How My One Year Book Buying Ban Went

Hello, my dear friends! This year I decided to do a book buying ban. My goal was not to buy any books for the whole year. It was shockingly not as hard as I thought it would be. I honestly found a lot of ways to get books for free, which may or may not have defeated the purpose.

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How My One Year Book Buying Ban Went

You may be asking why. Simple – I wanted to read the books I already owned. I thought if I didn’t buy any more books, it would help me prioritize the books on my shelf. In truth, I fully expected to fail. I love books. They provide a lot of comfort for me, especially my favorite ones.

My book collection

Before going on this ban, I had picked up several books that had been on my TBR list. I was excited to get them home and get started on reading them… but I didn’t. They were all put on my bookshelf and left there.

I don’t own a ton of books but I had enough on my shelf to feel like I was wasting money by not reading them. I decided buying more books was out for the year and that’ll force me to read what I own.

… it did not. 👀

The full year journey

You read that right. I didn’t read a.single.one.of.them. Sigh. This was a hard challenge for the first 3 months and then it was a cake. Even when Barnes & Noble had a sale or I found a great book at the thrift store. It was so freaking easy until Iron Flame came out. That was a struggle but I still persevered!

I still love roaming my bookstore but I haven’t bought a single one.

The library…

Turns out, I am a problem solver. Instead of reading any of the books I own, I went to the library. 🫣 Not only that, I put so many books on hold that I maxed out. Then I went in reading order by the books that came available on my account.

It defeated the whole purpose of my book buying ban.

Kindle investment

You’re as shocked as I am. I inherited my mom’s old Kindle which was 12 years old. It was so slow and because I quit my job to travel, til I figured out my next steps, a new Kindle investment seemed logical. They’re so travel-friendly. I got a cashback on trading in the old model and 3 months of Kindle Unlimited.

What surprised me the most about KU is how much I’ve been using it. One of my favorite series is on it and I have read almost all of them. That said, I’ll be canceling after the 3 month mark because I can get most ebooks from the library.

Lessons learned

Interestingly enough, what this book buy band has taught me is that I only want to own 4.5 – 5 star books. If I don’t love a book, I don’t want to spend the money on it. Especially because I’m unlikely to read it again.

I’m happy I know this now. I’m not going to feel mad about giving away or placing some of my non-5 stars reads into a free little library. Since I’m up to 19 physical books read this year (and – ooph – 64 audiobooks 🫠), I saved a lot of money.

Now, my goal is to only buy books I know I am going to re-read and cherish on my shelf. If you’re interested in the books on that list, you can shop for them here.

Even though my book buying ban had a completely different outcome than I thought it would… the issue remains about the books on my shelf. So, I’m going to suspend my holds at the library and move my unread books to my nightstand. We’ll see if that helps my reading journey at all. I have some really good ones, guys!

If you have any other ideas on how to convince me to read the books I own, please share them!