Borders Rewards Perks

I don't shop very often at Borders Books, but if you do, I hope you are taking advantage of their Rewards Perks program. You can get all sorts of discounts at various retailers (not just Borders) along with alerts so you don’t miss any deals. Membership is free. Can't beat that!

My friend who told me about this program forwarded on an example of a week's worth of deals, and they were pretty exciting:

• 25% off at Macy's
• Up to 70% off at Home Depot
• Up to 50% off hotels at priceline.com
• 20% off Blue Nile Jewelry
• 25% off kids Converse sneakers
• 15% off sitewide at The Children's Place
• $25 off $125 at White House Black Market
• 30% off + free shipping at Nine West
• Up to 90% off at Spiegel
• 30% off all cashmere plus free shipping & gift wrap at Inhabit.
  

For what it's worth: try it; looks like it would be pretty good!

Recycling Books

I just signed up on a great website called Bookins. It is a website for trading used books and DVDs. It works really well--you post the books that you have for trade and each book is given a point value (most of the ones I have listed for trade are worth 6 points). You can also create a list of books that you are looking for.

When someone wants to get one of your books, they pay $4.49 to Bookins, and Bookins notifies you and sends you a postage label that you print and use to ship the book (I am assuming they are sending everything via media mail). The postage costs you nothing, and the point value of your book is added to your account.

When you want to get a book for yourself, you buy it with your accumulated points and pay $4.49 for shipping. Buyers and sellers never "meet" or communicate, it is all handled through Bookins.

I think this is a fun idea, and a great way for getting rid of old books and picking up new ones for very little cost. In the past I had sold books at used bookstores (i.e., Half-Price Books) but lately have been getting less and less for them. This looks like a better way.

Unbelievably, about 90 minutes after having posted all my books that I wanted to trade, I had takers for two of them. I got an email with a link that allowed me to print up a media mail postage label. I packaged the books in used padded envelopes (as they suggested) and they are ready to go out in the morning mail. I got 13 points for the transactions, which I can use to get more books.