I love books. I love buying them. I love reading them. My girlfriend is no different. Over the years we have both spent a lot of money on books, especially since about half of the books on our shelves we paid the retail price. It is so easy to buy a book at a bookstore, but it’s also a great way to overspend. Books are a discretionary item, first and foremost; you don’t need them to survive. It may sound like I am lecturing but I actually had to re-enforce that into my own head. I bought books like I was buying food and spending way too much on them. When you treat them as a discretionary item, you tend to try to look for better prices. Even though my love of books hasn’t changed, I decided I needed to be smarter about how I purchased them. Here is how I buy books now:

Step 1. Doing some Fun Research – My Girlfriend and I love going to the local Barnes and Noble store to look at books. There are other book stores where we live but that just seems to be our favorite. It’s great to spend an afternoon browsing and it’s also an opportunity to create a book wish-list. My girlfriend likes to write down the titles of the books she’s interested in and I prefer to use the app on my phone that allows me to scan the bar code and store it in my phone. If I want my phone to search for cheaper prices locally or online, it can do that to but I’m getting ahead of myself. Now that we have our lists, it’s time to go book-hunting.

Step 2.  Try renting the book for free – The Public Library is often overlooked when wanting to purchase a book. If you want to keep a copy of the book, then its best to skip this step but if you only want to read a book, this is the best free resource available. It’s amazing to me that libraries are basically free bookstores and still not many people take advantage. I know that the two most common complaints I have heard about the library (aside from the boring décor and ambience) are the limited availability of new books and limited selection of titles. I agree with both but it is worth a shot to try to find the book at the library. So before I buy a book, I search the library catalog online for a copy: If they have a copy available right away I go pick it up, if not, I just put a hold request on it. If the book isn’t available at all, I move on to Step 3. I used this step when I was preparing for a trip to California and wanted something to read on the plane. I was able to find the book I wanted without spending a penny, not to mention I had a great flight!

Step 3.  Buying online – If you can’t find the book at the library, then search online for a copy. Even though Amazon.com is the leader, I always start with Half.com. Both are great resources for buying new and used books.  Through the power of the competitive market, I can find a dozen sellers that are selling my desired book at a much better price than the book store. I am really interested in all things finance and was recently searching for a book titled The Number by Lee Eisenberg.  Flexo from Consumerism Commentary has talked a lot about this book and, I believe, called it is his favorite for personal finance. The list price for the book is $26 but I found it online for $0.75 plus shipping. Not bad for a fairly new book (it came out in 2006). This is a great way to easily save about 75% of all book purchases! I am not buying the book however as I found it at my library and I’m going to get it for a weekend read (hopefully).

I know there are some concerns or criticisms to these steps but so far, by using this plan, I have saved hundreds of dollars in books over the past couple of years. To be fair, I’m going to address those issues below.

Common Criticism of My Method (a.k.a. my girlfriend’s concerns):

1.    What if I desperately need to have the book and want to read it right away? My answer: Most people say that their lives are incredibly busy and I know my life is busy as well. Let say we spend an hour or two at the bookstore. If I buy a book, am I going to read it right away? Hell no! I may browse through it, even read a chapter, but when I get home, there are things we have to do: laundry, take the dogs for a walk, get dinner ready and study for school. I have never bought a book and went home and finished it that day (though, to her credit, my girlfriend swears she has done this numerous times). In my opinion, no book is so important you must buy it today. Go home, spend 5 minutes, check out the library or buy it online. Not only can you save 75% off the retail price, you might just be able to get it for free.

2.    But it’s more fun to buy books at the store! My answer: It’s more fun to save money and spend it on other things. Why not take the money you saved on all those books and go to the movies? Or save it? Or do something else with it?

3.    Aren’t we being unfair to the bookstore, browsing and leaving without buying a thing? My answer: No, it’s not unfair. When I go to buy a TV, I go to different stores to compare prices. Where I buy depends on prices and service and so on. Same thing with books or anything else really. If you can buy it for less, why shouldn’t you? At the same time, whenever I am in a bookstore, it’s never empty. There are still a ton of people that will happily pay retail price. If that’s what they want to do, great!  If they don’t want to pay retail, then they should read my post!

4.    What about books that are newly released? My Answer: Anything new will cost more (cell phones, movies, music). If you can’t find the book at a discount on Amazon.com, I would use the library at this point. If you check around online at different branches, you can find brand new release books quickly. One new release book that I was actually planning to buy turned out to be so horrible that I didn’t buy it and was so thrilled that I checked it out at the library first. Also wait until the first wave of people, who rushed out to buy the book, start putting them up for sale on Half.com. If you can wait, I think the savings are well worth it.

photo by Faeryan