Try This Trick: Swaptree.com

When I moved to the city about 2 years ago, I fell in love with the Strand. For a dollar, I was able to pick up some great books, from popular novels like the Glass Castle, to some horrible “chick lit” - all for a dollar. Needless to say, with plenty of my chick lit books I haven’t been able to make it past the first chapter and they have been cluttering my shelves for years.

Enter Swaptree.com. My friend Ben joined the site a couple months ago, so I recently thought I’d try it out. Swaptree.com lets me swap the books I have for books that I actually want. In addition to swapping for books, I can swap for DVDs, CDs and video games. To swap, I input the books that I have, and if there is a match to the books I want, I’m alerted to the possible trade. I can trade with members directly, but sometimes I can be in a three-way trade. As far as price, it’s only $2.76 to ship, plus Swaptree.com charges a dollar for each month you make a trade. So far, supplies (padded envelopes) set me back about $20, so figure in a dollar per envelope. All in all, you can get every book or DVD for under $4.

Now plenty of people have asked me - why not join the library? Well, I like owning books. I like passing books on to people who I know might enjoy them and when I go on vacation, I’m worried about taking a library book - I’d rather have it be my own (ask me about when my luggage got stolen on vacation one year). With swaptree.com, I’m able to eliminate that pile of books in my bedroom that haven’t been touched, for books I want to read, without the hassle of ever having to return them. I encourage you to check it out and let me know what you think!