Paying Less for Books: Part 1 – Patience and Making a List

I am a bibliophile. I read – a lot. And I prefer holding a book in my hand while I read. Oh, I read email and email newsletters and articles and blogs on the internet. But, when I hold a good book in my hands my attention span is much better than when I read from a computer screen.

I like to own books. I like to look at them on my book shelves and recall their main points or their stories. Because I like to own books it’s important for me to minimize their cost and so, I’ve developed a strategy that substantially reduces the price I pay for most books.

The key to my strategy for paying less for books is patience. I rarely buy books impulsively. I keep a list of desirable books on my pocket computer with a duplicate of the list set up as a “Wish List” in Amazon.

When I discover a book I’m interested in I add the title and author to my list. Then I wait. Right now my list contains 83 titles; evenly split between fiction and non-fiction.

The easiest way the list saves me money is when, after some time has past, I realize that a particular title doesn’t interest nearly as much anymore. It no longer seems worth the money to buy it or the time required to read it. And so, I delete it from my list.

This is the ultimate fate of half of the books I capture on my “Wish List”.

The passing of time also permits other money-saving tactics to come to fruition. Tactics to be discussed in future posts.

Link to Other Topics in the Special Report: Cutting Expenses