden fees to bite you.
And
don’t even worry about marking them up if you know you can study better by
highlighting key points. You are free to
highlight in your textbooks as if you owned them. Another
thing I worried about as Janae is heading to BYU is their somewhat unique
semesters. BYU has a shorter
semester than many other universities, with a long Christmas break and no such thing
as a Spring Break. CampusBookRentals has
flexible rental periods so that you can rent what you need for only the dates
you need them.
So
maybe you fall in love with one of your classes and really want to keep your
book for future reference and a distinguished place on a shelf in your future
office. No problem. You can keep the book and you're only charged the difference between what you already paid to rent the book, and the value of the book at the time you initially rented.
Now
Janae is a little do-gooder, so she’ll love this: CampusBookRentals donates to
Operation Smile with each textbook rented!
You can get cheap books AND spread a little good by helping heal
children’s smiles, primarily through reconstructive surgery and related medical
care for children born with facial deformities like cleft lip and cleft palate. They work in over 60 of the poorest countries
in the world in bringing hope to these children and adults in need. Sounds like a fantastic program to support!
Ok,
the other super frustrating part about spending all my savings on textbooks
came at the end of the semester when I stood in hour-long lines to sell back my
books, only to find that they were no longer taking certain books, or that my
entire stack of books (that I kept extremely nice!) could be traded in for
$20! Maybe not even that. Heartbreaking.
Introducing RentBack
(www.RentBack.com). Just like it sounds,
if you have a bookcase of textbooks that you were unable to sell back to the
bookstore (even for the junk-change it usually came out to be!), you can become a
little bookstore yourself and rent your books to other students that may need
them! Every time your book gets rented,
you get paid, again and again. You can end up making 2-4x more money compared
to what you'd make through buyback options.
Go, fight, win, little sister. Go get those books. Ace those exams. Make new friends, make mistakes, make big choices, and have the time of your life!
*This
post was sponsored by CampusBooksOnline, but all opinions are strictly my own.
