Fiscal and Physical Diets

Well to be honest, neither is going that well.

Had to buy lunch and dinner both days and went to a store because of an evil coupon *cough*Borders*cough* to buy things I didn't need but really really wanted. Books will always be my downfall. Oh well, there's always tomorrow.

Libraries and Book Expenses

I've discovered that my local library is crap. Sure, it's pretty. It's in a very nice building but I don't like libraries for their architecture, I like them for saving money on my main fix, books.

I rarely pay full price for books, my most recent book purchases have been the following:

• $53.51 for 12 books at BookCloseOuts in July
• $83.87 for 21 books at The Strand's Fulton Street annex on July 24th and $27.85 for 7 more at the same location on August 17th. It's a shame the store is closing, but at least I'm going to make the best of their clearance sales.
• $18.60 for two new hardcovers at Amazon
• 15.47 for three books from Half.com
• $6 for 5 books at the library book sale.

I'm also a huge fan of BookMooch, which enables me to share books with other readers at a cost of only shipping. My payment is in points, which enable me to Mooch books from others. Earlier this year I had worked out how much my books had cost and while I no longer have that at hand, it was somewhere between $2 and 3 per book, in line with my deals above with the exception of Amazon. If I shop new it's with a coupon and/or gift certificate (see Amazon) and or a book I need at a particular time for a given purpose. I'm an incurable bookworm, but still that's $205.30 that I could have spent elsewhere. 

While that's not a monthly expense, it's twice a year or at most three times, but it's still an area to cut back, which brings me to my original post. My branch is awful. AW-FUL. I went the other day and did better at the book sale than I did in the borrowing section. It's so small and such a limited collection in my favorite section. I need to check out the branches closer to work and hope for better news.