College can be an extremely expensive time during life; however, just like every other stage of life, there are ways to save on college.
1.) Don’t buy new text books. This may be a given for some of you, but I didn’t figure this out until halfway through my first year in college! Use online places like Amazon to purchase used text books. Amazon also has a special program for college students for buying and selling text books.
2.) Sell your text books back. If you can make enough money from selling your text books from your first semester in college to pay for books for your second semester, and so on, you will never have to pay out of pocket for text books during the rest of college! You can just keep using the money you received from selling your books to pay for your next semester. If you can do this, it’s an awesome way to completely cut the cost of text books out of the equation. Sell your text books back to the bookstore, to someone on campus, or online.
3.) Don’t keep all your text books. I had a lot of people tell me, “Keep your text books because you will use them again.” The thing is, text books are updated every couple of years. This means if your younger sibling, who is four years younger than you, takes the same class when he/she gets to college, they won’t be able to use the book. Also, you will more than likely not use your text books again. Granted, you may want to keep a few that are within your field of study to keep as a reference; however, the rest of your text books is just money sitting on your shelf. Sell your text books through a program like USell or Amazon.
4.) Use Swagbucks to earn free gift cards to pay for dinner or coffee out. It’s easy and free. You will end up being able to make a late night run to Starbucks during an all-nighter with no money coming out of your pocket.
5.) Exchange for books-If you have a friend who just finished the class you are about to take, ask him/her if you can borrow the book, or exchange the book for a service you can offer them. If they are in a Math class and need some tutoring, offer to tutor them in exchange for borrowing the book. It’s a win/win for both of you and no money out of your pocket.
