I know this has been posted somewhere, or it is in the FAQ, or something. I looked but couldnt quite find an answer. If you want to play in a game, but dont have the books for the rules, and your friends are either too stingy to loan them out, or you just done have access to them, what is the best way of getting them. I am meaning in purchasing and such. The store I was going to doesn't carry a lot of outdated materials anymore, and they were the cheapest. Anyone have any suggestions? Im not too fqamiliar with online shopping, and I am also on a tight budget for a while.

any advice?

The first question is what game system is it, an example would be DnD 3.0 and 3.5. These actually had large chuncks of the game published not enough to play but enough to create most of a character sheet. And then show up at the table and ask help.
Those are SRDs

In reply to C-h Freese (msg # 2):

just various systems. always on the lookout for stuff to add to existing collections or even new things.

A number of older systems have been released legally for free by the author or publisher, either in an abbreviated quickstart version or as complete books (Ars Magic's 4th edition had this happen when the 5th was released, and nearly all editions of Talislanta were made free by the authors).

There are other systems that have been free from the start. Shakhan, The Window, Outlaws of the Water Margin, Risus, FUDGE, Tirikelu, and many more.

I find stuff every so often in thrift stores or used book stores.  I've purchased gaming books off eBay (that's where I got my copy of the Amber rules).  There are a few websites that sell pdf versions of rulebooks (and even hard-copies, sometimes, although the pdfs are cheaper since they don't have to ship them...)  I haven't used them, so I don't know the names off the top of my head, but someone else might be able to help out on that one...

On a couple of occasions, the GM has sent me a pdf of the rules for a game I didn't have the books for--either for games where the pdf was available for free, or (in one case) the GM had written the rules up as a pdf and we were play-testing them (at least, I assume that was the case, because I felt like the two of us playing found an astonishing number of omitted details in the game mechanics in the short time we played...the GM didn't say, specifically, that he'd written the rules or that this was a playtest, so that's just the vibe I got from the situation.)

A local GM had started a tabletop Dragonquest campaign ten years ago or so, had acquired some rulebooks beforehand on his own, but referred the rest of us to eBay. We had no trouble buying books.
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Hi guys: please remember that advertising specific stores and the like is not permitted in our public forums.  Most of the really big ones people already know about anyway. ;-)