A good reading habit has a lot of advantages and benefits, however, did you know that reading a book can save you money? I know you are wondering how that is possible. Books afford you an opportunity to exercise my imagination.

They allow you to see the world from the perspective of others. They also teach you things and give a deeper understanding of a topic on which your understanding may have once been pretty shallow. Books add knowledge, empathy, creativity, and awareness all while being constantly entertained.

However, reading as much book as you want might not come cheap, in fact this is one of the factors that prevent some persons from reading book. Some book are very expensive, also taking up a library membership comes with it own expenses.

The focus of this article will be on how you can maintain your reading habit and save some in the process. You will also see how you can get books at a discount rate.

• How can I Save Money on Books?
• Is Reading an Expensive Hobby?
• Is it Good to Read a lot of Books?
• How do I Start Reading as a Hobby?
• Is it Better to buy or Rent Books?

How can I Save Money on Books?

If you have reading as your hobby and you dream of reading a lot of books in the next few months, one of the factor that can discourage you in the price of some of these books.

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Buying a few $27 hardcovers and even $15 paperbacks each month can quickly undo weeks of careful budgeting, to help you overcome these challenge however, below are some way to save money while you enjoy your books.

1. Hit the Thrift Store

You probably already know that you can buy cheap books at used bookstores (see if there’s one in your area here), but did you know that your local Goodwill or Salvation Army thrift store sells books, too? A copy of Mark Bittman’s How to Cook Everything, which sells on Amazon for $20 (amazon.com) cost only $2 at Goodwill.

Also, Elena Ferrante novels, countless thrillers, and more pristine cookbooks at thrift shops cost less over the years. And if you really want to get books for bargain prices, ask if your thrift store gives student, senior, or military discounts, or if it does regular tag sales. 

2. Buy Secondhand Online

Don’t feel like making the trek out to a thrift store or want something very specific? You can buy used books online on Amazon, eBay, and Thriftbooks.com.

Popular brick-and-mortar used book stores like Powell’s, Strand Books, Books-A-Million, and Half Price Books also do big business online. Not a fan of used books? You can usually filter sites for new or like-new books and read up on their physical condition.

This is an especially good tactic for older books: Used copies of Anthony Doerr’s All the Light We Cannot See are selling on Amazon for about $3, with $3.99 shipping—half the cost of the full-price hardcover on the website.

3. Join a Subscription Program

If you love to read hardcover new releases as soon as they come out, it pays to join a program like Book of the Month. With the average price of a hardcover book around $27 and BOTM’s monthly fee of $14.99, you’ll save as much as $12 (and even more if you pay for a year of BOTM upfront for $149.99.

Plus, you can add extra books to your box for only $9.99 more. Other great deals can be found at Bookroo, Book Riot, Shelflove Crate, and LitJoy Crate.

4. Sign Up for Email Lists

If you have an eBook, it’s worth subscribing to a few email newsletters that curate great deals (as low as 99 cents!). Add your email to these lists: Kindle Daily Deals, Book Riot Book Deals, Goodreads Deals, and NOOK Daily Find.

5. Use Your Library Card

This is a no-brainer. The cheapest books you can find are the free ones at your library. We love going to the library and getting physical books, of course. But now, many libraries across the country have thousands of eBooks available for download.

For downloading eBooks, sending them to your devices, requesting holds, and searching catalogs, we recommend the Libby app from Overdrive.

6. Host a Book Swap

If your bookcases are overflowing or you’re feeling uninspired by what’s on your shelves, invite a few fellow readers over for appetizers, drinks, and a book swap. Encourage people to bring 5, 10, or 20 books from their own clear-outs, then organize the picks by genre for easy browsing.

To reduce the likelihood of duplicate bestsellers, ask everyone to tell you what they’re bringing in advance. If hosting a party sounds like too much work, you can also swap with strangers online at PaperBackSwap.com.

7. Try a Classic

Did you know that books published more than 95 years ago can technically be found for free? U.S. copyright law stipulates that after 95 years, they become part of the public domain.

A few useful websites—most notably Project Gutenberg—turn these public domain books into eBooks for all to download. (If you want a physical copy of Sense and Sensibility you will have to pay though because it costs money to make the book.)

Sites like Amazon and Barnes & Noble also make their eBook versions of these classics available for $0. Be warned that sometimes the formatting can be a little off, but hey, you get what you don’t pay for, right?

8. Enter Giveaways

Goodreads is an invaluable tool for readers who love to track what they’ve read and rate books. Even if that’s not your thing, it’s worth signing up for Goodreads for the giveaways.

Publishers are sending out advance reader copies and finished books to contest winners all the time. Goodreads makes it easy to sift through the contests and find ones that not many people have entered to up your chances.

9. Borrow Books on Your Device

Your Kindle and NOOK devices both have the ability to borrow and lend eligible books at no cost. To swap eBooks with friends on both devices, you just need their email addresses. Amazon Prime Members also have access to a library of 800,000 books for borrowing, including all seven Harry Potter books.

10. Download the Kindle or NOOK App

If you’ve read through a few of these suggestions and thought, “I don’t have an e-reader so that won’t help me,” don’t worry. You don’t need an e-reader to read free classics or buy eBooks that are on sale.

If you don’t mind reading on your phone or tablet, you can download the Kindle or NOOK apps (both are free to get and use) and take advantage of their libraries and deals. The Kindle app also lets you borrow and lend books from friends—no device required.

11. Vouchers

Ever feel stuck when people ask what you want for your birthday or Christmas? The answer: vouchers. It always becomes quite tricky when you have to choose a book for a book-lover, but this kind of solves the problem.

Not just National Book Tokens or WHSmith vouchers – using Amazon vouchers means you can acquire books without even leaving the house! At my school, we get rewarded for various things with book vouchers at the end of the year, and it is probably the best thing about my school.

Is Reading an Expensive Hobby?

Reading is cheap. 

You borrow from the library where it’s free, or you simply sell any book that you’ve already read because what are the chances of you re-reading it again, and that way you can live that minimalist life that Marie Kondo seems to love?

But books are expensive.

To make books your hobby, it’s not just the reading. You want to own, collect, display, interact. Reading isn’t enough. Book fans want to own it. We hoard them on our shelves. We love that new book smell and creating the spine ourselves.

We probably want specific editions too. If there’s an edition with a revised afterward, we are all over that bad boy. If there’s a limited edition released on the anniversary of the author’s birthday with a fancy cover, it’s going straight onto our wishlist. If there’s a hardcover collector’s edition, we covet it like we don’t already own a copy anyway.

And it’s not just the books we buy. We are an insatiable market for all the pop culture merchandise like little figurines and plushies. Which we then artfully arrange on our shelves because #bookstagram is a hashtag that we flock to.

Book fans also want to go to author signings and writer talks. We wait in line for authors to sign newly purchased books that we just had to buy at the festival because hey, it’s part of the experience. We need to take a picture with them too.

And writer events aren’t free; the ticket is $20 (and if you bought online, the processing fee is $5 for some unfathomable reason) and lunch is another $20 and the book was probably $35, so all up, just under $100. For one event.

And even though reading is a solitary activity, books are a community event. We need to discuss about our feelings. We join book clubs. We write reviews. We may even start up blogs dedicated to books. And this costs money.

If you upgrade your blog, it’ll cost you. If you join a book club, hosting the meeting will cost you in food expenses. If you want to meet up with other book aficionados anywhere, the travel expenses will get you.

Reading doesn’t cost a cent, but if you want to immerse yourself in the whole experience, books are a hobby that drains your wallet.

Is it Good to Read a lot of Books?

For most people who do not have the reading habit, they seem to wonder why read a lot of books is a good thing. However, once they see begin to see the many benefits of reading books, they might start to develop the reading habit.

We will now look at some of the benefits.

1. Mental Stimulation

Studies have shown that staying mentally stimulated can slow the progress of (or possibly even prevent) Alzheimer’s and Dementia, since keeping your brain active and engaged prevents it from losing power.

Just like any other muscle in the body, the brain requires exercise to keep it strong and healthy, so the phrase “use it or lose it” is particularly apt when it comes to your mind. Doing puzzles and playing games such as chess have also been found to be helpful with cognitive stimulation.

2. Stress Reduction

No matter how much stress you have at work, in your personal relationships, or countless other issues faced in daily life, it all just slips away when you lose yourself in a great story.

A well-written novel can transport you to other realms, while an engaging article will distract you and keep you in the present moment, letting tensions drain away and allowing you to relax.

3. Knowledge

Everything you read fills your head with new bits of information, and you never know when it might come in handy. The more knowledge you have, the better-equipped you are to tackle any challenge you’ll ever face.

Additionally, here’s a bit of food for thought: should you ever find yourself in dire circumstances, remember that although you might lose everything else—your job, your possessions, your money, even your health—knowledge can never be taken from you.

4. Vocabulary Expansion

This goes with the above topic:

The more you read, the more words you gain exposure to, and they’ll inevitably make their way into your everyday vocabulary.

Being articulate and well-spoken is of great help in any profession, and knowing that you can speak to higher-ups with self-confidence can be an enormous boost to your self-esteem.

It could even aid in your career, as those who are well-read, well-spoken, and knowledgeable on a variety of topics tend to get promotions more quickly (and more often) than those with smaller vocabularies and lack of awareness of literature, scientific breakthroughs, and global events.

Reading books is also vital for learning new languages, as non-native speakers gain exposure to words used in context, which will ameliorate their own speaking and writing fluency.

5. Memory Improvement

When you read a book, you have to remember an assortment of characters, their backgrounds, ambitions, history, and nuances, as well as the various arcs and sub-plots that weave their way through every story. That’s a fair bit to remember, but brains are marvellous things and can remember these things with relative ease.

Amazingly enough, every new memory you create forges new synapses (brain pathways) and strengthens existing ones, which assists in short-term memory recall as well as stabilizing moods. How cool is that?

6. Stronger Analytical Thinking Skills

Have you ever read an amazing mystery novel, and solved the mystery yourself before finishing the book? If so, you were able to put critical and analytical thinking to work by taking note of all the details provided and sorting them out to determine “whodunnit”.

That same ability to analyze details also comes in handy when it comes to critiquing the plot; determining whether it was a well-written piece, if the characters were properly developed, if the storyline ran smoothly, etc.

Should you ever have an opportunity to discuss the book with others, you’ll be able to state your opinions clearly, as you’ve taken the time to really consider all the aspects involved.

7. Improved Focus and Concentration

In our internet-crazed world, attention is drawn in a million different directions at once as we multi-task through every day.

In a single 5-minute span, the average person will divide their time between working on a task, checking email, chatting with a couple of people (via gchat, skype, etc.), keeping an eye on twitter, monitoring their smartphone, and interacting with co-workers. This type of ADD-like behaviour causes stress levels to rise, and lowers our productivity.

When you read a book, all of your attention is focused on the story—the rest of the world just falls away, and you can immerse yourself in every fine detail you’re absorbing.

Try reading for 15-20 minutes before work (i.e. on your morning commute, if you take public transit), and you’ll be surprised at how much more focused you are once you get to the office.

8. Better Writing Skills

This goes hand-in-hand with the expansion of your vocabulary:

Exposure to published, well-written work has a noted effect on one’s own writing, as observing the cadence, fluidity, and writing styles of other authors will invariably influence your own work.

In the same way that musicians influence one another and painters use techniques established by previous masters, so do writers learn how to craft prose by reading the works of others.

9. Tranquility

In addition to the relaxation that accompanies reading a good book, it’s possible that the subject you read about can bring about immense inner peace and tranquility.

Reading spiritual texts can lower blood pressure and bring about an immense sense of calm while reading self-help books has been shown to help people suffering from certain mood disorders and mild mental illnesses.

10. Free Entertainment

Though many of us like to buy books so we can annotate them and dog-ear pages for future reference, they can be quite pricey.

For low-budget entertainment, you can visit your local library and bask in the glory of the countless tomes available there for free. Libraries have books on every subject imaginable, and since they rotate their stock and constantly get new books, you’ll never run out of reading materials.

If you happen to live in an area that doesn’t have a local library, or if you’re mobility-impaired and can’t get to one easily, most libraries have their books available in PDF or ePub format so you can read them on your e-reader, iPad, or your computer screen.

There are also many sources online where you can download free e-books, so go hunting for something new to read!

There’s a reading genre for every literate person on the planet, and whether your tastes lie in classical literature, poetry, fashion magazines, biographies, religious texts, young adult books, self-help guides, street lit, or romance novels, there’s something out there to capture your curiosity and imagination.

Step away from your computer for a little while, crack open a book, and replenish your soul for a little while.

How do I Start Reading as a Hobby?

Even you look at the list above you will notice the wonderful benefits that comes from reading books. Are you thinking of developing reading as a hobby?

First, realize that reading is highly enjoyable, if you have a good book. If you have a lousy book (or an extremely difficult one) and you are forcing yourself through it, it will seem like a chore. If this happens for several days in a row, consider abandoning the book and finding one that you’ll really love.

Other than that, try these tips to cultivate a lifetime reading habit:

• Set times. You should have a few set times during every day when you’ll read for at least 5-10 minutes. These are times that you will read no matter what — triggers that happen each day. For example, make it a habit to read during breakfast and lunch (and even dinner if you eat alone). And if you also read every time you’re sitting on the can, and when you go to bed, you now have four times a day when you read for 10 minutes each — or 40 minutes a day. That’s a great start, and by itself would be an excellent daily reading habit. But there’s more you can do.
• Always carry a book. Wherever you go, take a book with you. When I leave the house, I always make sure to have my drivers license, my keys and my book, at a minimum. The book stays with me in the car, and I take it into the office and to appointments and pretty much everywhere I go, unless I know I definitely won’t be reading (like at a movie). If there is a time when you have to wait (like at a doctor’s office or at the DMV), whip out your book and read. Great way to pass the time.
• Make a list. Keep a list of all the great books you want to read. You can keep this in your journal, in a pocket notebook, on your personal home page, on your personal wiki, wherever. Be sure to add to it whenever you hear about a good book, online or in person. Keep a running list, and cross out the ones you read. Tech trick: create a Gmail account for your book list, and email the address every time you hear about a good book. Now your inbox will be your reading list. When you’ve read a book, file it under “Done”. If you want, you can even reply to the message (to the same address) with notes about the book, and those will be in the same conversation thread, so now your Gmail account is your reading log too.
• Find a quiet place. Find a place in your home where you can sit in a comfortable chair (don’t lay down unless you’re going to sleep) and curl up with a good book without interruptions. There should be no television or computer near the chair to minimize distractions, and no music or noisy family members/roommates. If you don’t have a place like this, create one.
• Reduce television/Internet. If you really want to read more, try cutting back on TV or Internet consumption. This may be difficult for many people. Still, every minute you reduce of Internet/TV, you could use for reading. This could create hours of book reading time.
• Read to your kid. If you have children, you must, must read to them. Creating the reading habit in your kids is the best way to ensure they’ll be readers when they grow up … and it will help them to be successful in life as well. Find some great children’s books, and read to them. At the same time, you’re developing the reading habit in yourself … and spending some quality time with your child as well.
• Keep a log. Similar to the reading list, this log should have not only the title and author of the books you read, but the dates you start and finish them if possible. Even better, put a note next to each with your thoughts about the book. It is extremely satisfying to go back over the log after a couple of months to see all the great books you’ve read.
• Go to used book shops. My favorite place to go is a discount book store where I drop off all my old books (I usually take a couple of boxes of books) and get a big discount on used books I find in the store. I typically spend only a couple of dollars for a dozen or more books, so although I read a lot, books aren’t a major expense. And it is very fun to browse through the new books people have donated. Make your trip to a used book store a regular thing.
• Have a library day. Even cheaper than a used book shop is a library, of course. Make it a weekly trip.
• Read fun and compelling books. Find books that really grip you and keep you going. Even if they aren’t literary masterpieces, they make you want to read — and that’s the goal here. After you have cultivated the reading habit, you can move on to more difficult stuff, but for now, go for the fun, gripping stuff. Stephen King, John Grisham, Tom Clancy, Robert Ludlum, Nora Roberts, Sue Grafton, Dan Brown … all those popular authors are popular for a reason — they tell great stories. Other stuff you might like: Vonnegut, William Gibson, Douglas Adams, Nick Hornby, Trevanian, Ann Patchett, Terry Pratchett, Terry McMillan, F. Scott Fitzgerald. All excellent storytellers.
• Make it pleasurable. Make your reading time your favorite time of day. Have some good tea or coffee while you read, or another kind of treat. Get into a comfortable chair with a good blanket. Read during sunrise or sunset, or at the beach.
• Blog it. One of the best ways to form a habit is to put it on your blog. If you don’t have one, create one. It’s free. Have your family go there and give you book suggestions and comment on the ones you’re reading. It keeps you accountable for your goals.
• Set a high goal. Tell yourself that you want to read 50 books this year (or some other number like that). Then set about trying to accomplish it. Just be sure you’re still enjoying the reading though — don’t make it a rushed chore.
• Have a reading hour or reading day. If you turn off the TV or Internet in the evening, you could have a set hour (perhaps just after dinner) when you and maybe all the members of your family read each night. Or you could do a reading day, when you (and again, your other family members if you can get them to join you) read for practically the whole day. It’s super fun.

Is it Better to buy or Rent Books?

In your quest of reading and trying to save money, you are faced with two options, whether to buy or to rent books. Each of these options have their own pros and cons. Here are some thing you need to consider when making a decision.

While buying your textbooks seems logical, and it is the most traditional way, it may not always be the best idea. Or the cheapest. Buying your textbooks can cost hundreds of dollars with your campus bookstore agreeing to buy them back from you at the end of the semester.

The problem with this system is that now that you’ve used the book, you have to sell it back to them as a used book rather than a new book, so you don’t get as much back as you initially spent.

You can try to sell your purchased textbooks directly to other students rather than to the bookstore, which might get you closer to what you originally spent. Renting your books is usually cheaper. You pay the cost up front, which is a fraction of the cost, and just return your book at the end of the semester.

There are a few different directions you can go in when deciding on textbook options and costs. You should always ask around about specific classes. Sometimes you can find a class review or professor review on the internet.

Do your research on book retailers. Sometimes your campus bookstore might be the most expensive option. Sometimes they might have the best deals in town.

There is no real reason to buy a brand new textbook. Look into finding gently used books. Obviously you don’t want anything ripped and tattered, but something with a few grease stains should suffice.

What you need to know before you buy a textbook

If you think a specific text book will be beneficial to future classes or your career, you should buy it. If you know you won’t just read through the foot notes and scan over a few topics, that’s a sign that purchasing might be a good idea.

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Buying is also a better option if you are taking a multi semester class, like some science and math courses which will end up being cheaper than renting in the long run. While buying textbooks is the pricier option, it is sometimes a great investment.

What you need to know before you rent a textbook

You are going to use the book a lot throughout the semester and need your own copy, but you know you will never even think about, look at, or touch that book once the class is finished. If money is tight, renting is the cheapest option up front.

If you tend to be careless, clumsy, or lose things easily, buying may be a better option than renting. If you lose a rented textbook, or turn it in later or turn it in damaged, it could end up costing you more overall in fees and charges.

Finally

As we have seen from the above information reading does not have to cost you an arm and a leg, there are cheaper ways to maintain your reading habit and enjoy your reading.