Ceri Louise Reads

The last couple of years I’ve been trying to curb my book buying by setting myself a budget based on how many books I read. It’s had mixed success, as I have a tendency to buy books when I’m stressed, particularly from charity shops, and the last few years have included a lot of stressful times, to say the least.

Part of the problem last year was that as my TBRs and challenges got more and more complicated, so did the budget. The other big problem last year was moving house which messed up my book tracking. You’ll have seen a few weeks ago that I’ve decided this year to essentially mood read for the entire year and keep my tracking super simple, which means I can simplify the budget too. Each month in my reading wrap up I will keep tabs on how the budget is going and what I’ve bought (spoiler alert, January has not gone to plan…)

There are three parts to the budget. There’s the standard rate per book, which is £1. So for every book I finish £1 goes into the pot. Then there are two bonuses at the end of the month. The first is the Backlist Bonus: this is an additional £2 which I will earn every month where the majority of books I finish are from my backlist tbr (physical or digital). The second is the Review Bonus, which is an additional £2 when I read a book I received to review and write the review within a month of finishing the book. Hopefully this will help me write reviews while I still have a strong recollection of what happened in the book!

I think the other thing that will probably help me stick to the budget is setting a target book that I am saving up for, as it makes it a material rather than a hypothetical thing. So my first target book will be…

Before Your Memory Fades by Toshikazu Kawaguchi. This is the third book in the Before the Coffee Gets Cold series about a cafe that allows visitors to travel through time but only if they adhere to certain strict rules. I loved the first two books in this series so much so I’m really keen to revisit this magical cafe. The paperback is currently priced around £8 so it shouldn’t be too hard to achieve (if I can curb my charity shop habits!)

I should also add that there are a couple of exceptions to the budget. One is that I have a subscription to a small independent publisher which means I get some of their books slightly ahead of their release date. This has an annual charge which will not come out of the budget. The other exception is if I am buying books related to my research project, as they are more of a necessity.

So that’s my book budget plans, we’ll see how I get on with it this year… how do you stop yourself spending too much money on books or adding endlessly to your TBR?