The best strategy for saving money on textbooks is to purchase them second hand. Amazon.com and Half.com are two great websites to purchase textbooks. Amazon is especially good if you want to save on shipping charges as they frequently offer free shipping. If you can verify that you are a student with a school issued email address, you will even receive free second day shipping for many of their items. Half.com is really cheap but you might have to pay more for shipping as it is shipped by over Half.com users. However, Half.com is a great place for you to sell your books when your classes are over.

You can also check regular bookstores, such as Barnes & Noble and Borders, for deals on books. You can do so via Retail Me Not, a great website for coupon codes. Simply enter the name of the store you are searching and Retail Me Not will display coupon codes. You may also search for coupon codes applicable for school supplies.

The two best options for saving money on textbooks is to either buy used textbooks (and sell them back at the end of the semester) or to consider renting textbooks. If you buy used and sell back or if you rent, the prices are fairly similar. The one advantage to renting is that you may find that at the end of the semester you cannot sell your book back, so renting provides some protection.

When buying used, two of the largest sites are Amazon.com and Textbooks.com. Both offer a significant library of books as well as good pricing on those books. If you are considering renting, check out Chegg.com and BookRenter.com. Both of these sites specialize in book rentals and have great pricing for renting books. Be sure to consider costs like shipping and potential losses if you are not able to sell them back when you compare your prices.