At Oak Grove Public Library, the library I frequent most often, a new wrinkle has been the final line in my checkout slip and on the email they send to document my loans. It reads, “In 2018, you have saved $651.” Some of these books were for me, and some were for the preschool grandson who has been my afternoon buddy since school started. We make a weekly trip to get a supply, each of us choosing a more or less even number of picture books for reading aloud and adding whatever I have asked them to put on hold for me.
Little do the librarians at OGPL know how much I have really saved! I also borrow from the Cook Library on the University of Southern Mississippi campus and from our small but well-stocked church library, I receive advance reading copies from Net Galley for new books, and people who know me often give me books for presents – all for free. I have not kept up with how much that would total, nor do I have the ambition to go back and figure out how much I’ve saved. This blog, after all, promises “Readin’, Ritin’, and Not Much ‘Rithmetic.”
I will address a question that seems to follow this information. What in the world will I do with all the money I have saved? Guessing the answer shouldn’t be hard. Besides the books I borrow, there are others that I want to own, to have at the ready to put my hands on again. Then there is the bottom drawer in the chest of drawers in the master bedroom. Birthdays and Christmas come annually, and what is a better gift than a signed book by an author met at a book festival? And if person-to-person contact is not possible, for just a tad more for shipping, a signed and personalized book can be ordered from the local book store in an author’s hometown. (Just google the author and ask where and how. Every one I’ve contacted has loved doing this.)
So my pennies saved become pennies earned before ending up as pennies spent – on books, of course.
