Editor's note: It's a new year and these are tough times, but not so tough that you can't find some cost-cutting detours when spending your money. Today through Sunday in Living Here, we'll offer a daily dose of 15 ways to save on food and wine, outdoor activities, entertainment, home and garden, and caring for yourself and your family. Keep the change.

• Today: Spend less on books and media

• Tuesday: Families can save

• Wednesday: Grocery-store savings

• Thursday: Outdoor fun for less

• Friday: Bargains around town

• Saturday: Saving around the house

• Sunday: Cutting medical and fitness costs

Share your great money-saving tips by clicking here.

When it comes to books and media, free and cheap seem more the rule than the exception.

You can spend $50 or more for a nice book or more than $30 for a movie date, but music on the radio is free, the library is free and even video rentals are often just a couple of bucks.

Here are a few of our favorite cheap books and media thrills:

Give a book, get a book

Try swapping a good read with a friend. (See goodreads.com for some ideas.)

Some book lovers (including this reporter) stock up on extra copies of their favorites so they can give them away.

Poems for all

Richard Hansen of the Book Collector produces tiny poetry pamphlets that he gives away for free at his midtown Sacramento store. He hands them out to folks who have distributed them around the world.

Take a retro spin

How about a record for 98 cents? The Beat in midtown has a bin of a thousand 45-rpm singles for that price as well as other nearly extinct music and video options.

"We're stupid enough to still carry cassettes," says owner Rob Fauble, who also has 50-cent comic books.

The Beat has enough goodies, he says, to provide a weekend of entertainment for $10.

Free downloads

It's obvious that you can get free stuff off the Internet if you have a computer, so we'll just quickly mention some of the options:

• Thousands of great books are available at Project Gutenberg and Google Books, though you can't read the whole book online.

• Music Web sites offer a few free downloads, but some sites are full of free songs. Among them are artistserver.com, epitonic.com and garageband.com.

• Free software for your computer can be found at sites like sourceforge.net. Phone applications, like those found at Apple's online iPhone store, are often free or as cheap as 99 cents.

Some sites, including hulu.com, allow you to stream TV shows and movies for free. Legally, we might add.

Another part of the library

If you want to keep a book – without racking up fines – most libraries these days have a used-book rack for the benefit of the Friends of the Library.

For as little as a dime or a quarter, you can get books, magazines and sometimes videos and CDs.

Among our favorite locations are the libraries in South Land Park, Antelope, Roseville and Carmichael.

Free Comics Day

Empire Comics on Arden Way is among the many shops that give away comic books on the first Saturday in May.

Info at empirescv.com.

Art for the masses

This stretches the boundaries of "cheap," but $5 or $10 for a handmade work of art is truly inexpensive.

The art department at American River College has an old vending machine converted to sell works of art – drawings, prints, even tiny sculptures – that would fit in a cigarette pack.

A similar machine is housed at the Crocker Art Museum in downtown Sacramento.

Craigslist

Not only does craigslist.com connect you with cheap goods, but also offers books and CDs under the "Free" category.

Catch a book

Bookcrossing.com encourages catch-and-release reading. Members leave a book somewhere in public and record the info online.

If the finder chooses to participate, he or she will record the find and then leave it for someone else to find when they're done.

Libraries galore

Everybody knows about the public library, but when you have a special need, consider a specialized library.

Sacramento has, among others, the California History Room of the State Library; the Lavender Library, Archives and Cultural Exchange; Turn Verein's library of German materials; the Sacramento County Law Library; Sutter Resource Library for medical information; and the California State Railroad Museum Library.

Freecycling

Freecycling is the concept of giving things away instead of trashing them or reselling them.

Freecycle.org facilitates freecycling.

It's not about trading – that's a no-no. You give stuff away and you take stuff off other people's hands, but there's no tit for tat.

Playaway

We all know about the library, but do you know that most libraries now circulate Playaways?

The Playaway is a preloaded audio book, complete with player and, sometimes, headphones.

The newspaper

Hello! We still think the daily newspaper is a bargain, though you can get some of what we offer online or on TV.

If you think 50 cents is too steep, there are free newspapers out there. Take a look around and find alternative weeklies, music tabloids and neighborhood newspapers.

Government info

We're not talking entertainment here. We're talking basic, practical information: "How To Get a Job in the Federal Government" ($3), "National Park System Map and Guide"($2.75), "How To Maintain Your Tires" (free).

"Free" is qualified. Your taxes may have helped pay for that. Check out www.pueblo.gsa.gov.

Free magazines

In addition to finding magazine content online, you can get free, full-year magazine subscriptions.

"There's fishing magazines, there's wedding magazines, there's parenting magazines, there's health magazines, there's men's magazines, there's cooking magazines," says Jay Whisler, owner of all-freemagazines.com.

His site doesn't give you the magazines.

"We point you to where the great offers are," Whisler says.

Call The Bee's Carlos Alcalá, (916) 321-1987.