Theme: reducing your consumption

If you are anything like me, you probably prefer owning a book to borrowing it. That way you can annotate, add the book to your collection on your bookshelf and, in case you ever feel like it, you can pick the book up again for a re-read or just to read through your favourite scenes and quotes again. However, books aren’t known for being cheap and when trying to stay up to date with current releases and catching up on books from previous years you haven’t read yet, the money quickly adds up.

Usually, I create these Reading Challenges for myself and others to explore a broader range of books and to read outside our comfort-zone, so to speak. Therefore, I always have the intention of taking part in my own challenges, not just to create them for other people.

I actually had quite a few ideas for the October Reading Challenge, and I will definitely use them in the months to come, but I found that I had no desire to buy any new books specifically for this challenge. I already have quite a number of unread books at home and with Black Friday and Christmas slowly but surely approaching, I wanted to save some money by not spending it on new books. There are quite a few alternatives, after all!

Task: This month, try not to buy any new books.

Now, the obvious way to do that is to simply read the books that you already have at home. I assume that most bookworms have at least one unread book at home, some even own tons of books they haven’t read yet. This is your chance to finally give those books a chance!

But assuming you don’t have that many unread books at home and you don’t feel like re-reading any of your other books, there are still a number of options for you to get your hands on books without buying any new books.

Usually, libraries are a good starting point. They allow you to read any book without paying for it and oftentimes they also offer you to request any books they don’t have and order them for you. That way, you can read almost every book on your TBR without needing to pay anything for it (other than your library card, of course but in some cases even that might be for free, e.g. for students).

If you are not a big fan of libraries or your local library doesn’t offer the books you want to read, an alternative is borrowing from your friends. It might be a little more difficult since you need to a) have friends who also read and b) they need to have approximately the same taste in books as you do and c) they need to be willing to lend you their books. But in case all of the three conditions are met, it can be a great way to get new books. The books are usually in a better condition than those in the library and if you need more time to read a book, your friends will probably allow you to keep the book as long as it takes you to read it.

Maybe you are lucky and your birthday or any other celebration where you get presents falls into October. Most bookworms will probably get new books for their birthday and any gifted book is a book you don’t need to buy yourself. Most of the time, your friends and relatives will either know what kind of books you like to read or they will have asked you beforehand if you have any wishes, so chances are that those will be books you will enjoy.

Other options I could think of include books you already pre-ordered and that are now arriving (technically, you are not buying any new books that way, since you already paid for them) or reading ARCs (however, this is not an option for everyone).

I hope you enjoy this challenge! In case you want to take part, I have created some templates with which you can track your achievements. They are available on my Instagram account in my Story Highlights. (Simply click on the Instagram icon on my website)

Are there any other ways you can think of to read books without buying them or ways to save money when buying books?