Living cheap

Sometimes, your financial income is not as high as you want it to be. Worse, it might not be as high as you think you need. If that is your case, or you just feel like cutting down your living cost for an other reason (environmental, moral, personal challenge etc) I will try to provide some tips. So this is to be a little serie of blog enties on how to lower your expenditures without significantly lessening your life quality.

Lesson one - Literature

Fact: many students consider themselves poor and find themselves struggling to make the month. In Sweden, students are paid fairly well (funding from the government and low-rate loans) but still complain. One grand cost for students is the required literature. Then there's also the fun reading, which depending on your taste can get quite pricey too. The green bonus here is obvious - buying new items has a greater impact on the environment than re-using, by doing so we maximise the gain from each product.

What to do?

Step 1 - Try your libraries. If you live in a university town, maybe all the books are lent out to other wise people. Then try libraries outside of the city - perhaps your aunt 20 km away can look for it at her local library and you can pick it up on a family reunion.

Step 2 - No luck at the libraries. Then you ask around to borrow - are you a member on Facebook, post it on your wall. Is it course literature, maybe someone in the year above you still has it.

Step 3 - Still no luck. It's time for the second hand shopping. Have a look around on the internet.

Sweden/Swedish books:
Blocket - not the easiest one to manage, but you can be lucky and find very cheap ones here. Try to search not only the title, maybe the category or just course 'literature'.
Kurslitteratur - well organised, easy to find.
Tradera - not specialised on books and you might have to bid, but still worth a try.

English/English books:
Abebooks - supercheap and a great variety of books. (For me, it was cheaper to order the book from the US and get it shipped to Sweden than buying it second hand here)

For more online bookstores look Here (The mighty book blog's list)

Step 4 - Maybe you just have to suck it up and "bite the sour apple" as the saying goes in Sweden. That is, buy the new book. Do online research before, the prices vary and some stores might have offers/sales. Ask granny for coupons.


[Personal experience: I am to obtain 4 books for my next semester at university, buying new copies would add up to 200€. After looking around, I found two of them at different libraries, bought one online for 9 USD and am looking at the las one for 20-35€. In total, I will pay around 20% of the original cost.]