Family On A Budget

One of my guilty pleasures is that I love to read. I can sometimes burn through up to 4-5 books a week. That could get very expensive because with the typical paperback costing around 7.99 and hardbacks $24.99. On our fixed budget, buying new books is out of the question. So how do I feed my addition on a budget.

Trading books

There are a few internet sites where you can trade the books you have with other readers. The site I use is PaperBackSwap.com. It is the coolest thing for us readers. Here is how it works:

1. First you sign up and list at least 9 books that you want to trade. This is FREE and very easy to do.
2. One you list your initial 9 books you now have three free credits with which you can order any 3 books that are available. Mailed to you at no cost to you.
3. If one of your books is requested, you can print out a very slick mailer that can be wrapped around a paperback or cut out and used as a mailing label for larger books. Then you mail the book. Until May 14 2007 it will cost around 1.59 to mail out a paperback sized mailing. After May 14 the postage rates are going up.
4. Once your book is received, you will get another credit for a new book
5. Just repeat the process over and over and you can read lots of books for a pretty low costs

Here are a few tips for success at PBS.

• If a book you want is not available (many popular ones are not immediately available) you can put your name on a wishlist. When the book becomes available the next person on the wishlist gets it offered to them. The wishlist is first in first out. Most new books will cycle through fast.
• If you do start a wishlist another tip is to add books that are not published yet to get a jump on the wishlist order. As soon as Amazon.com adds books to list (usually 4-8 months prior to release date) you can usually find the book on PBS to add to your wishlist.
• If you are looking for a book by isbn and it is not available, do additional searches for title and author because sometimes the same book will have different versions
• When listing books, check the club wishlist to see what books are heavily wishlisted. That will give you a better chance of having someone request your book. Some books may have hundreds of copies available such as John Grisham books, but many others do not.

Sign up today and try it out, you have very little to lose and lots of books to gain.