Saving Money on Magazines (and Books)

Don't buy any :0)

Most public libraries have huge selections of magazines available. For the more specialised magazines, often they are available online either right away, or you can read backdated issues.

Give your magazines a second life by passing them on to someone else who is interested in the same things.

Books are different- I love to buy books. Books are really cheap on trade me. Back when The Da Vinci code was $25 new (paperback), I managed to get that book and three other Dan Brown books (all read only once by one person) for $12. It cost me $6 for the postage- but $18 was still cheap for one book, and I got four! Bliss.

Whitcoulls has a special once or twice a year where you can get 50% off any children's book. I always seem to miss that sale, since I don't often go in to the shop any more...but we got 6 out of the 7 Narnia books (coloured picture editions) that way.

If you live in Auckland, or can visit- there is a Scholastic factory shop in East Tamaki where you can get really cheap books. At the end of each school term, they also have a few days where you can get 50% off every book in their warehouse.

We get a tonne of library books, but when there is a book the children particularly want, I buy it. Especially for J-Man, who learned to read when he was 3, but stopped reading when he was around 6. If he asks for a book now, I get it. Even when it is full price.

Borders sometimes has a special- Buy two, get one free...this works great when you have three children(though I'm sure I'd do it even if I only had one child).

I buy books from Fishpond sometimes, but my last order is still on it's way...nearly 3 weeks alter. Quite disappointed- but at least they had (or said they had) all the books I wanted, and didn't have to leave the house to get them...or more to the point, take Tombliboo to a bookstore.

Amazon is loads cheaper for the books, but the postage is horrific- and I haven't bought anything since the $NZ dropped.

We used to have a great second-hand bookshop near us when J-Man was a toddler. I got loads of books for under $3 each, really neat (old) titles. Garage sales could be good places to get books as well, though I don't know anything about it. When I was little my Nan used ot go to garage sales every Saturday morning. Sometimes I got to go with her. Sometimes, I would go to visit her and she would say, "I have a surprise for you"...and I'd have to go and look in "my" bedroom- it was usually Beano or Whizzer and Chips comics. A whole pile of them and she usually only paid 5c each! :0)