Make a difference – Shop Used Books
Although it may sound a little over-romanticized, shopping for used books can have a huge impact on both your wallet and the environment. There is potential to save hundreds of dollars, and if you are a little eco-friendly oriented, buying used books puts less strain on natural resources.
The Money Side
On the cash end of things you can save bundles on just about any kind of book out there. For example, Stephen Colbert’s I Am America (And So Can You!) retails around $30 for the hardback edition. Right now I can find it for $3.95 at Thriftbooks.com, slightly used. That’s 87% off!!! Call me a cheapskate, but why pay $30 for one book when you could buy 10 books for the same amount? If you do the same for used textbooks, you could be saving hundreds every semester. Several sites also buy books; you could be practically trading books for free! Worried about finding what you want? Don’t be, I’ve found many, somewhat obscure books, on sites like betterworldbooks.com, which have over 2 million books in stock.
The Green Side
If saving money doesn’t cut it for you (then I’m sure I lost you long before now), you can also look at the environmental impact buying used books can have. In the case of thriftbooks.com, they have saved 200,000,000+ books from ending up in a landfill. In 2010 alone that was 52 million pounds of books that got passed on to other hands. They even use 100% recyclable plastic bags to ship. On another socially conscious note, betterworldbooks.com has raised over 9 million dollars toward literacy and libraries. Buying used books can help play a big part in protecting our natural resources.
The Bottom Lines
Here’s the deal- Buying used books not only saves you loads of cash, but it helps sustain our natural resources, keeps a host of knowledge from ending up in a landfill, and it contributes a great deal to literacy. There is something very endearing about receiving and reading a book that you know has been in someone else’s hands, someone who may have had an incredible experience with the book you are about to begin. It increases your own desire to continue to pass the knowledge and experience that you gained to the next set of hands. So you can make a difference, and a not so small one at that. Shop used books.
Here are links to several used book websites (several of which offers free shipping and buyback):
And if you're into renting textbooks, check out Chegg.com
