Hi guys, it's Olivia here from Olivia's Catastrophe and today I'm here to talk
about the fact that I went on a buying
ban for six months where I didn't buy
any books. I just wanted to say how the
experience was, what I learned from it
and what were the difficulties of doing
this. So first of all I would like to
share the rules of my buying ban because
you really do need to set yourself some
rules if you are going to be going on a
buying ban. So my rules were that I was
not allowed to buy or purchase any books
with my own money,
I was not allowed to go and request
books for review, I was allowed to
receive books for review... So if somebody,
rather than me requesting a book from a
publisher or an author, if they asked me
to read and review it I could still accept
that. I limited myself. I tried not to say
yes every single time because then that
would again, be defeating the object. But
I did allow myself to say yes to a few
of those. If I won a giveaway that was
okay. If I was given a gift for a book -- if
I was gifted a book, that was okay, I
could accept that. Christmas happened
during my buying ban and my birthday
happened. And I was actually counting on
those times to help me through. Those are
the rules and I was able to stick to the
rules. But I just wanted to talk about
how hard it was for me to stop buying
books. And, you know, you might not know
you're really caught up in the
capitalism book world until you try a
book buying ban. For starters I had a
false start. Book depository did a sale
and there were two books that I really
wanted to get that were a certain
percentage off. And I caved and I got
them. And then I started again. Just to
put that into perspective, of the two
books that I bought that I caved for,
I've only read one and the other one I
haven't read. So did I really need them? Probably not. What I did to help myself
stick to my buying ban was that I put on
social media that I was going to be
doing this buying ban. By putting it on my
bookstagram where I have quite a bit
of activity, it meant that people would
be able to see me and say: hey, are you
sticking to your buying ban ? Every time I
bought a book, if I decided to break it.
Which was good. And there were lots of
people who were supporting me and saying
like: don't buy this book,
you don't need it, etc. So you guys,
bookstagram, really helped me through. I deleted myself -- well I didn't
delete myself -- I unsubscribed
from every bookish newsletter that I got.
I was on the book depository's
newsletter. I was on wordery newsletter.
I was on the works.co.uk in the UK's
newsletter. So every time they had a sale
or books were really cheap I could see it.
I had to unsubscribe from those so that
I wouldn't be tempted. I felt like I
couldn't really go into bookshops
because I would just see all those
beautiful books waiting for me to buy
them and I couldn't. And I was constantly
still checking the books for sale uk
hashtag on Twitter because I just wanted
to see what bargains I was missing out
on. Which is just a way to show that
you're addicted. However, after the first
month it suddenly became very very easy
to not buy books. I would see the
bargains, but then I'd be like: actually would
I have really wanted that book? In
December I went bookshop hopping with a
bookstagram friend. I'll leave a link
to that up above and down below. And we
went into like, different bookshops. And
there was some amazing prices and I
didn't feel the need to buy anything.
There was only one time I was tempted
and at that point I said, 'I actually want
to buy this book. I'm just gonna wait
outside and you just keep looking around.'
And that was the only case. And we also
went bookshop hopping in springtime
and then I didn't feel any urge to buy
books. Suddenly my urge to buy books was
gone. One thing that I did do was spring
clean and I did a massive unhaul. I'll
leave links to those videos as well. And
in that unhaul I realised that the
books that I was unhauling were the ones I
accepted for review when I didn't really
want them and also books that I bought
on a bargain sale. Which shows that I was
just hooked in by the lower price rather
then actually wanting to read the book.
I also counted all of my books which put
the whole situation into
perspective because I could see after
the unhaul how many books I had on my
shelf that I had read, and how many that
I had unread. I did have more read than
unread. But the unread was a significant
enough number for me to realise I really
don't need anymore new books. That's
already kind of crossed into the reasons
why... the reasons and things that I've learned
since doing this book buying ban. But I
did want to point out the six things
that I've learned since being on this
book buying ban. Number one is that I
used to buy books just because they were
on a bargain sale. And I mentioned that
already. Number two: I don't need more
books. I have enough to read already. 
Another thing I've already mentioned.
Three: I saved a lot of money.
I wasn't someone who put into a list all
the books that I would have bought if I
given the opportunity, but I know that if I did
I would have probably spent like,
hundreds on books. Even if I buy them at
cheap prices, usually. So I have to say
that I saved a lot of money. Which is
good because I like to travel as well
and that's something I could spend the
money on. Four: what I did learn is that as
much as I love the online book community
across book blogs, booktube, and book
Twitter and Instagram, we are a community
that is catered towards people owning
books. I do follow booktubers and all of
that jazz who only read e-books, who only
borrow books from libraries, or who
sometimes buy books and then after
they're done with
them give they give them away. I do follow people
like that. But the majority of them
aren't like that. The majority of
them have a lot of books and I am NOT an
exception to this as well. If you look at my
channel it does seem like I have a lot
of books because I do. But it does feed
into this whole book capitalist kind of
view. And the fact that book hauls are
some of my most popular videos, or
popular posts or popular pictures just
goes to show that were all kind of
caught up in this. Five: authors write
brilliant books but you don't need them
right away. I have two examples of this. First of all, when I looked at all the
books that I own, a lot of the unread
ones were sequels that I'd bought just
because I had the first book. But I
hadn't read the first book yet. You don't
need those sequels. Wait till you read
the first book and then find out if you
need a sequel. Secondly, the most ridiculous one was
King of Scars by Leigh Bardugo. So I
really loved the Grisha trilogy and I am
planning on reading Six of Crows. However, before my buying ban... so, before
my buying ban, I preordered King of Scars.
By the way I wasn't allowed to preorder
books. But I'd pre-ordered it like, a
while ago, while a while ago. It came to me
in January and I couldn't read it and I
haven't read it because I haven't read
Six of Crows still. In fact, I don't even
own Six of Crows but I own King of Scars
and that was just the perfect example of
how authors write brilliant books but
you don't need them straight away. You
might not be ready to read them yet. Just
take your time. They're not going
anywhere. And the last thing that I
learned or realised or discovered is
that once I was on my book buying ban I
actually read more. I felt less
overwhelmed by my TBR. I felt like I was
actually working through my TBR so I
actually felt like I was reaching my
goal. Which is really great. Rather than I
read a book and then I buy two more and
you feel like, hopeless, so you just don't
feel like reading because you're feeling
this reading pressure... I don't know. And I
started to read about on average 15
books a month. That's kind of been my
average for 2019
which just goes to show. Like, I've never
had that average before. My average was
probably about six or seven a month last
year. I don't know what happened but I've
just felt so motivated to read and I'm
enjoying what I'm reading. So because of
all the things that I've learned with my
buying ban let's see how many books I
still have my on my TBR after a whole
year of not buying any books. Well, that
is all for this video. Please let me know
in the comment section down below
have you ever gone on a book buying ban? Has it worked out for you? Has it not ? And
would you consider doing one in the
future?
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you guys in the next one. Goodbye! Just
keep going. Keep going, it it's okay. It's fine, I can edit.
