Hi, everyone! If you’ve been reading my entries on Stuff I’ve Been Reading Lately, you probably noticed that I have a book-buying problem. Please don’t judge me. Haha It would have been fine if I was reading a lot of books, but I can only read so much given my responsibilities and commitments lately. I know I’ve said that I’m proud that I was still able to complete (ahead of time!) my target of reading 12 books this year, and I really am proud of myself for that. Still, I need to control myself from hoarding so many books.

So today I’m going to talk about a rule that I stumbled upon on bookstagram. Starting on the second half of July, I’m going to follow a new rule which is called “Read 5, Buy 1.” It was originally 10 books, but as I’ve mentioned above, I’m sort of a slow reader compared to others in the book community because I’m almost always busy with other things, so I decided to narrow down the count to just 5 books. Basically, the rule is that I can only buy a new book after I’ve finished reading 5 books from my physical TBR with the exception of the Manila International Book Fair on September because I wouldn’t miss it for my life — aside from that, no exceptions! Anyway, my haul list by the end of this month will probably still be a bit long given that I scored a lot of books the first half of the month; three other books are still on their way to me! But those would be the last one.

I wanted to implement this rule on myself not just because of the book-buying problem, but because I feel like it will feel more rewarding to buy a new book after having to follow some set of rules. Hopefully, I get to follow this rule religiously for it to be a permanent part of my reading process! *fingers crossed*

Do you follow a specific rule or set of rules for your reading process? May it be about keeping track of the books you read, book-buying related stuff, and annotation? I would love to hear from you!