My account says I have $45 money saved.  But when I tried to print postage, it said I had no PBS money. How do I use that $45????

That's just telling you how much money you've saved on the books you're received, by swapping them rather than buying them.

so you can't use it?? then why bother having it there. I guess I'm just stupid ha ha,

No it's not money for you to use.  It's just showing you how much more you would have paid for the books you've received had you bought them instead of using PBS.  It's based on average used book prices and I don't know how they figure that out. 

Mine says $742!  Man, I wish we could use it!

That thing totally lies. It says Ive saved $2570. Between mailing books and shopping and mailing for games (something I would never have done without this site) Ive probably spent more than that LOL.

Mine is $4,221....wow.  

I wish I could turn it off. It's completely inaccurate--I don't spend I don't spend near as much as they claim when I buy books.  This place is one of the most expensive I get books.

It is really just a way to justify PBS to one's significant other.  When they're complaining about books or yet another trip to the post office, you can say, "But honey, I've saved $1,597.50!"  :-)

Cheers,

Catt

I actually DO see it as having saved money.

If i spend 2.58 on sending a book on average (it's been more or less on many an occasion) and i get a credit that i can spend on ANY book i want... then i am likely saving myself 7.99 (or more) per book because if i can't find a book i really want at a used book store for such a length of time, i usually will go buy it new and treat myself.

As long as you're ordering books you really want to read, you're savinv money, because the amount on postage is almost always less than HALF the price of a new book.

Now, if the only time you will buy yourself a book is at the price of 1.00 or less at a thrift shop, then sure, you're probably not saving as much. But, can you find ALL the books you want to read at a thrift shop? Doubtful.

I know i have one UBS i go to that the best deal i can usually find is if i buy 4 for 10.00. All the other books are 3 or more apiece. My other used book store is all books are 1.00 or 1.25 but i usually don't get my hard-to-find books there. If i do, i do a little dance up the aisle, cuz it's rare.

Mine is $4,824.00...oooooooo...let me have it! LOL

I don't look at it as having saved that much either, because to be honest, many of the books I have gotten from here I would never have actually purchased. If I didn't get them here I would have most likely gotten at least a goodly portion of them from the library. Even buying them used, I would have purched them for .25 to $1 at my Friends of the Library sale...it's very rare that I'd actually pay full price either new OR used for a book! I used to, but not anymore.

Cheryl

I totally take the "saved" thing with a grain of salt, but PBS still does make sense to me, economicaly speaking, or I wouldn't use it. 

I don't pay attention to the number.  PBS is more fun for me than anything else.  I joined mainly because I live on an island and don't have a cheap source of books.  Not usually anyway.  Occassionally I find bargains. But even the local thrift store charges 2-$3 for a paperback and $5-$8 for a hardback.  There's a Half-price books and an Valuevillage where I find good deals. But they're 45 min away so I don't get there that often.  I had a huge stack of already read books and audio cds so I checked this out and most of them were WL so I said what the heck. Now I'm addicted.  It's just fun. 

And it is all on the PO's gas bill. One of my favorite parts is that they bring them right to my house.

I have saved $958.50.  Those are books I would have gotten at the library and then I would have run up a fortune in over due fines!

I've found the "money saved" estimation to be fairly accurate for myself. I buy all my books (that I don't get from PBS) new, because there aren't any good used book stores near where I live. So if a new book costs $7.99, and it costs approximately $3 to mail out a PBS book for a credit, that means I've saved about $5, which is close to the $4.50 that PBS suggests. And a lot of the time, a new book will cost more than $7.99, especially if it's a trade paperback or a hardcover. So I've probably actually saved more than the site says I have (right now it says I've saved $99).

I used to buy pretty much everything new. Sometimes I'd score at the UBS, but the ones around here are expensive (usually 1/2 of cover, unless they're damaged or really worn) and I rarely find what I'm looking for.

But where I really save money is my time. If I just "paid" myself minimum wage and added the gas costs to going from UBS to UBS to try to find the specific books I'm looking for, I've saved much more than that bottom line on my front page. :)