I was quite intrigued when I saw this discussion topic as it is something I have never thought about.

I have always loved books and when I was a child I was encouraged to read and was bought books instead of dolls or other non educational toys. So I grew up with books in place of toys essentially- I was given a few sets of 24 books or so to work through- Enid Blyton series'. When I got older, I started to buy books for myself when I realised I could buy a book for £2-£3 in W H Smith and bought a series of books when I was about 12.

I was also encouraged to use the local library and used to hire lots of books- so buying books was not esential but I preferred to buy books if I was building up a collection of books by an author I liked. To combine the two, I found book sales in Libraries and book sections in Charity shops made it possible for me to use my meagre pocket money (£1.50 a week!) to buy books for 10p or 20p.

So primarily- my book suppliers were WH Smiths, library books sales and charity shops or donations of books as hand me downs from older siblings.

When I went to University, I found I had to buy course books written by the course tutors from the University bookshop (I hated this as it seemed such a scam!) - these books would cost £35-£100 EACH and would only be necessary for one of your subject topics.

I didn't buy many non degree related books whilst I was at university. A few years ago, I decied to rebuild my book collection as I found through lending books to people and having spur of the moment clear outs and "losing" books when I moved house my book collection had dwindled to around 10 books!

My book buying habits have changed a lot over the years- online browsing means you can just search online for the exact book rather than looking through random unsorted books in a charity shop. So I may not be donating money to charity by buying books online, but I think if you are looking for a specific book, looking online seems to be easier than hopefully trawling through shelves and shelves of books in a local charity or second-hand bookstore.