Tuesday Tips: The Hidden Benefits of eBooks and Kindle Unlimited

*Some links are affiliate links, see disclosure below*

This tip is a little different from most of my recommendations because it focuses more on the homeschooling mom than homeschooling in general. However, I think it has benefits for both.
First, let me be transparent: I fought against eBooks for years, and to this day, I still love a good physical book. I have a stack on my bedside table and a bookshelf in every room except the bathrooms.

A Little Background

As a child, I read voraciously; I stayed up late, spent my free time reading, reading in the car, etc. I have fond memories of my high school years of hanging out with my friends at the bookstore with a cappuccino and a book.

Fast forward a few years, I was in the thick of motherhood, and I felt like I had no free time, and any time I did spend reading was parenting and later homeschooling books. While those were beneficial, I was losing out on the joy of reading for pleasure.

Several years ago, I started trying to intentionally add more pleasure reading to my book lists. I knew this would be beneficial for me and also for my children. I want my children to be readers, to love reading, and to choose to read. If I want that for them, I need to model that behavior. I added some fun fiction to my summer reading and eventually kept it going throughout the year.

That was beneficial, but I still wasn’t getting as much reading done as I had hoped. I am still a busy work-from-home, homeschool mom who doesn’t have much free time. I often wanted to read at night after everyone was in bed, but the lamp would keep my husband awake.

My Discovery

This was when I discovered the benefits of reading on my phone. I could read at night without keeping my husband up, I had my book with me wherever I went, so I could sneak in five or ten minutes of reading while waiting in line or at the doctor’s office. Before, I would scroll through social media during those times, but I felt like reading was a better use of my time. It helped me achieve my goals and find my reading joy again.

How Does Kindle Unlimited Fit Into This?

You may wonder why Kindle Unlimited is integral to this process for me. You can take advantage of reading on your phone without Kindle Unlimited, but it was a key component for me. It meant that there were always new books waiting for me; I could read from a wide variety of genres and books and easily switch back and forth between informative and fictional books depending on my mood that day. Am I the only one that has multiple books going at once?

For a low and easy-to-budget amount each month, I had access to what felt like unlimited book options. I was also able to use it with my children. We got books for their curriculums and more pleasure books for them to read. Like me, they still adore real books, but we found that when riding in the car, traveling, etc., the kindles are super convenient.

Recently, our subscription allowed my two teenagers and me to read the same book together and then discuss it without purchasing three copies of the same book or waiting until we had time to pass it around to each other.

Conclusions

I feel like our Kindle Unlimited subscription has helped me to read many more books than I otherwise would have read and reclaim lots of waits and riding time. (Bonus, I now get car sick when I read regular books while we ride, but I can read eBooks without a problem.)

I encourage you to check out the free trial and see if it can help you get in more reading time and share more books with your children and teens.

I would also love to hear from you what other strategies you employ to help you get more reading done.

Resource Library and Affiliate Disclosure

When you sign up for the Schoolin’ Swag free resource library you will get a link and password to the library, we are adding to the library each month with new items. You will also get a bi-weekly newsletter email to keep you up to date on what we have going on.

Resource Library 

This post may contain affiliate or referral links, including Amazon affiliate links. As always I will never recommend a product that I don’t believe in and you will never be charged more for purchasing through our links. It does help pay for the costs associated with the blog.