Borrowing vs Buying Books

Hello, all!


As I’ve mentioned countless times, my big goal this year was to curb my book buying. I used to go into a bookstore and go willy-nilly, buying anything that looked remotely interesting. Half the time I’d never read it, or I wouldn’t like it, so it felt like a waste.

So, my mission this year was to see how much I could save by using the library instead. I come from a long line of library lovers (I can’t even tell you the last time my Grams bought a book), so the fact that I wasn’t utilizing it to its fullest was silly on my part.

I wanted a way to track how much I spent on books versus how much I saved from borrowing, and luckily, the Book Riot reading log I’ve been using all year made it so easy. They have a tab specifically for logging your book spending, so all I did was duplicate it into a different Google Doc and change the name. Whenever I purchased a book, it went on the “Spending” tab, and whenever I borrowed a book, it went on the “Savings” tab. (I entered in whatever the price was on the actual book itself, for any audiobooks/e-books I borrowed, I looked up the price on Barnes and Noble.) Now, drumroll please...

The number of books I bought/amount I spent:



vs the number of books I borrowed/saved:




The results blew my mind. As you can see, even though I still spent a decent amount on books throughout the year, I saved even more. I’m really happy I did this. Now, when I go to a bookstore, I’m checking my library’s app to see if whatever I want to buy is available there instead. The waits (especially on newer releases) can be annoying, but it’s worth it in the end. I’ll definitely be keeping this up going into next year!

Which do you prefer—buying or borrowing?

Comments

  1. That's cool to see! I also forget about using my local library

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Right?! I love it and it's so convenient to borrow e-books.

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  2. That's awesome! I also utilize Kindle unlimited. That way I pay a fee to borrow as many e-books as I want as long as I return them. You can borrow ten books at a time before you need to return one.

    ReplyDelete

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