The Picky Pledge || Quarterly Check-in #1

Some of you might be wondering - what in the world is The Picky Pledge? Well, it's this fun partnership between Hannah of So Obsessed With & I, where we hold each other accountable for the books we acquire this year. For more details, you should check out the introduction post!

The first quarter of 2015 is just about over, which is pretty dang mind-blowing. When we were chatting one day, Hannah and I agreed that it might be fun & helpful to share an update on The Picky Pledge, so y'all can see how it's going, the lessons we've learned and what we plan to improve in the next quarter. (But I also track my progress via a page I created, so you can take a look at that too if you want a more in-depth look at things.)

For this section, we drew on some inspiration from our original stats post earlier this year. Specifically, we updated our source breakdown and our book buying breakdown charts with the information from this year!

SOURCE BREAKDOWN

I'm definitely pleased with my improvement in this area! While review books still make up the majority of my reads, it's only by a very small difference from the books I've borrowed or the ones I own. It speaks well of the pledge that I've been able to be more balanced when it comes to where I'm getting my reads from!

BOUGHT BOOKS BREAKDOWN

I'm quite pleased to see that there is also a little progress here! While I haven't quite been able to stop myself from book buying (so far, I've bought 44 total), the ratio of the ones I've read versus the ones I added to my TBR is pretty telling, as I've read more than half! Looking forward to hopefully making that difference between them grow as the year continues.

1. It is not as hard as you think to avoid going onto online book retail sites. Seriously, I just stop myself from even typing the first few letters of any online book retail site whenever I start thinking about. Plus, there are so many other web distractions - like blogs and Goodreads and Twitter.

2. It is, however, hard to resist the lure when faced with physical temptation, AKA going to an actual bookstore. Oh man. Whenever I see books in person, I always find it extremely hard to resist. Whether it's the lure of a plot or pretty cover, it takes a lot of willpower not to pick up a book (or a bunch) and run over to the cash register so it can come home with me. It is triply hard when you're at a bargain bookstore, by the way.

3. The library will be your best friend and your worst enemy. The library is the best source for free books! If you're lucky, they'll have a large catalog or a great inter-library system and you'll be able to borrow just about any title you'd like to read. Plus, there is no greater thing than being able to place holds on books. The only reason you might start resenting the library a little? You'll be tempted to acquire too many books, or forget how many holds you placed and have a bazillion (or twenty) come in at the same time. Not that I've experienced that or anything...

1. Budget for a book. My husband recently set up a spreadsheet with our planned budget. I've never really been well-versed when it comes to properly handling my finances, but with my husband's guidance, I'm truly eager to give it a shot. This means that I've got to be stricter than ever about how much money I spend on books, and having an actual guideline as to how much money I can afford to spend will really help.

2. "Read a book, then buy or borrow a book." This works hand in hand with the first suggestion. In the past, I've used this rule on myself, and it's certainly worked in keeping down the numbers of books I own/borrow. It's both an encouragement and incentive to pay attention to the TBR pile that sits waiting for me. I haven't put this in place for a while, but I certainly think it would be timely.

3. Be picky about the library books you request. This goes hand in hand with my goals! I let myself get carried away by the advantage of being able to get free books from my library, and requested the heck out of books. It resulted in an overwhelming stack of books gathering dust in my apartment, and a nearly unnoticeable but still suffocating pressure to read them all bothering me. While I did wind up reading at least half the books I'd borrowed, I wound up returning a big bunch unread. I seriously think it would help me stay calm and excited to read if I were even more picky about what I borrowed and factored a modified version of the chart into my decisions.