[sigh] what a video to make
hello! i'm seo from tbhstudying and if you could probably tell from the title of this video,
i am going on a no buy for stationery and school supplies in 2021.
wow i hate this i hate this so much.
just to preface all of this, i have a lot of stationery and
because youtube is something that i do as sort of a job, i get paid to review stationery,
i receive PR from different stationery companies, i buy more stationery
so i can review it and tell you guys what is worth it and what is not,
so because of that, i naturally have a larger stationery collection compared to other people.
however, it's gotten to the point where i think it's a little too much.
a while back, i made a video about the frustrations i have with the study community and
one of the issues i had was about the promotion of over-consumption
and just the blatant amount of consumerism
we have about stationery and other school related products.
i completely understand that i was complicit in promoting this image of consumerism
within the community due to the kind of stationery content i was making.
to sort of help me combat that, i was going to go on a no buy for stationery in 2021
and really focus on using what i have, rediscovering my love for my old favorites,
and sort of going through my collection and really inventorying it and
seeing how much i actually use up in a year and how much i need vs how much i want.
my ultimate goal with my no buy is to generate less waste, both financially and environmentally,
in regards to school supplies, and i also hope that this can re-evaluate my buying habits
and specifically how much i will realistically use up in the year.
and how i'm planning to structure my no buy is because my collection is so large,
i'm going on a complete no buy and i'm not buying any sort of school supplies
unless i completely run out of something in my collection that i can no longer replace.
for example, if i run out of all of my erasers, then i'm going to go buy another eraser
because i don't have anything else in my collection that can substitute that.
but if i run out of, say, a highlighter, i'm not going to go out and buy the same exact highlighter
because i have so many highlighters in my collection that
i need to use up before i buy more. so far, my plan right now is to keep going with these
kinds of rules and i'll make update videos maybe every three months or so
to let you guys know how it's going, how much i've used up, and how much i have left.
and sort of to put everything into perspective, i thought it would be a good idea to tally up
the total cost of the supplies i used last semester as well as an inventory
of all the stationery i currently have. so let's start with last semester.
i decided to include things like technology and textbooks because those are costs that
typically recur per semester, for example, the textbooks, and also, i know that you don't
rebuy technology every single semester but because i broke my laptop this semester,
i do have to get a new one so i figured, why not, let's just tally that up into the total cost.
so, my ipad cost $899.99 and the apple pencil cost $129.
the case for the ipad was $29.96 and the pencil case itself was $7.99.
the matte screen protector i use for my ipad was $8.99
and my laptop was $1260.95 for a total of $2336.68.
the amount of money i spent on textbooks was $180 last semester
and as for actual stationery, like, paper, binders, and things like that, my looseleaf
muji b5 paper was $3.90 a pack and i used about 1 pack last semester.
my vintage sarasa pens are $7.50 a pack and i use two packs of those.
my black zebra sarasa pen is $1.75 and my muji b5 binder was $6.
my avery binder for typical letter sized paper was $3.99
and my staedtler triplus textsurfers that i used, the three that i used, all in total are $6.90.
my mildliners and general highlighters, i just decided to use the price for the mildliner pack
which is $7 because i used about four highlighters over this past semester
and since there's five mildliners in a pack,
i figured that was a pretty decent price estimation.
my jetstream multipen was $11.75, my eraser was $1 and my correction tape was $1.99
for a total of $59.28 for stationery products
and the total cost for everything i used in a semester was $2575.96.
ooh, ooh, ugh, just looking at that number makes me feel so bad.
to put that into perspective, that amount of money would be three months of rent
in a student apartment in my college town and to put it into more perspective,
it would be 286 months of netflix on the basic plan, which would be 23 years.
$2575.96 would also be enough for me to get 343 chipotle burrito bowls
with extra guac per bowl. that would also be enough money for 8 nintendo switches. 8!!
that's so many nintendo switches and it's not even like the lite version,
like the actual full-sized switchy switchy version!
that's a lot of money and considering the fact that i repurchase these items
on a regular basis and i even buy items that i know i already have just to have more of it
that's like a lot of money down the drain. now, to put it into perspective, i also tallied up
the total amount of stationery i have in my current collection so i could keep track
of how much i used up in relation to how much stuff i originally had.
now keep in mind, in 2020, i consistently decluttered my collection
i did a lot of charity giveaways with the items i decluttered that were brand new
or lightly used and i think i gave away around eight or nine packages worth of stationery
last year but even after all that decluttering, even after giving eight or nine packages away
even after passing off more items to friends and family
in total, i still had 568 items of stationery.
now, i broke it down by category so let's go through these right now.
in total, i had 19 black pens, 11 colored pens, 52 brush pens, 7 pencils, 3 multi-pens,
26 highlighters, 6 correction tapes, 11 erasers, 12 containers of 0.5 pencil lead,
80 washi tapes, 243 sheets of stickers, jesus christ, 39 notebooks
and for the notebook category, i did include looseleaf paper and thin notebooks
and thick notebooks and also just random half-empty notebooks that i still had
i just lumped them all into the same category.
moving on from there, i had 12 sticky notes, 6 packs of index cards, 12 memo pads,
2 tape rollers and 27 specialty pens, and 27 specialty pens are things like
permanent markers, paint markers, chalk markers, things like that
that didn't really fit into any other category.
so, in total of the 568 items that i currently have, i hope to use up at least 30% of my
collection by the end of the year. hopefully, i hit 50% but realistically, i don't think i can hit that
50% because so much of that is black pens, highlighters, things that last a long time
and i think the majority of the 30% will come from stickers and washi tape.
ultimately, this was a wake up call for me because i didn't realize how much stationery
i had until i counted it all up. and if you also have a large stationery collection like i do,
i sincerely hope you don't, i have more stationery because of the things that i do
but if you also have a bit of a stationery addiction, i think you should also join me
on this no buy trip together. we could form a club, we can support each other
encourage each other, like, do peer pressure but in a positive way, and think about it this way,
we can save money together and suffer together.
there's no better bonding experience than suffering together.
let me know down in the comments below if you're also going to do a no buy
because i would love to have some company and if you don't want to go on a no buy,
how dare you. how hurtful.
no, you don't have to go on a no buy but i would highly suggest it and even if you don't
go on a no buy, try tallying up how much stationery you actually have
whether that be notebooks, highlighters, pens, sticky notes, try tallying all of that up.
i didn't think i had a lot of stickers. i thought i just had a little bit
but it turns out i have 243 sheets of stickers. i will never run out of stickers.
i do not need to buy more stickers, so you should try inventorying your own collection.
that's my plan, that's what i'm doing
i'll let you guys know how it's going in an update video three months down the line
and yeah, that's all i've got to say.
thanks so much for watching and i hope you have a great day.
i'll see you in the next video, bye!