Medical (and pre-medical) education is expensive, so how can we save money? What are good sources for books (and other items) online?
I have found that shopping around definitely pays off, and some good sources for text books and study books include:
Amazon.com / Barnesandnoble.com (duh). On Amazon, I’ve had good results with the “used book” options - buying new books for less than amazons price.
www.walmart.com (found the lowest examkrackers prices there)
www.half.com (good for textbooks, might be a little damaged or used, or not). I just received next terms Chem book (brand new, unmarked, the cover was dinged in the corner) for half of the “used book” price in the bookstore. The highest prices I’ve found are new books for about the same as the used book price in the campus bookstore.
And of course, for equipment (stethoscopes / oto-opthalmoscopes / syphgmomanometers) on E-bay. You can get them brand new in the box at a discount, slightly used at a big discount (I purchased a new stethoscope on ebay at about a $30 discount from the UCLA Med School bookstore). Just be sure you know what you want and what you’re bidding for. For buying non-essential books (books that you might just want for your personal library, etc) or books that you don’t need in a hurry ebay is good also - I just received a new copy of Rohen’s atlas for $22 (new in box, hardbound) from an ebay seller, it’s $69 plus shipping on amazon. The only thing wrong with it is that there seems to have been a bookmarker ribbon cut out of the binding.
For lab coats, allheart.com seems pretty reasonable. Shipping (even on embroidered items) is pretty fast.
Anyone else have good sources?
WARNING >> imminently approaching shameless plug <<<
If you follow the Amazon.com link from OldPreMeds web page, we get a %-age off of the sale - so, next time you decide to purchase something from Amazon, please try to remember to access their web page by using the link on our page.
Regarding WalMart.com - yes, even though their selection is rather thin, I obtained several expensive books from them at surprisingly cheap prices. Example - Tentanalli’s Emergency Medicine (THE Bible for EM) - normally $150 or so…I paid ~$95 for it brand new off of WalMart.com.
My post just disappeared. Basically, I wanted to confirm what RDeCastro said about used books on Amazon. I just got a great used Algebra/Trig. book from Amazon for under $30, including shipping. It’s the latest edition and the cheapest I found it anywhere else was for $50 more.
These are some really great pointers. I’m going to print them…buying used books (outside of the school bookstore) and shopping around online is great way to save lots of money. Textbooks are like cars - they depreciate in value dramatically once you step out of the bookstore. I mean, the bookstore buys them back for a 1/6 of the price and then resells your same used book for a 5/6 of the price.
Great pointers!
Efex, thanks for the tip! I just used the site to buy my summer chemistry books for more than half off the retail price. You just saved me $70…thanks!
Hmmm, you can send me a check to…he he. Yeah I love that site forget the bookstore at my school! the price differences are huge.
I had NO idea Walmart sold things on line and sold text books. Boy, you learn something new on OPM everyday!!!
Don’t forget, if you have a little bit of time it REALLY pays to shop around! Walmart, half.com, and the others.
BTW, walmart seems to be able to get any book in print, if you have the ISBN number. Not just what they have online.
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Don’t forget, if you have a little bit of time it REALLY pays to shop around! Walmart, half.com, and the others.
BTW, walmart seems to be able to get any book in print, if you have the ISBN number. Not just what they have online.
Do you work for Walmart? Just kidding!
LOL,no. Just cheap.
I too just recently purchases a trig/calculus book through a seller on amazon plus the answer supplemental (not really “the” answers to the questions, but shows you how to solve the same type of problems, it is so nice); all for 35.90 with shipping! I check amazon quite a bit to find deals like that.
rdecastro,
I’m with you on Wal Mart. I do all my shopping for household and groceries there, joined their DVD rental program, use their internet service…heck, I might as well just mail my paychecks to Wal Mart. It’ll be the same in England when I go in December!! (Asda is the big superstore there, and a Wal Mart subsidiary!!)
Kathy
You can get some good deals in the SDN classifieds.
Hey, Dave!
I’ve been searching for the link to Amazon.com from the OPM website so I can order my books. I may be blind, but I don’t see it anywhere. Did it disappear, or could you tell me where to look, please!
Lu
There are a couple of Amazon click-through ads on the front page – OldPremeds Home Page
Hope this helps!
It says it it doesn’t work or has been removed, when I click on it.
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It says it it doesn’t work or has been removed, when I click on it.
The “Bookstore” link at the very bottom is broken, but there is an ad box right under the left hand button bar with the following link: Amazon.com
This link definitely works and will take you to Amazon.com with the OldPremeds tag in the url, so I presume oldpremeds.org will get the credit for the sale. I didn’t set this up so I’m not the definitive authority on this but perhaps someone here can confirm (Geoff perhaps?).