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Hey guys...I have the option of
a.renting a used/new book or
b. buying a used/new book.
Renting a used is the cheapest option and I think renting a new book is kind of dumb..... Buying a new book is also dumb while buying used might be smart.
I have this dilemma now... Renting used=cheap but you don't get your money back as opposed to buying a used textbook in which you could possibly resell at the same price in the future in which that means you didn't really fork out any money for the books.
Which option do you think is the best for the ones who want a higher return on our investment?
It depends, if the book is for a gen ed and you KNOW you will not need it in the future, renting is a good option. Keep in mind that the rental terms often do NOT coordinate with the college terms (semesters) and you may have to return the book before the class is over or pay a hefty fee-often MORE then what it would have cost new.
We just spent some time researching the best prices for books and have found that for most books, buying used from Amazon or Barnes and Nobel have been the most economical-even over renting.
We just put everything into an excel sheet and figured out the best prices from various sources. For this semester, our son's books, all new, would have been over $800. Utilizing used books in there we got the cost down to about $250. He actually only ended up buying a new workbook for his Chinese class, a used copay of the textbook for that class and used copies of 2 other books he needs. He is borrowing the others from friends in his dorm that had the classes last semester. His out of pocket costs this semester will be just under $100.
I've never received full money back on a used book, either. When buying (with hopes of reselling) you also run the that they'll change the edition on you and you'll get little to no money.
I've never rented a book (I don't think that was even an option when I was in school), but agree that shopping around will get you the best prices. Get the official ISBN numbers and do some price comparisons, if you haven't already. There probably isn't one single right answer for this one, and you'll find it to vary book-by-book, class-by-class.
For things that aren't pressing, you may also want to wait until you see the syllabi; you could well run into professors who assign books that are seldom used. For those you might be best off checking to see if you can get it at the library; both of my colleges (undergraduate and graduate) had copies of all books on reserve at the library, and you could check them out for a couple of hours at a time. While that could be difficult for a heavily-used text, it could be good enough for many purposes.
I've never received full money back on a used book, either. When buying (with hopes of reselling) you also run the that they'll change the edition on you and you'll get little to no money.
I've never rented a book (I don't think that was even an option when I was in school), but agree that shopping around will get you the best prices. Get the official ISBN numbers and do some price comparisons, if you haven't already. There probably isn't one single right answer for this one, and you'll find it to vary book-by-book, class-by-class.
For things that aren't pressing, you may also want to wait until you see the syllabi; you could well run into professors who assign books that are seldom used. For those you might be best off checking to see if you can get it at the library; both of my colleges (undergraduate and graduate) had copies of all books on reserve at the library, and you could check them out for a couple of hours at a time. While that could be difficult for a heavily-used text, it could be good enough for many purposes.
Our DS learned this right away. He didn't get any books until classes started this semester because half the books that were marked "required" first semester he never used.
We didn't have the option of checking around when I was in college-you could only get your textbooks in the school bookstore. They bought used copies for pennies on the dollar and resold them for a huge mark up though. If you were lucky you would get $5 for a $100 textbook.
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