School Supplies

I don't know what made me think that life outside of a private elementary school would be any less expensive. LargeBoy picks up his schedule, ID, and books next Wednesday at the Freshman day at our local high school. I'm a little slow and am just getting to the book list now. We - ok, I - missed the pre-order for the books so that they would all just be ready for him in a cute little box. Now he has to physically walk around the bookstore, like in college, only this time in the smaller, even MORE confusing atmosphere that is high school.

In talking with a coworker today about this ridiculously expensive dilemma, she suggested I try this website to look for lower prices. This site takes your ISBN number, title, etc and runs it through all of the online bookstores and then ranks them by price. Granted, there is some serious caveat emptor going on, and you MUST be wary of what you purchase, but still... when faced with a history textbook at $92.00 new in the school bookstore and $12.00 used online, well....my math and most of my logic are showing that the $12 is, in fact, a better deal. What's even nicer is that MOST of the sellers will let you know details about the condition of the book.

Where was this site when I was in college? This is awesome. I'm hoping that the novels he has to read in his English class will be ones that I can find cheap, or that I can pick up at the library. We'll see. What a relief. This comes as a HUGE help, especially after reading earlier today, that the average price of books for a freshman is $350 - $400/semester! OUCH. I think it's time for the boy to get a job!