How I Read 220 Books For $93 In 2024

My time in retirement has been put to good use. I read more now than ever as you can see from my posts below.

• How I Read 250 Books For $8 In 2023
• How I Read 100 Books For Free In 2022
• How I Read 52 Non-Fiction Books In 52 Weeks

However, given my voracious reading appetite, I was curious if this pastime would start to cost me bank.. But like most things I love in life, I found a way 🙂 .

And if I hadn’t, I would have just paid for it because that’s what my nest egg is for – to pay for things that make me happy. So let’s see what I learned this year about reading for less.

My Costs

The main question is: how did I read all of these books without breaking the bank? I ended up spending $92.89, which I rounded up to $93. I spent that on:

• A 3 month Kindle Unlimited promotion in 2023 that was discounted 97%: $1.09 = $0.58 in 2024
• A 6 month Kindle Unlimited Gift Subscription = $59.94*
• A 24 month Kindle Unlimited Gift Subscription: $172.66 = $32.37 in 2024

*Technically my Partner gifted me this for Christmas in 2023, but since we’re seeing how much a year of KU actually cost, I’m including it here

Usually paying for a year of KU through Amazon costs $143.88 at their standard $11.99/month. So how did I pay 35% less than that?

The Kindle Gift Subscription Hack

There is a way to consistently pay less for a KU subscription that’s not the wild promotion chasing that I did in 2023 (and quickly got tired of 🙂 ). It’s based on the option to Gift A Kindle Subscription. Gifting a subscription offers discounts compared to what you would pay just signing up yourself.

Prices

Here are the prices that KU offered when I bought these subscriptions:

6 Months – $59.94 (Usually $72, 17% off)
12 Months – $119.88 (Usually $144, 17% off)
24 Months – $172.66 (Usually $288, 40% off)

My Partner bought me the 6 month gift subscription for 17% off of the usual cost and my purchase of a 24 month subscription came out at a whopping 40% discount. But how did I gift a subscription to myself?

Treat Yo’ Self

To gift yourself a subscription all you need is a friend who trusts you with their Amazon account 🙂 . You can buy the gift through their account even with your own credit card (like I did) and make sure to input the email address associated with your Kindle account when it asks for that info.

On the date you chose for the gift to be sent, you’ll get an email that you were gifted a Kindle Unlimited Subscription. Also, if someone else has bought you this subscription and you already have a subscription and you don’t want to extend it, there’s an option in the welcome email to instead receive the same amount as an Amazon Gift Card.

Also, KU subscriptions stack on top of each other so you don’t have to wait for one to end before getting another. It just extends the time until you have to renew.

Also, I unfortunately haven’t been able to substantiate this claim myself, but one forum claims that you can buy Kindle Unlimited Subscriptions with other Amazon Gift Cards that you already have, but only if you sign up for KU through your Kindle. I’m curious to test that out when and if I want to buy another subscription in the future.

Updated Prices

However, since I bought my subscription, Amazon has raised the prices of these gift subscriptions and they’re still discounts, but are much less impressive.

6 Months – $65.65 (Usually $72, 8.8% off)
12 Months – $131.89 (Usually $144, 8.4% off)
24 Months – $263.78 (Usually $288, 8.4% off)

My New Plan

So going forward when my subscription runs out in 2026, I’ll see if these lower discounts are still accurate and plan accordingly. But then again, given how quickly these price changes have been coming out, it might be a totally different landscape and I’ll find another way to give less money to Bezos while still getting authors paid per page read.

One idea I have is that I’ve been eyeing a newer waterproof Kindle for a while since I love to read in the pool. Amazon claims that if you buy a new Kindle (which I would because of my fiasco with ‘refurbished’ Kindles that I detailed below), you receive 3 months of KU included in the purchase.

• Buying A Kindle For 50% Off

So we shall see if that’s still a thing when I upgrade my Kindle and what the gift subscription pricing landscape looks like at that point.

Other Kindle Hacks

I’ve had Kindle Unlimited for a while at this point and I had no idea that the subscription includes access to thousands of Audiobooks as well. Books that are available in that way have a little orange headphone icon next to them. Jackpot!

I also became obsessed with WhisperSync this year now that I’ve used my Kindle more in 1 year than I did in its first 3 years in my care combined. WhisperSync is an option you can turn on in your Kindle settings that allows your Kindle and Kindle App on your phone to sync with each other.

I often start reading a book on my Kindle and then switch to my phone while in transit. With this setting turned on, and if both my Kindle and phone had service recently, it automatically syncs my latest position so I never forget where I was. Sensational 🙂 .

Libby Library

For the rest of the books I read last year I used my Seattle Public Library card through Libby to borrow eBooks. When I hear about a new book I might find interesting, I instantly place it on my Holds list. And then when it becomes available, the 21 day borrow limit helps me to not just sit on a book forever, but have daily goals of how much to read so I finish before the book is due back to the library.

If a book isn’t in the Libby App yet I always use the Notify Me Smart Tag so that Libby will alert me as soon as the title is added to their library so I can borrow it or get on the holds list. This has led to me getting to read new books on the day of release or soon after.

After I get a book from Libby, I go to Manage Loan>Read with Kindle, which then takes me to an Amazon page where I confirm what’s happening and it sends the book to my Kindle.

Stuff Your Kindle Day

I randomly discovered this through one of the many author newsletters that I join if I enjoy multiple books from an author and want to hear more from them. Once a quarter, this group has a sale on thousands of romance books in an event called “Stuff Your Kindle Day.”

They partner with authors who want to get their name out there by providing their book for free. I’ve found copies of some authors I love on there and now I have their book on my Kindle forever. Last year this event happened on March 31, June 30, September 20 and December 27.

BookBub

One of my friends told me about this site, BookBub. It emails you daily books that are on sale based on your interests. However, the one book I picked up from there I didn’t enjoy, but that might be a me problem 🙂 . It’s good to know a service like this exists.

ARC Reading

I mentioned last year that I started ARC reading for a few authors I love, after seeing them put out a call on social media and their email newsletters. Overall, I’ve been really loving ARC reading.

I get to read a book by an author I love before it comes out and I own it forever. However, it is a little nerve-wracking because I then have to write a review for it and often submit a link to my review to the author and they’re not always glowing 🙂 . However, despite leaving some less-than-gushing reviews, I’ve always been invited back so that’s good – they don’t only keep the people who praise all of their work.

There are a few authors whose ARC teams I looked into joining, but they seemed suspicious to me so I didn’t. For example, one had weird requirements like I had to add their PR person as a “Friend” on my Goodreads and add their new book to my “Want To Read” list. No thank you 🙂 .

BookSirens

Speaking of ARCs, this year I discovered that there’s an entire website that gives people ARCs to review for free called BookSirens. This is another way I could have increased my reading goal without breaking the bank while also helping authors, but I never accepted one of these offers. I got too busy and also kind of forgot, but I wanted to share this in case anyone else is interested 🙂 .

However, one thing I did use a lot was their stats. After importing my Goodreads (which was an easy process, but took a while – possibly because of the number of books I read), they showed analytics that I haven’t seen anywhere else that I found really helpful like this:

Conclusion

So that’s how I read 220 Books for $93 in 2024, which amounts to $0.42 per book. If I assume a paperback is $15 and I would have bought all of these books instead, I would have saved $3,207 with my reading methods this year. That’s a 97% savings compared to if I had bought all of these books and filled my Kindle or non-existent shelves with them.

And with these tips, I generally saved 35% off of the standard cost of a Kindle Unlimited subscription, which is cool. KU authors get paid per page read so I feel good that my ridiculous reading amount has put more money in their pockets as well. Next year I’m curious to see how KU will keep changing and if I find another way to support authors and enjoy books, but until then – this is all I’ve got 🙂 .