Purchasing Books

Books can be an incredibly costly purchase. With the constant release of new editions forcing the costs up, many textbooks can run anywhere from 80-200 bucks new. Your local university bookstore often capitalizes on this fact and charges higher prices than can be found online or at independent bookstores.

By choosing to do a little bit of research, you can save anywhere from 10 to 60 bucks easily for a new or gently used book.

To demonstrate, I will use a couple of the books assigned to me for the upcoming fall semester.

Data Structures and Algorithm Analysis in C++ (ISBN: 9780321441461)
University Bookstore: $112.95 new, $84.95 used
Amazon.com: $84.13 new from Amazon, $69.99 new from Amazon Marketplace, $64.99 used

Ideals and Ideologies: A Reader (ISBN: 9780205607358)
University Bookstore: $79.40 new, $59.55 used
Amazon.com: $62.94 new, $41.00 used

So for two books purchased through Amazon instead of my bookstore, I can easily save about 60 bucks buying new, and 40 buying used.

If possible, always purchase used. Most of the books I have purchased used look as if they haven't even been opened before, and are quite a bit cheaper. Using the two earlier examples, purchasing used over new on Amazon can save about 40 bucks on its own!

Shipping can sometimes take a few days, though, so be prepared and order ahead!