10 Legal Ways to Find Cheap Music

3. Contests: Contests and promotions that give away free music downloads at Apple's(AAPL Quote) iTunes store have been popular over the last few years. Sometimes these events are in relation to purchasing a product. If it happens to be a product you already buy, you'll have a chance at free music. Others are for completing a task, such as taking a test drive or filling out a survey. Keep your eyes open for these contests, as they are a great way to get newly released music at no cost.

If it is a large iTunes giveaway contest and you don't want to buy the product or service required to participate, head over to eBay. Winners who don't need the free downloads will be selling them for less than the regular 99 cents, which is a good way to cut down your costs.

4. The library: If you haven't visited your local library recently, you may be surprised at all it has to offer. Many libraries now feature much more than books and also have extensive music collections. While most of these won't be the latest hits, there should be a nice range of top hits from the past. If your library does have a music section, you'll have the opportunity to borrow a lot of music for free.

5. Estate sales: This is an often overlooked place to add a significant amount of music to your collection. While estate sales featured vinyl album collection in the past, they have been giving way to collections filled with CDs. In many cases the estate will want to get rid of the entire collection in a single transaction, instead of selling hundreds of CDs individually. An offer on the entire music collection can get you some great music for pennies on the dollar.

6. Charitable stores: Many times when people no longer want their music and are too lazy to sell it themselves, they will donate it to their local Goodwill or Salvation Army. The result is that these stores sometimes have a decent selection of CDs for sale.