One thing I’ve come to realize is how differently my book shopping strategy is now than when I was a kid/teenager. Honestly, I think we’ve all changed our spending habits over the years, but I guess it also depends on the person. When I think about how I buy books now vs. when I was younger, my buying habits have changed a lot.
How have they changed exactly?
Well, when I was younger my bookstore trips were less frequent, due to not getting my license until I was 18 (my choice). Typically, I usually had more money each time I went since I didn’t go often, and obviously as a child/teen, I didn’t have monetary responsibilities like I do now. I remember my bookstores trips being very fruitful in terms of books. I’d easily drop $200 per trip (maybe more if it was after Christmas or my birthday). I also didn’t carefully peruse books like I do now. If I read the synopsis and liked it, in my basket it went!
Now, I’m a little more careful with what I buy. Partly because of my budget, partly because of the amount of space I have, and partly because I don’t like reading a book once (or DNFing it) and then just giving it away since it feels like a waste of money. I know it happens, and I usually don’t mind giving a book to someone who will read it or the library if they could use a copy of that book, but still… when you have limited book funds it’s nice to use it on books you’ll keep and reread over time.
I also tend to spend less at a time at bookstores, not only due to limited funds, but because of the fact I try to be more selective about the books I buy. There’s also the fact that I sometimes go in knowing what I’m looking for now, as well as the fact that I go more often, so I don’t need to drop as much money at a time.
However, sometimes I wish I could go back to how I purchased books as a kid/teenager because there was less anxiety with buying books then than there is now. Or regret if I don’t like the book or spent money when I shouldn’t have.
How have your book purchasing habits changed from childhood to adulthood?
Genie in a Novel 
Yeah, my book buying habits certainly changed in that I went from purchasing none as a teen (I was either gifted books for birthdays and Christmas, or I borrowed them from libraries and my grandmother’s bookshelves) to buying a lot as an adult, mainly as that is when I was introduced to the online book community and I had the money to buy a few books every once in a while. For me, it hasn’t been good and I need to return to the “only have new books at birthdays or Christmas,” because then they truly mean something and I’m being selective about what I buy and read.
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I think I need to return to that as well. Will I? Probably not. But I definitely want to be more selective and cut down on the amount I buy.
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I think my experience is quite similar to yours, even if I’m still pretty intentional with my purchases I’m still not afraid to splurge, but yes I think about book space a lot these past few years. Though something I do miss is when browsing as a kid is that I never really knew about all the books!! bc being in the book community has made me so familiar with a lot of them 😂 Even then though, I think I was much more intentional with my purchases because my tbr wasn’t as big as it is now 😅📚
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It’s funny how as we get older our TBR piles gets too big to handle! I don’t even think I had a TBR pile when I was young because I just actually bought books and read them right away 😂
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I was the same as a teen too! It was so nice spending money on books when I was younger lol…now with two kids, I have to buy stuff for them first before I splurge on myself. 😅
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That makes sense, haha.
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