Every few months, it seems like somebody new is trying to bend me over – because I keep my wallet in my back pocket. And nothing shakes your pockets out faster than being a student. Between the costs of an education and the menial employment to be found for the rest of your time, it’s amazing any of us can afford the bulk cases of Ramen noodles we use to survive.

There are ways to cut corners, though – and I’m not just talking about drinking Pabst Blue Ribbon instead of Miller Genuine Draft. No, the quickest way to save yourself some walking-around money is in textbooks. As winter break approaches, many of you will start to prepare for your next semester, and that means supplies.

If you are buying textbooks new from the store before the semester begins, you are an idiot. (Idiot: noun. Look it up – it’s bound to be in one of your hundred-dollar textbooks you’ll be selling back for $20 in three months.)

Here, in a few simple steps, you can learn how to avoid paying money you don’t have to on the knowledge that’s all around us:

1) Don’t buy your textbooks before class. Sometimes, all you need to get an A in a class is to listen to the lectures and take good notes. It certainly won’t hurt your grade to at least wait until after the first class to decide the teacher’s style. Too often teachers will say a textbook is “absolutely necessary” and then only have you read three chapters of the book out of 25.

2) Make friends. Isn’t that supposed to be part of the college experience anyway? The only time a textbook is truly necessary is if the teacher is assigning those idiotic prove-you-read questions from the end of every chapter as homework. Get acquainted with other people in your class, and simply copy those questions out of their book when they’re assigned. If you’re already friends with someone in the class, maybe you can go halfsies and split a textbook.

3) Internet. Everybody knows Web sites like half.com can get you textbooks for a fraction of what they’re being sold off-the-shelf. But there are also places to get your books for free. If you’re reading “Moby Dick,” “The Great Gatsby” or “Tess of the D’urbervilles,” those books are public domain and are probably available as free downloads off Web sites like Gutenberg.com. The bonus bit is, you’ll have the entire book in your computer, so you can copy-and-paste sections when you’re writing papers or jump straight to the passage you’re looking for by using the “find” feature. You’ll also be doing something good for the environment by saving trees.

4) Comparison-shop. If you’re taking science, math or biology, I have news for you: That information isn’t only found in the assigned textbook. Other textbooks, older textbooks and cheaper textbooks can tell you just as much as the glossy new volume with the CD in back. When I took BIOS 101, I skipped buying the textbook and used my old one from high school. When I took astronomy, I used Wikipedia. Information is everywhere. “King Lear” has the same words in the bookstore as it does in the $1 bin at a garage sale. As much as bookstores would like to tell you otherwise, big chunks of science, math, history and literature are the same now as they were 10 years ago.

Some of these tricks will make class a little more complicated, while some may cause the occasional annoyance for you and possibly the people around you. But at the end of the semester, you’ll have a stack of green bills that you can spend on anything you like. And you may have actually learned something, too.