I’m about to enter my last semester of my junior year of college, at my local university. These are some things that helped me save so much money on books, time and effort.

Use used books websites or stores to buy your text books from.

Chegg and Amazon usually has the text books you need at a really low rental rate or price. Also Craigslist and Facebook groups that’s related to your school will have some. College kids usually just sell their old text books for dirt cheap anyway. You can usually ask your professor during the first week of the school, if they’re looking for a certain edition or version of the text book so you don’t mistakenly just buy the cheapest thing out there, and it turned out to be the wrong text book. Don’t ever buy text books straight from your school’s bookstore unless it’s necessary. Do not buy a text book right away until you’ve gotten clarification from your professor, because sometimes they might have a book on the syllabus but it isn’t always required. Also if you can’t always afford a text book, your school library will have it and will let you rent it out in the library for a couple hours at a time.

Make sure to have plenty of storage, I mean digital storage.

If you go to a university or even a community college, it is safe to assume that you will be having lots of typed papers and presentations. A lot of retail stores and websites like Amazon usually have USB drives on sale. Get at least a 16GB or a 32GB USB drive, that you can have with your keys or somewhere close but in a convenient location, so you can take work from home to school and vice versa without the hassle of bringing the actual laptop with you. Plus it helps at least keep your material organized so you know exactly where you store your stuff.

If a USB drive isn’t your thing, then maybe look into online cloud storage like Google Drive or a Drop Box.

If you have a Gmail, even a school Gmail account than you can access google drive. Google drive has 15GB of free storage, so plenty of space for documents and power points presentation and anything else you might need during the school year. It easily accessible from anywhere you can login to your Gmail with. Drop box seems to be another really popular one, and just need an account. You have the option to pay for more storage but that’s up to you and how you choose to use it. Great thing is that Google drive and drop box are both mobile friendly so they have apps that you can use, so you don’t always have to be on a computer to access the things you need.

A laptop or tablet is nice to have in terms of convenience, but if you don’t have the money to splurge on a laptop, maybe a Chromebook or smaller tablet will be within your budget.

If you’re just looking for something to just browse the internet and type or papers and do PowerPoint presentations a Chromebook may be the right one for you. They don’t cost as much as a regular laptop, and it’s just a bigger tablet with a keyboard to be honest. You can always buy a laptop on the lower end and just buy an external hard drive if the storage is too little. Just make sure to check out local pawnshops, sites like amazon and just watch the prices of the laptops you might want to get. You don’t always have to have a laptop of some sort, if you just use the school computers a lot anyway, if anything it’s just a convenience.

If you are a student who loves to shop online, then I recommend checking out Amazon.

Amazon has their service “Amazon Prime for students” that basically cuts the price in half for you. If you have a school email address, they will let you have amazon prime free for 6 months and then they will offer it to you half price after the 6month period is up. It’s a 99$ deal for half the price, and especially with 2-day shipping and the cheap stuff they have on their including book rentals or sales, it’s definitely worth the cost.

Other necessities if you love technology, would be a good set of headphones doesn't matter which ones, whatever your preference is really.

Chargers for iPhones and Androids, long and short so you have the right length for any situation. Also back up batteries, AKA portable battery packs, because sometimes you might be in a class or area on campus where there is no plug around and you need your phone charged.

I’m sure everyone already has a back to school backpack, probably from previous school years. Who has the money for another back pack? I don’t that’s for sure. Just make sure it’s suitable for every day carrying and commuting to school with minimal effort and strain. That’s all I can muster at the moment, I hope everyone prepares well for the upcoming school year and save some money too.