The Good Life For Less: Cheaper College Textbooks

Hey college students! Amazon is offering you one heck of a deal. Anyone who is a student with a valid .edu e-mail address can get a free one-year membership to Amazon Prime (usually $79)!

The membership gives you unlimited free two-day shipping on textbooks and other items. Plus you don't have to meet a specific order size and you can upgrade to one-day shipping for $3.99 and item.

They also offer special deals in e-mail alerts that are just for students.

You have to sign up with your school e-mail and provide your school and major so they can verify it.

I ordered a text book or two from Amazon when I was in college and it can save you big money if you buy used.

Of course, my favorite tip for textbooks is go to your college library once you get your syllabus. It was something I didn't do until my last year of college, but I can tell you, it saved me hundreds of dollars that year alone.

There may be some competition to check them out, but if you are first at the library to get them, I can guarantee that no one else will have it on hold by mid-term. They'll have already bought their own book by that time.

If there is someone else waiting in the wings, you can read ahead before the books are due back or check out an earlier version of the book.

There was one year when I got an earlier version of a Sociology book and compared it with my friend's book, the only difference was the lack of a CD in the back (which we never used) and the photos in the book were tinted red instead of blue. Other than that -- exact same book.

Obviously, you will want to check the book thoroughly. You don't want to be studying astronomy in a book that still says Pluto is a full-blown planet.

And remember there are tons of sites that offer great deals on textbooks. Feel free to check around to find the best one for you. Here is an article on that to get you started!

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-Alison Lorge is a web producer and consumer blogger at WCCO.