Should you choose to purchase books, you can often find them for a small price by buying used. If you were to go on eBay and type in the genre you enjoy, you would find lots of books that are selling for less than a quarter a book. You can get books at thrift stores, yard sales, used book stores. Or, you can buy books new. Even a new book is going to cost you far less than you would spend on entertainment for the amount of time it takes to read a book.

The average book takes between 3 and 8 hours to read for an average reader. A slower reader, or someone who takes their time when reading can spend far longer on a book. A faster reader may go faster, but it is still going to take longer to read a book then to see a movie, play a round of miniature golf, go bowling, see a concert, see a play, watch a comedian, attend a baseball game, etc. You usually spend far less, and fill far more time.

How much does a movie cost? A movie is going to cost you about $7.50 and will fill about two hours of your time, sometimes less, sometimes more. A good book will cost you between $0 and $20 (obviously there are books that cost more, but you can typically pick up a book for closer to $10), and will take several hours of your time. So, if you are looking strictly at the per hour price, a movie is going to cost you $3.75 per hour, and a book will usually be less than $1 per hour.

This means that every time you choose to read a book rather than go out, you are effectively saving about $2 + dollars per hour. In a week this generally results in over $10 of savings. In a month that is $40, and in a year over $500. So, you can see that by reading a book, rather than filling your time with something more expensive, you can add a nice chunk to your cash reserve. Obviously no one can say how much you will save exactly, but if you choose to use the resources available to you, such as the library, and replace more expensive activities with reading, not only will your mind and imagination grow, but your bank balance as well.