charity and affordability: campusbookrentals.com

This is a sponsored post on behalf of campusbookrentals.com. All thoughts presented are my own.

Once upon a time, I hated school. At least the academic part of it. I loved recess, lunch, music time, and any social interaction. But classes and homework? Not so much. Oh, I was smart, but I was lazy. I'm sure teachers were frustrated by me. I could have had A's but walked out with much lower grades because I rarely turned things in. Better believe I aced most tests though!

Something changed when I transferred from my local community college to my college in Maryland. At the end of my semester, I found I'd earned a 4.0. It was like crack. All the sudden, I was one of those grade-obsessed kids I used to make fun of. I now LOVED school. I graduated with a 3.95 (darn you, you one stupid B!)

Yep, all those years of hating school, only to turn around in the final two. Truth be told, I miss it now. I dream often of going back. It was so much easier to succeed those days.

There's only one thing I really don't miss about my whole college experience: textbooks. I was a product of public schools. Buying books was unheard of. You checked them in on the first day of school and checked them out the last. You only paid if you lost or severely damaged the things.

Nope. College makes you buy every. last. one. Lame. Even lamer? You try to sell that $120 sucker back at the end of the year and the unsympathetic kid behind the counter offers you $5, take it or leave it. What!?

I thought I was pretty good about bargain shopping in my day. I generally got good deals on my books through careful online scouring, but I still never had a semester where I got all my books under $300. Now that I've heard about campusbookrentals.com, I'm a little mad. And I REALLY want to go back to school.

Yep, now you can RENT your textbooks. Cheap. The first thing I saw noticed on the site is that the rental price for many books was $29 (oh, and they ship free both ways!). Also, if you get to the first day of class and your professor says "just kidding, we're using a different book!" (that has happened to me!), you have 30 days to return it for your money back.

Seriously? I'm a little bitter that this wasn't around in time for me.

Actually, it's not too late for me: turns out, if you own books, you can rent them to other students with their RentBack program. That means you make money semester after semester! Not too shabby.

I didn't get to the best part. Yes, this is a genius business model...but they don't hoard all the cash to themselves. They donate a part of EVERY single rental to Operation Smile, an international children's medical charity that heals children's smiles by providing safe, effective reconstructive surgery and related medical care for children born with facial deformities such as cleft lip and cleft palate.

I often feel guilty when I can't donate to charities as there are so many worthy causes. This gets two birds with one stone for you: affordable textbook access AND a good deed!