Let’s talk bookish: Surviving Book Buying Bans

Hi, cuties ! The wonderful Rukky @ Eternity Books has created a very cool weekly meme called “Let’s talk bookish” and today I want to talk about the topic: Book Buying Bans.

I think we’ve all been there. You scroll through online book shops and suddenly realize that you have books in your cart worth hundreds of Dollars…..um….opps ?!

I’ve come to realize that I spend way too much money on books and as a broke student, I cannot afford that anymore. If you follow me on my social media, you’ll see that I survived a book buying ban for 3 months and then caved and bought a few books. Why is it so hard for us to stop buying books?

I think the main reason is that we live in a society where we are are constantly pushed to consume. We consume way too much. We spend money on things we don’t really need, but get praised by society for it. With this reason, there is another reason that follows, you can brag about the book purchase. Whenever I buy a book, I post it on social media and use it for my Bookstagram. I receive tons of likes and messages, people are so jealous that I have the newest book. I feel this satisfaction of owning a new book. When you think about it, it’s actually toxic.

There are a few other reasons including being a collector, an addicted consumer, or even “trending” on Social Media. Sometimes you simply love books so much that you want to own a copy of every book you absolutely loved, -thus the book buying spree begins.

But now onto the really important question: How do we survive book Bans?

I have allowed myself to summarize a few tips, that worked for me during this interesting time. Maybe they’ll work for you, maybe they won’t, so let’s just discuss them.

1- Avoid any and all places you know will end your book-buying ban.

Seriously, this is crucial. No more “taking a quick look” through Barnes & Nobles or online Bookshops like Book Depository or Amazon. Instead, why not go to the Library and borrow as many books as you want from there ?

2- Look at the books you already own but haven’t read

Yes, I want you to feel bad xD. Seriously, we as readers tend to buy books until there’s no more room for them. But do we read them ? Most of the time yes, but a lot of the time: we don’t. Why ? Because we buy and buy and buy, but we never actually read and when we start reading, we read the newest purchase, never the older ones. So next time you want to go on a book shopping spree, take a look at your tbr and the books you own but haven’t read yet.

3- Write down each book you desperately want

This is probably the best tip that works for me. I have a giant list with books I desperately want to buy, but can’t at the moment. Then after a few months, I plan a “haul” and buy a few books from this list and can scratch them off ! It’s also much easier to see which books you truly want and which ones you can do without. It’s all about priority ! I also write down the prices of the books next to them, so I can take the prices into consideration. When you do this, you see how pricey books actually are and how much money you can save if you simply buy 1 or 2 books less.

Extra Tip: Keep track of all the money you’re saving !! This tip is amazing and it’s so rewarding to see how much money you actually saved.

Book buying is awesome, as is growing your collection–but it is financially straining. So there is no shame in saying no to buying books, no one should feel pressured to buy a book just to post it on social media. There is this Hashtag on Bookstagram going around called #Bookstagrammademebuyit and like the Hashtag suggests it’s about readers and Bloggers who bought a book, only because it was trending on Bookstagram. (Often times they never read it, and don’t even like the genre)

Take care of your money, guys !

What is your opinion on Book Buying Bans ? Have you ever put yourself through that struggle and how did you survive it ? Leave a comment below 💕