Save green (the cash and Earthy kind) with textbook rentals

As a college graduate, the cost of textbooks is very real to me. My freshman year I went the "easy" route and bought all of the recommended readings from our campus bookstore. As a sociology major, I paid between $200-500 per quarter for a combination of books for my degree's focus courses and general university requirements (GURs). Very quickly I started to notice that my pockets had these gaping holes in them from which my money flew from, and this poor girl went without her coffee fix for a quarter or two. A travesty, I tell you!

The following years I got into the groove of purchasing used books from students or online and was able to save a ton of cash there. I even sold them again, usually with minimal losses. At the time, that was the best one could hope for.

What's really cool is that Campus Book Rentals has taken it one step further. You can now rent textbooks online and not have to deal with the hassle of trying to sell them at the end of the quarter, like I did. And lets face it - most of the books we are required to read for college courses aren't ones we fall in love with and proudly display on our bookcases for years to come. Most we just read them because we're required to. So by renting these textbooks and sending them off for the next student to use, you're doing your part in reducing the demand on paper. And saving yourself the additional load of moving those unwanted books when you move ;) Lord knows I have several boxes of those!

At Campus Book Rentals you: 

• have flexible renting periods. Each rental comes with a 15 day grace period and options for further extension.
• can feel free to highlight in the textbooks like you would your own
• don't have to pay to ship the textbook back, which saves you even more hassle once you're done
• make a difference in the world because Campus Book Rentals has partnered with Operation Smile to donate a portion of the rental profit towards helping heal cleft lip, palate and other facial deformities around the world.

Another awesome option? RentBack is new initiative that allows students to rent their own textbooks to other students and make cash. What?! I would have totally been on that in college too!  

On average, how much do you (or did you) spend per quarter on textbooks? 

So what are you waiting for? Check out Campus Book Rentals or RentBack. 

Disclosure: This post was sponsored by CampusBookRentals.com. 
This post contains affiliate links. All opinions expressed were my own.