top 10 ways for expats to avoid relocating with 300 pounds of books

How much does moving books, albums and DVD collections really cost? Why should you consider leaving your books behind? Have you ever calculated how much moving your 300 pound collection of books has cost you over the course of several moves? Unless your company pays for your move, books can be one of the most expensive household items to move (and even then, somebody IS paying to move them). And how many times did you actually read all those books once you moved them? These days, thanks to technology, there are more viable options you might want to consider. They're all great options for expats and people who travel a lot.

For example, you can now download many books as ebooks. Some are even free. Most, even though they must be paid for, cost a fraction of what a printed book costs.

A1books.com has this offer:
Lowest price on eBooks. Buy today on a1books.com


With Ebooks.com you can:
Sign up for new release alerts plus receive a 20% discount!


You can also consider audio books. These can be downloaded, also for much less than what heavy printed books cost, onto an iPod or MP3 player. Of course you must invest in the iPod or MP3 player first but in the long run, this expense will likely pay for itself.

Sidebar -- Currently if you sign up for a Napster account for music Napster is offering a FREE MP3 player. We don't know how long they'll offer this, but here it is, two options:

a) Get 1 year of Napster and 60 MP3 credits for $60

b) Enjoy unlimited music for only $5 with Napster. Plus MP3 credits!

Once you've got an MP3 player, Audible.com has this offer:

Download Audio Books on your iPod, iPhone, Blackberry & over 500 other devices. Save 50% for 3 months, only $7.49 to start


And Audible.com-UK offers Free Audiobook Downloads - 14 day Free Trial


You can also download audio books through iTunes Store Audiobooks.

Get language learning tools, phrasebooks and travel guides on your iPod. For example, from World Nomad you can Learn Spanish on your iPod or get a Spanish iPod phrasebook.

One great option is the Amazon Kindle. This handheld digital reading device enables you to order and immediately receive magazines, newspapers, books, and articles onto your reader via internet. Again, the initial investment in the Kindle will likely pay for itself shortly. Newspaper and magazine subscriptions are truly inexpensive and Amazon currently has over 100,000 books, magazines, newspapers, articles and even blogs! to choose from. Because you actually hold the Kindle while reading it, it feels almost like holding a book. You can also download wonderful guidebooks and language learning software.

The Amazon Kindle comes in two sizes:

Kindle: Amazon's 6" Wireless Reading Device (Latest Generation)

Kindle DX: Amazon's 9.7" Wireless Reading Device (Latest Generation)

All of these are great options. What we like best about this is that electronic books, magazines and newspapers are a wonderful way to reduce our negative impact on the environment.

Two exceptions you may not want to leave behind: your children's books and your family albums and scrapbooks. Kids learn to read better with physical, tactile books (and probably find them more engaging as well).

As to family albums and scrapbooks well, you can create a blog, online photo sharing album, or make and send actual photo books using Shutterfly or Picaboo or Photoworks.com
or you can even build a website, but nothing 'feels' better than occasionally paging slowly through the photos of the people you miss.

(However, be sure to back up your photos online, on your computer or in a document vault as risking losing these along with your luggage can be heartbreaking). The actual album pages and covers can be replaced but your photos cannot.

SmugMug.com has this offer:

FREE Trial - Trust your most precious memories to SmugMug, upload your photos today.


ACDSee has this offer:

Download a FREE Trial of ACDSee Photo Manager 2009

By the way, same goes for that collection of 536 DVDs you've been carting around: these days you easily download individual TV programs you miss and entire movies from sites like Amazon's Video on Demand
service. Movie rentals are now available on iTunes and check iTunes store TV shows for a fraction of the cost and watch them on your iPod, MP3 or computer. Also, Jump TV specializes in International television for expatriates.

We're not suggesting you leave everything behind. Just explore a little and you'll find many free or inexpensive resources available. Simply lighten the load a bit: on yourself, on your finances and on the environment.

Select a few of your favorite 'real books' for hammock-by-the-sea days and just a few favorite DVDs for movies-and-junk-food family nights, and order the rest online.

©2009 GoSouthExpat.com

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