If you’re new to my Frugal Foreigner posts, read all about what we’re doing in India here! You can read all previous posts in the series here.
Every frugal person knows that the library is a great deal. It’s free and it’s useful, two wonderful qualities. India does have public libraries, which I probably could use, since I am a registered resident. From what I’ve seen, though, they are mostly for students, and filled with reference books and newspapers. Also, we don’t live anywhere near one.
Imagine my joy when we were taking a walk in the neighborhood and discovered Brainvilla just down the street. Here are 5 things I love about our new library.
1. It is close and convenient. The thing I love most is that this new library is an enjoyable 10 minutes walk away. Maggie helps carry the library bag.
Dalton likes to walk, too. Under careful supervision.
2. It saves us money. The other best part is that this library doesn’t just carry books; it is also a toy library.
I always thought toy libraries were a myth of the frugal world. Too good to be true. And it really is wonderful. Obviously we didn’t bring a ton of toys with us, so it’s nice to have something to shake things up. It is saving us money, because the toys here are junky. If we bought them, we wouldn’t want to bring them home, even if they lasted that long.
- Books for Adults
We’ve also saved because they carry travel books. Travel guides are the exact sort of thing a library is perfect for – you only need it for a short period of time.
3. It is Inexpensive. We paid a registration fee, a monthly fee, and a refundable deposit. If we get our deposit back, we’ll have paid about $40 for six months. That’s less than half of what property tax goes toward the county library at home.
4. They have online ordering. This branch is new and somewhat small, but we can also order items online that will be delivered to our home within 2 days from the larger branch. We can check out two books and two toys at a time.
5. It gets me out of the house. It’s so close that we can also go every day and get something new. We love going to the library. We go to the library weekly in the US, and here it’s every couple of days. It’s not quite as comfy and exciting as our local library, but it’s nice to get out of the house and bring some new things home. Now they just need to have a story time!
Who else loves their library? How does it save you money?
Wow that looks really nice. The toys/puzzles section looks awesome. The kids get so tired of the same old puzzle.
I would have loved to have a library that loaned out toys when my girls were young. The library was always one of our weekly free outings. We always check out dvds and cds to save money.
We have a toy library in our area, unfortunately, the month membership fee really deterred me from ever joining.
We have one here in the Denver area. It is free and you check the toys out the same way you check out books or dvd’s. It’s only open a few days a week and run by volunteers so you would have to check with them to see what their schedule is.