Here's the next entry in "The Best Financial Tips from FMF Readers" series. Today's post is from Gary Bossert of Durham, NC who says:
Visit your local library. For a long time, I purchased books whenever I read an interesting book review or if a favorite author had a new release. I would read it once and then it would sit on my shelf collecting dust. Two years ago, I re-discovered the library. My local library has nearly everything I want to read, and if they don't, I can request that they acquire a copy. Not only do I use the library for books, but for investment research (Value Line) and audio books, too. The library is a great resource, and even a modest donation to the "Friends of the Library" pales in comparison to the money I spent on new books.
Excellent tip! I use this all the time too. My library system allows me to go online, search for the books I want anywhere in the system (roughly 50 libraries), and order a book from any one of them. They then send it to the library of my choice (my neighborhood library only six blocks from my house) and email me when it arrives. I then have seven days to pick it up. As an additional service, they email me two days before it's due to help me avoid and late fees. It's a bargain all the way around!
I listen to roughly one book on tape per week. At $15 a pop, this system saves me almost $800 per year! (Even if I wouldn't buy that many books if I didn't have the library, you can say that I would buy at least a quarter of them, so this idea saves me a couple hundred dollars a year at a minimum.)
Our library system went online years ago. They've recently updated their system. It's fast. It tells you which branch a book is available at. You can search by title, author, keywords or category. You can place holds and request interlibrary loans for a modest fee. However, since you can limit the searches by branch and whether the book is currently on the shelf, it's easy enough to select the branches that are close to home and work.
My hit rate is about 40-50% of what I want to read. Still that makes it well worth my time to check. And I can renew books online as well, so I don't have to panic if I can't make it to the library by the due date. If I can't finish the book after one renewal, I probably wasn't that committed to reading it anyway.
Posted by: Anonymous | September 20, 2005 at 04:13 PM
Unfortunately my local branch subscribes to very few magazines. On the bright side, I can log on to the county library system's web site and request any book in the system, then pick it up at my local branch when it becomes available. Saves a lot of time driving and searching the stacks.
Posted by: James Messick | September 11, 2006 at 09:47 PM