OT School Textbooks - how to save money

[Sunny324]

For those in OT programs - any tips for saving money on textbooks? Have you found that you can get away with having older editions of textbooks? Have you been able to share textbooks with other students or use library copies?

Thanks!

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[dancer715]

In my program many second year students sell their textbooks that they won't need again to first year students. Also, in most cases, our notes from lecture are sufficient enough so the textbook is more of a resource to clarify something we may not understand; getting an older edition is usually no big deal. Also renting books off of chegg is always cheap!

 

[otsomeday]

I buy all my textbooks online usually amazon. Then after the quarter is over I sell the books back to amazon for a amazon giftcard. Then I rinse and repeat every quarter.

 

[c2902]

Price-match between Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and other websites like Chegg, as well as your school's bookstore - I was told that renting is a great option, and is often the cheapest. Amazon and B&N both rent textbooks (and your school probably does too), and buying used copies from sellers on both of those sites (and sites like Chegg) are generally good too - I've had no issues doing that in the past. I am in the process of buying the seven textbooks I need, only one of which I needed to buy new because we need the access code, and it looks like I will be able to get them ALL for a total of under $350! What I did was set up a spread sheet and compare both purchasing and renting options, where applicable from all the sites I mentioned, and selected the cheapest option for each. In some cases, renting from the bookstore was NOT as cheap as renting from Amazon, sometimes the school had the best deal, some were not available for rental so I found the cheapest used price, etc. You just have to do a little legwork, and KNOW the edition you are supposed to have (if the ISBN is provided, even better).

 

[Johann00]

DO NOT BUY YOUR BOOKS IN THE BOOKSTORE!! What a scam...

I use addall.com to find the best prices online. It usually ends up finding amazon or half as the best price, but I usually pay less than half of what I would have in the bookstore.

 

[c2902]

DO NOT BUY YOUR BOOKS IN THE BOOKSTORE!! What a scam...

I use addall.com to find the best prices online. It usually ends up finding amazon or half as the best price, but I usually pay less than half of what I would have in the bookstore.

In most cases, yes, the bookstore prices are not the best, but I mentioned it is worth looking because, in the case of two of my required books, the cheapest option was, in fact, rental from the school. It can't hurt to check, as all of that information is available online.

 

[dobber]

slugbooks is my best friend.

i've gone through my whole undergrad career buying the edition prior to the one the bookstore told me to buy. and if it's a first edition amazon and chegg were my best friends.

 

[Tinals00]

The student coordinator at my school said it was best to buy the textbooks as we would need to reference them again for the NBCOT. However, I've always rented my textbooks and I prefer to do that in order to save money. What do you guys suggest? Can I get away with renting them and still do well on the NBCOT?

 

[OTlove88]

Also, once you have your sign in name for the school you are doing your program at - check if the book is available at the university's library. I lucked out and found out that one of our books was at a different campus but I got it sent here through the interlibrary loan. Someone checked out the one copy of our other book (clearly I'm not the only one doing this) but I rented out books in undergrad this way before and it worked out great! They won't all be there but I mean if you can get one or two that way each semester it can still save you some money. Just remember to keep renewing the rental.

 

[bebob]

Bigwords is a search engine (like epinion or mySimon) that allows you to compare price.

 

[jewel11786]

Try bookfinder.com to compare textbook prices across multiple websites.

 

[Sunny324]

Thanks for all the suggestions. I ended up using bigwords to compare prices and saved a few bucks. I also searched my school's library website and found that one of our textbooks is available in full online, so I was able to skip buying one. Since all the textbooks were also available on reserve from the school's library I could have bought older editions or not bought some at all, but since this is my first semester I'm going to play it safe.

 

[BowlofSunshine]

I bought 2 books my entire academic OT career. My phys dys book and mental health book

All those other books were a waste of time and money.

Also, the Powerpoints were sufficient to study from.

So, I spent a greater part of $100 on books the whole time I was in my program. I did make copies of pages from classmates' books or got the info I needed to study.