Wednesday, September 2, 2009

Saving Money on College Textbooks--Works for ME Wednesday

Mason started college on Monday!!! He was supposed to start last year, but decided to take a year off. He didn't actually tell ME that he planned to go this year until July, so we had to really scramble to get him accepted, registered, enrolled, etc. Financial aid was one of the BIG obstacles...we didn't fill out his FAFSA until sometime in July. He was very fortunate, Tennessee Tech University has a wonderful financial aid department & they got everything processed in plenty of time!!

Mason was disappointed that he only received enough financial aid to cover his tuition, room & board. Even though he has been working for the whole year that he took off from school, he didn't have any money saved to pay college expenses. College books are VERY expensive!! After he registered for his classes we looked up all his books, 4 classes that need books over $500 from the bookstore. This was not feasible for us, so I started looking for options. I personally have taken several college courses without buying the textbooks, but those were community college classes. Mason NEEDS his books. I looked on Amazon & found used books, still over $350 for the books he needs. I kept looking. I found Cheapest Textbooks.com, they search all the online textbook sites & give you a list of places that have your book (s). From Cheapest Textbooks I found Chegg!!! Chegg actually RENTS college textbooks!!! I don't know about anyone else, but I know that when I was in college it seemed like the bookstore NEVER wanted to pay me much for my textbooks at the end of the term. Many times I hardly used the book, but the professor was planning on using a different addition the next term or worse a totally different book, so my EXPENSIVE textbooks were worthless. The rental prices for the books Mason needs were almost half the price of a used book. I ended up renting his Algebra book & a 2D design book, I saved over $100!!! This totally Works for ME!!! Do you know anybody who needs college textbooks? Pass along this coupon code to get a discount: CC102837

Our next obstacle....either getting his non-working laptop fixed or finding him a new one.

To see more Works for Me Wednesday visit We are THAT Family.

2 comments:

Betty said...

glad you found that site

Melissa, Multi-Tasking Mama said...

What a blessing to find that site! I used to buy all my textbooks used from other students who had taken the class. The only time that didn't work was when the professor changed the book LOL