So many books...so, so many books.

I'm sure I am not the only person who has this problem. The problem of buying many, many more books than I have room or need for. It's not what I would call...a bad problem, per say, but that is probably because I'd prefer to keep buying books to my hearts content. But I had to come up with some sort of system to avoid complete financial ruin. And today I am going to tell you the easiest hack in the world, that has made my life so much better.

First of all, if you don’t have a library card, what even are you doing? Go get one! BOOM money saver right there.

However, if you’re anything like me, if there’s a book you KNOW you’re going to love or will want to re-read or just own and put on your own shelf, then you’re going to go out and buy it. The issue with that is that there are so many books that I want. So how do I show restraint? Let me tell you, it’s the easiest, cheapest thing ever. Go buy a spool of ribbon. Seriously. Just go pick out a small spool of ribbon and cut it all into lengths of four or five inches. The pieces of ribbon are now your bookmarks.

So hear me out. When I decided to change the way my bookshelves are organized (they used to be by read vs. unread and now they’re color coordinated) I realized I needed a system to easily identify which books of mine I haven't read. So I snipped up my ribbon and put a “bookmark” in each unread book. I discovered this had a two fold purpose, because now I do not allow to buy myself more books than I have pieces of ribbon for. Once I’ve read a previously unread book, I put aside the ribbon bookmark for future use/new book purchase. Personally, I like to wait until I have several pieces ready to go before going out and buying new books because let us be honest, who can go out and buy ONE book at a time?!

If you're not a fan of ribbon, just make yourself some kind of bookmark. Bookmarks can be anything and personally I like the look of ribbon. But try it out! Let me know if you try out the hack, and tag #belsbooks on your Instagram posts to tell me if you like it!

Xoxo, go read something!