When my husband and I started hunting for our first house, we nerds put together a list of important characteristics/features that we ranked each property by upon viewing. One of the characteristics I included in the list was “Proximity to the nearest library.”
If you’ve met me for all of an hour, you’ll know I’m an avid reader and aspiring author. My husband? Not so much. He thought the library was a ridiculous trait to rank a house by. Why? Because he didn’t have a library card and hadn’t stepped foot in one since you had to navigate around using only the Dewey Decimal System.
I won’t say he ate crow, BUT he was amazed the first time I took him into the local library (less than five miles away from our home, thank you very much!) for the first time. He didn’t realize all they offered.
The best part? It’s all FREE. There is nothing better than free when you’re trying to get debt free.
But nothing in life is free, you say. True. The library is funded by taxes. Taxes you pay whether you use the services or not. (Or your landlord pays and passes through to you in your rent.) So you might as well use it!
The library is a great way to save on entertainment, especially if you have kids. It also helps cut down on clutter, unless you’re like me and have thirty things checked out at any given time. (I hate making decisions and like having options.)
That’s Great, But I Don’t Read
You should! Mark Cuban said: Somebody forty and over, even thirty and over, if you’re not reading, you’re f—ed… because you’re not expanding your mind. I tell my kids… ‘Somebody who doesn’t read lives one life, somebody who reads an unlimited number of lives.’
But I’m not here to lecture you on reading. We’re here to talk money and budgeting. Even if you don’t read, the library can be a great way to lower your expenses by cutting down on your entertainment budget. Paying off debt isn’t fun, but that doesn’t mean you can’t have fun while doing it. You just have to be frugal. Most libraries offer movies, TV shows, music, manga/graphic novels, and even free events and activities. Most library systems now use online features and apps such as Hoopla Digital and Overdrive to offer free digital entertainment as well, saving you the gas and time of having to drive to pick up and drop off your borrowed items.
For example, we wanted to watch NOPE this past weekend. It was streaming on Amazon Prime, but we dropped Prime a few months ago. Not worth the $12-something for a month to stream one movie. It was $3.99 to rent it on other streaming services. The library, however, had it so my husband picked it up while I prepped dinner. We have a lovely dinner and date night at home for the cost of our groceries.
Ask and Ye Shall Receive
What if the library doesn’t have what you want? Most systems offer patrons the ability to request a title they don’t currently carry. There’s no guarantee that the library will be able to buy the movie/music/show/book/ebook/audiobook you want (seriously, they have a LOT of stuff to keep you entertained), depending on publisher, etc., but the vast majority of the time, I ask and I receive. It usually takes a week for my library to process my request and another week for the item to hit circulation for me to snag, so it’s not the best for a same-day movie night, but it’s a great alternative to buying a bunch of entertainment on a tight budget. It also lets you try before you buy. If you end up not liking the item you requested, NBD. All it cost you was a recommendation and a little patience.
Bonus Easter Egg
It was years before I discovered my library also had educational courses for free. They had a bunch of programming classes my nerdy little Python-loving husband was interested in taking. And the $200 Nat-Go photography course I’d been ogling on The Great Courses for a few years? Completely free to watch through a website the library partnered with. The amount of money I’ve spent in the last five years on The Great Courses would shock many of you (it’s research for my novels!!!) so to find this out was both exciting and a slap in the face that I never bothered to check.
It isn’t always obvious on the library’s main home page or catalog search all the resources they offer, so make sure when you go in to get your library card, you ask.
Do you already have a library card? If not, go sign up today!
Dive deeper as we explore how much you can save with a public library card by doing a year-end recap of our personal savings.