School Related Wins

I've made a few frugal wins related to school so far. The main expense has been text books, and I've found that the last place you want to buy those is at the school bookstore.

I've seen some pretty great deals on used books through Amazon and Barnes & Noble online. I'm picking up a used copy of the text book for one of my classes on Amazon for 78 cents! Granted I can't take advantage of Free Super Saver Shipping when it's a used book, but with shipping at just $3.99 who cares? I'll be purchasing that baby just as soon as my Amazon Gift Card code comes through from Swagbucks - anyone know how long that usually takes?

I also snagged two books for another class from a friend who just took the class. Rather than selling them back to the bookstore for pittance, I figured he'd be happy to sell them to me. Luckily I already have the book for my third class since it's just an extension of the class I took last Spring. I will definitely not be selling that hefty paper weight back to the bookstore when I'm done with it. After checking out prices on Amazon and eBay I see I can get a lot more for it if I sell it myself.

I snagged 3 Top Flight notebooks for 50 cents apiece at Safeway last week. They're 70 pages each and should be enough for each class. The 3 subjects-in-one notebook sitting next to the smaller ones was $3.99 and only 180 pages. By taking a few seconds to compare prices I scored an extra 50 pages for $2.49 less!

I still have to write a huge check in October, but the little things can really add up too, so I'm doing my best to take a bite out of them, and to keep the spare pennies rolling in by using Fusion Cash, Swagbucks*, Bing Rewards, Inbox Dollars, Cash Crate, taking advantage of bank incentives, and selling things on eBay and Craigslist.

*I'm going to write up a review of Swagbucks soon - I can't believe how easy it was to cash out my first $5 Amazon card!