College is really expensive.

**Disclaimer: I have been compensated for this post, but all opinions are my own.**

I've written before about my plans to go back to college and finish a Psychology degree. I love love love psychology - I think the nuances of the human mind are ridiculously fascinating, and I can't wait to get started really digging into it in more depth than I did in my last degree. 

One of the hardest parts about going back to school though, at least for me, is that it is so stinking expensive! Tuition, course fees, school supplies....not to mention the textbooks. Oh, the textbooks. I remember when I first left home for my freshman year....I had worked and saved all summer, and I thought I was hot stuff with my like, $1400 I brought to school with me. Yeah, the bottom dropped out of that ride real quick when I realized that just my textbooks alone for the first semester were going to cost almost $800.00. YIKES. 

This time around, I'm doing things a little bit smarter, and have decided I will be renting my textbooks from www.CampusBookRentals.com. The minute I discovered this site, I was like, "um, holy money-saving power, Batman!" Textbooks are really cheap on this site (seriously, one of the ones I looked at was $134 retail, but I could rent it for just $19...$19, people!!), AND they offer free shipping both ways! Seriously, you just can't beat that. 

And then there's the studying. You might think that since you're essentially borrowing the book, you wouldn't be able to highlight important passages. Uh, WRONG. You totally can! CampusBookRentals.com understands that sometimes in life, you blow off studying for that really important text until five minutes before the prof is handing out the blue books, and you need to be able to flip through the book and glean the really important stuff ASAP. Ergo, they let you highlight in your rented books. Heck of a deal, huh? 

And let's say that your school operates on a quarter schedule, instead of a semester. You wouldn't want to pay the cost of renting a book for the entire semester if you're only going to need/use it for 11 weeks. So CampusBookRentals.com also offers flexible rental periods! A LOT of campuses are moving to trimesters now, as well, and my last college worked on the quarter schedule, so this option will really come in handy. 

And here's something even cooler: Let's say that you purchased a bunch of books for class last year, but now you just don't need them, and you're not sure what to do. No worries! CampusBookRentals.com allows you to rent out your textbooks to other students, so that you get paid each time they are rented. This definitely would have come in handy after my first years of college, when I had literally about 26 textbooks, and no reason to keep them and nowhere to put them. Selling them back to the bookstore is just silly because you only get like 10% back of what you paid. I seriously wish I had had this option back then, because it just makes so much sense!

And as if all of those awesome things weren't enough, CampusBookRentals.com also donates to Operation Smile with each textbook rental. This is actually a cause very near and dear to my heart for a number of reasons, so I am really excited to be able to help such an awesome charity while saving money AND still having the textbooks I need for school. I would definitely encourage you to check out CampusBookRentals.com if for no other reason than you know that by doing nothing more than finding textbooks for your education, you are helping to save a child's life, or at the very least, increase the quality of their life. 

I am so excited that I found this website. If you're currently in college, thinking about going to college, or even just interested in checking out some awesome textbooks for a review of what you've already learned, or to do some self-teaching, you definitely need to check out this website. You won't be sorry, I promise!