In less than 15 seconds, cheap-textbooks.com can generate a list of over 30 prices at different sites for students to select from.

My first year in college I think I spent close to $900 on textbooks. As I am advancing in my field of study, the prices of textbooks only rise. But my net expenses are much, much lower. The reason is that I am willing to spend a fair amount of time searching for textbooks online. Often, I find books for less than half the price of what the college bookstore charges.

The most efficient site I have found to use when shopping for textbooks is http://www.cheap-textbooks.com/. This site allows the user to type in the ISBN number or author of the book and then generates a list of prices from over 30 online sources. The list includes rentals, used, and new books. While rentals were appealing to me because of the low cost, I decided I would prefer to own my books and not be liable for any destruction or markings. But I soon found another reason why I prefer to own the book…After I am finished with the class, I can sell many of the books and make a profit. It sounds ridiculous, but it sadly is true. I have been able to sell some of my textbooks to students for much more than I paid for.

So this summer, when your professors send out their syllabus and required reading, take some time to look up your textbooks online. At the very minimum, check out cheap-textbooks.com. If not, the bookstore or someone like myself will likely rip you off.

This weekend I went geocaching. If you don’t know what that means, I’m not surprised-I didn’t either until a few days ago. If you have heard of geocaching, I’m also not surprised-apparently it is becoming increasingly popular around the globe. Geocaching utilizes online collaboration to allow anyone to enjoy a treasure hunt for hidden containers(geocaches).

You are given the latitude and longitude coordinates of where the treasures are and typically also given what the “treasure” looks like. People then use a GPS or even just GoogleMaps to locate the geocache. Often it is something small like a dispensable film container. Inside the containers are often names of people who have found the geocache. There are also sometimes little trinkets, which geocashers are encourages to exchange with a trinket of their own.

The beauty of Geocaching is that it doesn’t require any planning as most treasure hunts do. This is because users around the world hide their own geocaches and submit the coordinates and clues online. It is also free. Another advantage is that it can be as time consuming as you want to make it. We spent a little over an hour searching for six geocaches and found four of them. Also, geocaching is everywhere, even in other countries. Within five miles of my home town, there are 55 geocaches waiting to be found. Overall, geocaching is a ton of fun with little preparation required.

“If you have a body, you are an athlete.” Bill Bowerman, co-founder of Nike, made this statement

Customize your own shoes with NikeiD

years ago and this mindset has led Nike to become a sports apparel powerhouse. I will add to it and say, “If you are an athlete, you need to check out NikeiD.”

NikeiD is Nike’s site that allows you to customize your own clothing and footwear online. If you are an athlete, you have to try it. Growing up, I was allowed to customize a pair of basketball shoes every year for Christmas. I would spend hours at the computer trying out different color schemes on different shoes trying to find the perfect shoe. In addition to customizing the color schemes of the shoes, you can also put a limited amount of writing on them and often a logo as well. I would always put my number on mine and sometimes my mascot.

Though I may not have played well in all of my games in high school, I can at least confidently say that I looked good in all of my games. I was often told I had the best shoes on the court. So if you are an athlete, visit nikeid.nike.com and have fun customizing your look.

This past summer, my fraternity decided to take a percentage of money left over in our account and transfer it to Kiva, a site that partners with microfinancing institutions around the world. Our treasurer spent a considerable amount of time researching where to loan our money and at the end of the summer we had all of our money returned to us.

Our experience was not unusual. Kiva’s interest-free loans made microfinance institutions give people in poorer regions of the world that lack traditional banking systems opportunities to create business. These loans are fully paid back over 98% of the time. So contributors have the opportunity to help people and typically receive all of their money back.

From a Christian perspective, does a Kiva contribution qualify as giving as Christians are commanded? Economically, helping through Kiva is definitely a sacrifice. Besides the small risk of not receiving your money back, every Kiva contributor sacrifices the amount they could have earned had they placed their Kiva money in a mutual fund or savings account instead.

So Kiva is definitely a sacrifice, albeit often only a small sacrifice. And Kiva is perfect for people who have future needed money sitting untouched in an account for a period of time, which was the situation my fraternity was in. But the amount actually lost is only the interest rates sacrificed by not using the money elsewhere. I look at the story of the widow with only two coins to give and believe that Christians are called to a much larger sacrifice. I believe that Kiva is an amazing organization, I just encourage Christians to not limit themselves to the security that Kiva provides in their giving.

If you don’t follow sports but are interested in gambling or you are interested in gambling but do not follow sports, centsports.com may be the site for you. Centsports allows inexperienced or aspiring sport gamblers to test the waters before deciding to actually risk losing money. The catch is that while you can’t lose money, you can actually make money.

Funded by the site’s sponsors, centsports gives each user 10 cents to start out with and bet however they choose. If successful, users can continue to accumulate money. If they ever gain over $20.00, they can cash out and pocket the earnings. If they lose all of the money, they start all over again with 10 cents.

The obvious benefit is that there is no risk involved. Obviously though, it is very difficult to ever actually make money through the site. To reap profits, one must use their own money on other online gambling sites. The most important benefit is that it shows prospective gamblers just how difficult it is to bet on sports and serves as a caution to many users.