I bought  about 10 books for Valentine’s Day. They are still arriving. Before that I had gotten a dozen from Let The Stories Live On – a newly discovered used bookstore online whose prices beat Amazon’s, what with their free shipping where you have to pay $3.99 for Amazon Marketplace shipping. That’ about 25 books in a month. I’ll read them all, but I’m feeling like I’ve ordered enough books for a while. So, not only will I cut back on our spending, I’ll stop buying books for the foreseeable future. That alone will cut back on our spending apparently. I might allow myself to trade books in for credit and get “new” ones that way, but maybe not. Maybe it’ll be a total fast.

I love reading and I love having the books that I read so that I can read them again. I’m one of those people who actually does go back through and reread books. I love having reference books as well in all kinds of subjects. Right now I have gardening, home repair, novel writing, accounting, economics, all kinds of personal finance and homesteading books, investing, management, and sewing. I’ve read some and have some for later, but they will all get read, and the good ones will stick with me through thick and thin. I’m very loyal to books that have been good to me.

I may not be able to stick to all these changes, though I will do my best to rearrange everything I need to to give myself the best chance, but I am certainly changing everything. I guess it’s like the frugal journey: some of it will stick forever, some of it I’ll have to keep reminding myself of, and some will go by the wayside as unusable. It’s fun though. (Except that I’ve been sore for days from my workouts, but even that’s good in a way.) We get paid tomorrow and that’s when the real test begins. Can I do all that I want to do on the money that I’ve budgeted? Can I not spend enough on groceries and other things  that we are able to spend our weekends how we like? I think I can manage it.