To Rent Or Not To Rent

I was at my college bookstore buying books for my classes and while I was at the bookstore I was shocked to see how expensive the textbooks were. Of course I knew from previous semesters how expensive books were but for that semester the cost of the books were absurd. Two classes alone ran me up to $405.00 in books; my "Historical Psychology" book was $187.00 while my "Bio psychology" book was $218.00. I still needed books for my other three classes.

One of the biggest costs associated with college other than the tuition is the textbooks. Students may easily spend up to $1,000.00 per academic year on textbooks.

Getting back to my textbook dilemma, the books for my Speech and English classes only ran me another $120.00; however, the real problem was with my Spanish class. The textbook for my Spanish class was $170.00 and its accompanying workbook which my professor required was $88.00. I did not have any more money for those books and buying them used was not an option because there wasn't much difference in price.

I over heard some students talking about this website called Chegg where they rented their textbooks. I checked out the website and I got both of my Spanish books for less than $100.00.

The good thing about renting textbooks is that you save 80% on the cost of buying them and at the end of the semester you return the books back to the company instead of having the the only problem books collect dust in your house.

The only problem I had with Chegg was that the shipping and the tax was expensive. One day I was on the computer and I found out about another textbook rental company called Smart Book Rental. The books at Smart Book Rental are cheaper to rent than the books at Chegg plus there is free shipping and no tax. I used Smart Book Rental to rent my books for these past semesters and whatever wasn't available at this store I went to Chegg.

I would definitely suggest that students rent their textbooks instead of buying them used or new. Used textbooks are only slightly cheaper than new books and the bookstores pay literally pennies to buy used books from students. Furthermore, these bookstores sell these used books for almost the same price as it is to buy them new. Some college bookstores do have buyback programs but these programs are really not benefiting you in the long run and you just shouldn't waste your time.