How Much Do I Spend On Books?

Posted April 14, 2016 by smutmatters in Budget / 2 Comments

Hand holding a wallet or purse full of money with banknotes and gold dollar coins in a shopping and financial concept, vector illustration

This is a monthly feature for me to track my book spending. I don’t want to call this a budget, because I’m not really limiting the spending. Right now I’m more interested in just tracking how much I’m spending, not so much setting a certain amount to spend. So.. Here’s how I’m going to track it.

Tracking Rules

  • Tracking will be done a monthly basis.
  • Pre-orders will be tracked when the money is taken out of the account. Amazon pre-orders, for example, aren’t actually charged until they’re delivered, so a June release I pre-order in February will count for June, since that’s when Amazon will take the money.
  • I currently have $30.80 in Amazon gift cards and $15.00 in Barnes and Noble gift cards. They’ll count toward the spending, but follow the same rules as above.
  • I only have 2 Audible credits right now, but audiobooks will follow the same rules. The credits will be charged and count monthly, and any additional money I spend on Audible will count. But I won’t count credits used on books since the credits are counted when they hit my account.

So with no further ado, here’s my book tracking for March:

Audiobook Money Spent

$3.24              $4.20          $3.24

Physical Books Money Spent

$26.61             $6.38

Ebooks Money Spent

$1.06 (gc)     $14.97          $5.34                     $1.06                     $1.06              $1.06            $1.06              $0.00

 

Other Money Spent

  • Audible Membership: $22.95

 

Running Total

  • Audiobooks – $10.68
  • Physical Books – $32.99
  • Ebooks – $5.24 on gift cards, $20.38 cash (Far From True was partially on a gc, the rest cash)
  • Other – $22.95
  • March Total: $92.24
  • YTD: $198.75

2 responses to “How Much Do I Spend On Books?

    • smutmatters

      Yeah – I ended up bringing home about 20. I left around a dozen at a cafe in the hotel with a note for anyone to take them. I’m pretty happy with the 20-ish I ended up with. I know so many people got tons more books, but I didn’t do as many of the reader panels where they gave them out.