This month, those of us participating in the #ShelfLove No Book Buying Challenge are discussing whether or not we’re thankful for taking on the challenge and whether or not our book buying and reading habits have changed.

Am I thankful for the #ShelfLove challenge?  Oh yeah, and I have reasons:

• I came up with several ways to get books for free, and I started listening to serial and short story podcasts.
• I’ve fallen in love with audiobooks thanks to discovering the free audiobook website, podiobooks.com.
• I became much more discerning about the books I purchased with the gift cards I received for Christmas and my Birthday.  The same goes for the books I chose when the Boyfriend made an agreement with me to help me survive the Spring semester.
• I finally got my Goodreads shelves updated, created a spreadsheet of all my unread books, and made TBR jars.
• I cleared out enough books from my collection to earn enough money to buy the one book I had been looking forward to for most of the year.
• I’m finally ok with not buying books.  I’ve also come to prefer book-related gifts instead of bookstore gift cards.  Why?  I own more books than can fit on my shelves.  Despite all the books I took to the used bookstore, my shelves are no less stuffed than they were at the beginning of the year.  In fact, I have even more books thanks to the Boyfriend, gift cards, and winning giveaways.