👛📓How to save money with secondhand textbooks
New textbooks can be very expensive. Depending on the faculty and subject, new textbooks can cost more than $200AUD each, so a semester’s worth of textbooks could cost more than $1000AUD in books and supplies alone!
New textbooks can be very expensive. Depending on the faculty and subject, new textbooks can cost more than $200AUD each, so a semester’s worth of textbooks could cost more than $1000AUD in books and supplies alone!
Secondhand textbooks, however, can be significantly cheaper especially (eg. 50% off) if you purchase them from students from the previous class (although you could still get 20-30% off secondhand texts from a retailer). But how do you find these students who have just completed the class and now no longer need their books? Here are three ways.
Ask the lecturer
This assumes your lecturer is sympathetic and organised, but it's always worth asking. The worst they can do is say no. Lecturers have access to the contact details of the previous students, and they (usually) don't have an incentive to sell new books, so if they are nice they could email students from the previous class and inform them that you want a textbook. Then those students could reach out to you and you can then negotiate a price with them.
Check Facebook groups
There are numerous groups on Facebook that facilitate the buying and selling of textbooks. The chances of them having the one you want depends on the scope of the group. For example, some groups are very broad and thus have lots of members but from many different areas of study, which is good if you're looking for a very common book, whilst other groups (eg. UTS Law Student Society's Textbook Exchange) are more specific and thus should have what you're looking for, but have more strict requirements for who gets to join the group (eg. You have to be a member of the UTS Law Society).
Join a student society
You can also join a society that is relevant to your area of study and ask members of that society if anyone has secondhand textbooks. EngSoc@UTS and SUMS@USyd are examples of professional societies on campus that you could reach out to and ask if their members have books they would like to pass one. For less "professionalised" areas of study, you could also join an interest-based society such as the Life Drawing Club@RMIT if you're looking for drawing resources or Nutrition and Dietetics Society@Monash if you're looking for nutrition-related resources. Whatever you're looking for in terms of textbooks and other resources, there could be a club for you to ask in.
Check out your university clubs and societies web page for more details. Here are a few shortcuts for major universities in each state and territory:
Universities with their home campus in Sydney/New South Wales
- University of Sydney
- University of Technology Sydney
- University of New South Wales
- Western Sydney University
- Macquarie University
- Australian Catholic University
- Charles Sturt University
- Southern Cross University
- University of New England
- University of Newcastle
- University of Wollongong
Universities with their home campus in Melbourne/Victoria
- Deakin University
- La Trobe University
- Monash University
- Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology University (RMIT)
- Swinburne University of Technology
- University of Melbourne
- Victoria University
- Federation University Australia
Universities with their home campus in Brisbane/Queensland
- Bond University
- Central Queensland University (CQU)
- Griffith University
- James Cook University
- Queensland University of Technology
- University of Queensland
- University of Southern Queensland
- University of the Sunshine Coast
Universities with their home campus in Canberra/ACT (Australian Capital Territory)
- Australian National University
- University of Canberra
Universities with their home campus in Adelaide/South Australia
- Flinders University
- Torrens University Australia
- University of Adelaide
- University of South Australia
Universities with their home campus in Perth/Western Australia
- Curtin University
- Edith Cowan University
- Murdoch University
- University of Notre Dame Australia
- University of Western Australia
Universities with their home campus in Darwin/Northern Territory
- Charles Darwin University
Universities with their home campus in Hobart/Tasmania
- University of Tasmania
