Having just wrapped up my bachelor’s degree in finance I thought I’d share a few money-saving tips I wish I had known before I re-entered college:
#1- Take as many classes online as possible.
No drive means no gas money! Online classes means no time spent commuting and time is money. No commute also means less gas spent driving to and from school. Plus online classes can allow you to attend a better quality college than you might have within driving distance.
#2- Check Amazon before buying texts from the school bookstore.
Yes, Amazon sells college textbooks
(new and used). Go to Amazon and try to find every book on your class book list. Make a list of the prices. Then take that list to the university bookstore and compare prices. Amazon may not have all the books but I’ll wager they have some and at a lower price than the school is selling it for.
#3- Check Amazon before selling texts back to the school bookstore.
Yes, you can sell your college textbooks through Amazon. Make a list of what your texts are selling for used on Amazon and compare it to what the school buyback program is offering. Odds are you can make more buy selling them via Amazon. The only downside is that the school will give you some money for some of your books on the spot (if you’re lucky). With Amazon, it might take a while for you to sell your text. If you really need cash now, then sell what you can to the school and put the rejects up for sale on Amazon. That’ll most likely net you more money than the old flyer on the bulletin bgoard method of selling texts. That also makes more sense than just throwing the unwanted texts in the trash or abandoning them at the thrift store. Some people actually make extra income by trolling thrift stores near universities for texts they can buy for a buck or two and then re-sell them on Amazon for 40x as much.
