December 2015 Read The Books You Buy Challenge Update

December 2015 Read the Books You Buy Challenge Update
All month long I have debated whether or not to count free downloads.  On the one hand, I didn't spend money on them.  On the other hand, they are a large reason that my Kindle is so overrun with unread books.  I then thought about including them and keeping a separate percentage.  In the end I decided not to include them for the sake of simplicity.   If I make this too complicated, I won't keep up with it.  Besides, I really want to know what impact book buying is having on my budget as that one-click buy button of Amazon's makes it easy to downplay how many books I am actually acquiring. 

December 2015 Purchases: 

• Combine - Sean Michael $5.69
• The Rock Creek Six: Reese - Linda Winstead Jones and Lori Handeland $0.99 (for all 6 books in the series)
• The Rock Creek Six: Rico - Linda Winstead Jones and Lori Handeland
• The Rock Creek Six: Nate - Linda Winstead Jones and Lori Handeland
• The Rock Creek Six: Sullivan - Linda Winstead Jones and Lori Handeland
• The Rock Creek Six: Jed - Linda Winstead Jones and Lori Handeland
• The Rock Creek Six: Cash - Linda Winstead Jones and Lori Handeland
• A Beat in Time - Sandrine Gasq-Dion $3.99
• Melt for Me - Elizabeth Naughton $0.99 (for this and the next five books--they were all part of a six book set)
• Sweet Rapture - Alexandra Ivy
• Spy Who Came for Christmas - Cynthia Eden
• Merry Christmas, Baby - Katie Reus
• Sinful in Snow - Laura Wright
• Home Advantage - Skye Jordan
• Unto Us the Time Has Come - Sean Michael $3.99
• The New Boy - Sean Michael $6.99
• Accepting His Human - Charlie Richards $3.82
• All I Believe - Alexa Land $3.99
• Just Lion Around - Charlie Richards $1.50
• Finding Balance - Charlie Richards $1.50
• Accepting His Animal - Charlie Richards $3.82
• Alpha's Prerogative - Charlie Richards $3.82
• A Walk Through Fire - Felice Stevens $1.82
• Three to Get Ready - Sean Michael $6.99
• Hitman's Holiday - Alexa Land $0.99
• Shadow's Pen - Bellann Summer $3.82

In the month of December, I spent $54.71 on 26 books.  I read 6 books for a total cost $27.96.  Going purely by number of books, 6/26 is less than 25% but going by cost $27.96/$54.71 is slightly over 50%.  Which could mean that those great bargains really aren't unless I'm going to read them, or it could mean nothing.  It's hard to tell from just one month's data.  It'll be interesting to see if I read any of these titles in January (I should be reading at least one for a book challenge) or how many still haven't been read by say, June...or the end of the year.  Hmmm.  I'm liking this challenge as it is making me feel more aware of what I am spending my money on, but I will have to give it more time to see if it actually has any type of effect on my book-buying habits.  Another note of interest (at least to me), all my books were Kindle downloads...I have really diminished my physical book buying in recent years.