Are you located in USA? My GMAT exam is this friday and if I get a respectable score, I would be happy to send you my books for free. I have MGMAT books and Kaplan book. You should try looking on Craigslist as well. You might get lucky!!
Good luck for your exam.

vgreen350 wrote:Does anyone have any suggestions on how you can study for this exam on a budget? I have been reading a lot of blogs and many people refer to Princeton, Kaplan, or Manhattan study prep material which I would love to take advantage of, but do not have the $1000+ dollars that they seem to cost. I have tried going to "meetup", but my geographical area does not have any active gmat study groups. What are some suggestions? I am completely at a loss, I recently took a practice test and scored 490 so I know I need some help. Thanks in advance for your suggestions.

Thanks amittilak for the response. I do live in the US. I will check out craigslist also.

I was in the same position. My first gmat practice test was in the same ballpark. My suggestion is to pick up the following text. I think I was scoring in the vacinty of 520-550 on gmat prep before I started my prep

1. Manhattan GMAT Series + Official Guides from GMAC - I bought mine used for $70 on craigslist or $250/new
2. Powerscore critical reasoning bible - New $20, downloadable version online Free
3. GMAT (GMAC) Paper tests 1-9 - $75 at mba.com, downloadable version online (somewhere) Free

***Read Powerscore CR Bible's first few chapters at the beginning of your prep to get an understanding of the test***

That's about 2-3 months of prep material for less than $200. My mock test results from gmat prep are at about 680-700 now. And i'm not even done prepping for verbal. Still need to finish MGMAT Sentence Correction and work on some CR questions. I expect my verbal to be close to 37-39 when I'm done and my quant to be around 47-49. Which is right around 690-710.

Thank you all for your responses. You all have been really helpful.