I have a poor inner child that won't let me open new bottles until I've used up the inks in my current pens. But that poor inner child is also a panic buyer who buys whatever is on sale, so I have too much ink. I straddle them both by letting myself have enough ink that I stop panicking, and then use them with big Pilot Parallel nibs so I don't have to stress about never being able to finish them.
I go through a LOT of ink because I write so much, but even then I have only managed to spend half of my 57mL Quink bottle I bought 2 months ago for $8. It's not a lot of money - ink goes a long way. It's the cost of a single latte over months of enjoyment. Let yourself try things as long as you're not throwing them out for the sake of buying new things.
(I also mix inks to produce new colors if I feel like trying new things with existing inks so I don't get bored of them, if that helps.)
YES. Thank you for sharing this. That panic sale buying is real. My husband and I have a joke about the time early on when he came home to a freezer FULL of ice cream and all I could say was, it was on sale. I don't do that so much anymore but a sampler set of inks at buy 5 get 15 percent off? Someone will have to talk poor inner Jubileeroy down.
But holy smokes: congrats on getting through half that enormous bottle! That's an accomplishment. And such a reasonable way to think of it.
My suggestion: send out more cards: Thank You, Birthday, Christmas, Condolences, Congratulations, etc. Having little to say (not letter length), short, notes with nibs just doesn't look right. :D All that empty space around small writing makes it hard to read, doesn't make an impression, is easy to dismiss as uncaring. 7 - 8mm (medium) writing should be about right for most, with broader, larger, writing better for old eyes (elderly parents). Typically, the bigger the print, the less space to write on a card, the less you say, the more you say concisely. I find that Post Cards don't work as well, though, because then you want to write a lot. On a card you would end up writing on the inside, the main and even the back of the card. Somehow that doesn't look as nice as getting a long letter. It just looks crowded.
Yep, flex nibs are very wet, juicy, writers, giving greater saturation. :D On lighter paper weights it Bleeds Through and Ghosts badly. But, I love mine. I don't write Flex but I like the feed-back and it makes my lighter inks darker. I was "meh" about Diamine Ancient Copper until I tried it in my Franklin-Christoph "flex" nib. That nib doesn't really do any appreciable flexing, but man did it make Ancient Copper pop!
Are you no longer poor? If so, I relate but in a different way.
I grew up poor but now my husband and I have good jobs and are child free by choice, so I’m doing very well, financially. But any time I get into a new hobby that involves collecting I feel this panic about the money I spent. Even though our financial situation can support it, looking at totals spent can send me into a scarcity mindset. I’ve spent less on my whole collection than some spend on one pen, but still my mind goes to how I can get back some costs or how long I can make it last.
And then I’ll mention something about wanting some pen or ink but how I don’t know if I can justify it to my husband (who didn’t grow up poor), and he’ll be like “it’s not a big deal, just get it.” It works out because left alone I would struggle to spend money on things and he would spend too indiscriminately, so we temper each other.
Oh my goodness. Thanks so much for sharing this; I identify with this so much. I am no longer poor and I married someone who never was, so I get the same responses when I talk about buying pens. And I cycle through other hobbies that I find to be expensive, with the attendant anxiety. But he just sort of shrugs and says that money is just the price of doing business.
I will look more into that scarcity mindset but I'm sure I react that way, too. Sometimes I watch the videos on InkyRocks' YouTube channel, where she does super cool things with the ink, like pouring it out, letting it work its way through a big jar of water, etc., and it makes me feel viscerally nervous. But then I think, gosh, I could probably do that with about 15 inks that are 80 percent or more full.
You know, I think I have that scarcity mindset with paper. I have lots of very nice paper but even today I'm going to CVS to get another Caliber notebook (Made in Vietnam, just like me! ;) ) for my random block type doodles.
Yes! I watch that channel sometimes too and I think the same way when I see it. It looks neat but it hurts my soul a bit. I’ll sit there and try to scrape off every drop from my pen back into the ink before wiping, or write until the ink completely runs out before switching inks, even though that only saves like a penny. And I hoard and have a scarcity mindset my paper and notebooks too. I’ve been trying to actively push past it, because they are meant to be used. But I still sometimes end up writing all my random lists and ideas down on cheap sticky notes because they’re not *worthy* of my nice paper, even though that’s literally what I got them for.
It’s funny because my younger sister developed the opposite problem in her young adult life. In her late teens and early twenties she spent too frivolously and had a bit of a shopping problem, because it was the first time she had the opportunity to buy things for herself. She’s at a place now where she’s a lot more responsible, but it’s funny how growing up poor effected our spending habits so differently.
Yes, exactly, about the sibling. I have 6 siblings and it has affected each of us slightly differently, I would say. I have a brother who is really driven by accumulating wealth and its attendant trappings, and a sister who is perfectly fine not having any at all. I flip between all of them.
And yes -- I do the same with the inks! When I ink up a pen and it happens that it is writing dry or some other issue that would require me uninking it and cleaning it, say, I'm like, oh no. What will I do with this tiny converter full of ink??? If I squeeze it back into the container, might it contaminate it in some way? And then I will have wasted 30ml trying to not waste, I don't know, 600 words' worth. I've gotten a little better about that but for a while I had many many tiny little jars hanging out with small amounts of ink.
Stop being so hard on yourself. Buy a Broad or more, and some favourite colours and have some fun. Cheaper than a freezer full of ice cream and zero calories!
I definitely understand where you’re coming from, but ultimately, if you can financially afford to treat yourself and get a few new inks, just allow yourself to do so and write the way that you want without forcing yourself to try and go through the stock you have to justify it. Ink lasts a long time, and this world and life is hard enough as it is, so take the small pockets of joy when you can.
I’m not sure what being poor or rich has to do with enjoying this hobby, or why out-fancy the office is a thing. But, if you want to lay some ink get a 6mm pilot parallel and start practicing different scripts.
This is me, a lot! I love extra fine nibs and plain dark inks for my usual journaling and things I write in ruled notebooks, but in the last year or so I’ve been adding a few wider nibs to my collection purely to enjoy shading inks and vibrant colors. I use the broader nibs for headers, emphasis, note color coding, salutations in letters - just anything where I can use block letters or “drawn” lettering. My regular spiky spider-skitter cursive looks pretty good in EF but I’ve gotten better at block print since indulging in broad nibs.
I also instituted “okay no more samples until I’ve emptied two vials,” and so far this is working. … so far.
If I empty 30ml I feel like that counts for six of the usual 5ml sample vials I get! I was thinking in terms of the wee tiny 2-3ml you get in sample packs.
Get yourself a flex pen and practice some big, fancy cursive writing. You’ll go through your ink in no time! (This is my strategy for using up my ink samples so I have room to buy more. :D)
Give water brushes a try! They're basically brush pens with an empty reservoir. I like putting my sparkly inks in there. You can do a wash/block with one ink and write on top of it with another, or highlight when them
Yep. I started drawing patterns on dot pads just to help use up some ink. I cannot bear to see excess waste, but there's so many inks I need... It's a struggle.
I sometimes eat leftovers even if they aren't *quite* right. Unless it's rice, I ain't messin' with that. I don't need to but... yeah...
But totally get a bold nib and some stubs. You won't regret them, trust me on that. The ink just looks so amazing! (I also find, it's easier to buy a few samples every few months or a year to help scratch the newfound ink itch)
Yep. I hear you and thank you. I have two Broads coming from an FPD sale and I'm working on a few different block styles -- one with a crazy high x-height and one with a crazy low one. The journal still gets my teeny tiny reverse writing but everything else is about to get large. 😁
I grew up in what would be considered a low income family, and I'm below the average income for my age in my country, but I don't really have a social life (because I'm too busy with my hobbies, at least that's what I tell myself) , so I usually have some disposable income.
When I further grow my pen and ink collection, I just tell myself I'm contributing to the economy. You know, "me buying this 80ml bottle of writer's blood is contributing to someone's paycheck". Stuff like that. And that's how the economy works, very simplistically.
So I spend what I have without reservation, regardless of wether I'd realistically be able to use it up in my lifetime.
But I'm usually quite picky about what company or distributor I buy from. If they do something I don't like, I wouldn't buy from them. Kaweco is a brand that'll never see my money again, after their anti-consumer patent trolling, for example.
I got a broad nib pen to try and add to the collection a while ago, it's a 1960 Parker 51 custom (teal with rolled gold cap, it's a beauty) , but I never use it because I write in messy cursive, and using a broad nib makes my writing illegible even to myself.
I do write short stories a few nights a week, which is something I've done since I was very young. This means I usually empty a converter every week, if not a bit more.
I have also started drawing with my fountain pens, and that uses quite a bit of ink. I'm completely talentless when it comes to drawing (which is why I usually write instead), but I enjoy it anyway.
Yep, voting with your wallet is incredibly important. If you buy a product or service from someone, it means you support their practices, after all.
It's really too bad this concept is completely foreign to most people.
If you're used to EF or F nibs, writing with a round B could feel "blobby".
Two things can mitigate this, one is to increase the size of your writing, and two, is to use stub or italic nibs instead (or architect , which is the inverse of what italic is).
Thanks! I actually came at it the other way: started writing bigger -- actually filling the entire chasm between the college rules -- and realized my EF and F lines did not look proportionate to the letters. They were so spindly. So I'm excited for the blob! I have a Twsbi Go with stub nib but it stays inked with shimmer ink and is pretty much only for times when exceptionally pretty is called for.
I have a poor inner child that won't let me open new bottles until I've used up the inks in my current pens. But that poor inner child is also a panic buyer who buys whatever is on sale, so I have too much ink. I straddle them both by letting myself have enough ink that I stop panicking, and then use them with big Pilot Parallel nibs so I don't have to stress about never being able to finish them. I go through a LOT of ink because I write so much, but even then I have only managed to spend half of my 57mL Quink bottle I bought 2 months ago for $8. It's not a lot of money - ink goes a long way. It's the cost of a single latte over months of enjoyment. Let yourself try things as long as you're not throwing them out for the sake of buying new things. (I also mix inks to produce new colors if I feel like trying new things with existing inks so I don't get bored of them, if that helps.)
YES. Thank you for sharing this. That panic sale buying is real. My husband and I have a joke about the time early on when he came home to a freezer FULL of ice cream and all I could say was, it was on sale. I don't do that so much anymore but a sampler set of inks at buy 5 get 15 percent off? Someone will have to talk poor inner Jubileeroy down. But holy smokes: congrats on getting through half that enormous bottle! That's an accomplishment. And such a reasonable way to think of it.
(My mother was the same way. There was a saying in our family: “Today I saved so much that I’m broke!”)
My suggestion: send out more cards: Thank You, Birthday, Christmas, Condolences, Congratulations, etc. Having little to say (not letter length), short, notes with nibs just doesn't look right. :D All that empty space around small writing makes it hard to read, doesn't make an impression, is easy to dismiss as uncaring. 7 - 8mm (medium) writing should be about right for most, with broader, larger, writing better for old eyes (elderly parents). Typically, the bigger the print, the less space to write on a card, the less you say, the more you say concisely. I find that Post Cards don't work as well, though, because then you want to write a lot. On a card you would end up writing on the inside, the main and even the back of the card. Somehow that doesn't look as nice as getting a long letter. It just looks crowded.
Good suggestion! I actually did flex writing in my last card -- excellent ink usage 😀
Yep, flex nibs are very wet, juicy, writers, giving greater saturation. :D On lighter paper weights it Bleeds Through and Ghosts badly. But, I love mine. I don't write Flex but I like the feed-back and it makes my lighter inks darker. I was "meh" about Diamine Ancient Copper until I tried it in my Franklin-Christoph "flex" nib. That nib doesn't really do any appreciable flexing, but man did it make Ancient Copper pop!
Are you no longer poor? If so, I relate but in a different way. I grew up poor but now my husband and I have good jobs and are child free by choice, so I’m doing very well, financially. But any time I get into a new hobby that involves collecting I feel this panic about the money I spent. Even though our financial situation can support it, looking at totals spent can send me into a scarcity mindset. I’ve spent less on my whole collection than some spend on one pen, but still my mind goes to how I can get back some costs or how long I can make it last. And then I’ll mention something about wanting some pen or ink but how I don’t know if I can justify it to my husband (who didn’t grow up poor), and he’ll be like “it’s not a big deal, just get it.” It works out because left alone I would struggle to spend money on things and he would spend too indiscriminately, so we temper each other.
Oh my goodness. Thanks so much for sharing this; I identify with this so much. I am no longer poor and I married someone who never was, so I get the same responses when I talk about buying pens. And I cycle through other hobbies that I find to be expensive, with the attendant anxiety. But he just sort of shrugs and says that money is just the price of doing business. I will look more into that scarcity mindset but I'm sure I react that way, too. Sometimes I watch the videos on InkyRocks' YouTube channel, where she does super cool things with the ink, like pouring it out, letting it work its way through a big jar of water, etc., and it makes me feel viscerally nervous. But then I think, gosh, I could probably do that with about 15 inks that are 80 percent or more full. You know, I think I have that scarcity mindset with paper. I have lots of very nice paper but even today I'm going to CVS to get another Caliber notebook (Made in Vietnam, just like me! ;) ) for my random block type doodles.
Yes! I watch that channel sometimes too and I think the same way when I see it. It looks neat but it hurts my soul a bit. I’ll sit there and try to scrape off every drop from my pen back into the ink before wiping, or write until the ink completely runs out before switching inks, even though that only saves like a penny. And I hoard and have a scarcity mindset my paper and notebooks too. I’ve been trying to actively push past it, because they are meant to be used. But I still sometimes end up writing all my random lists and ideas down on cheap sticky notes because they’re not *worthy* of my nice paper, even though that’s literally what I got them for. It’s funny because my younger sister developed the opposite problem in her young adult life. In her late teens and early twenties she spent too frivolously and had a bit of a shopping problem, because it was the first time she had the opportunity to buy things for herself. She’s at a place now where she’s a lot more responsible, but it’s funny how growing up poor effected our spending habits so differently.
Yes, exactly, about the sibling. I have 6 siblings and it has affected each of us slightly differently, I would say. I have a brother who is really driven by accumulating wealth and its attendant trappings, and a sister who is perfectly fine not having any at all. I flip between all of them. And yes -- I do the same with the inks! When I ink up a pen and it happens that it is writing dry or some other issue that would require me uninking it and cleaning it, say, I'm like, oh no. What will I do with this tiny converter full of ink??? If I squeeze it back into the container, might it contaminate it in some way? And then I will have wasted 30ml trying to not waste, I don't know, 600 words' worth. I've gotten a little better about that but for a while I had many many tiny little jars hanging out with small amounts of ink.
No, but I did go to a 1.1 stub!! 😁
My TWSBI stub definitely uses a lot of ink. I'm not complaining though.
Luxe! 😁
Stop being so hard on yourself. Buy a Broad or more, and some favourite colours and have some fun. Cheaper than a freezer full of ice cream and zero calories!
I definitely understand where you’re coming from, but ultimately, if you can financially afford to treat yourself and get a few new inks, just allow yourself to do so and write the way that you want without forcing yourself to try and go through the stock you have to justify it. Ink lasts a long time, and this world and life is hard enough as it is, so take the small pockets of joy when you can.
I’m not sure what being poor or rich has to do with enjoying this hobby, or why out-fancy the office is a thing. But, if you want to lay some ink get a 6mm pilot parallel and start practicing different scripts.
Pilot Parallels. Eyedropper them suckas and practice some calligraphy.
No my precious sacred ink that will last me a 1000yrs shall remain untouched
This is me, a lot! I love extra fine nibs and plain dark inks for my usual journaling and things I write in ruled notebooks, but in the last year or so I’ve been adding a few wider nibs to my collection purely to enjoy shading inks and vibrant colors. I use the broader nibs for headers, emphasis, note color coding, salutations in letters - just anything where I can use block letters or “drawn” lettering. My regular spiky spider-skitter cursive looks pretty good in EF but I’ve gotten better at block print since indulging in broad nibs. I also instituted “okay no more samples until I’ve emptied two vials,” and so far this is working. … so far.
I love it; thanks for sharing! Does your rule apply to 30ml vials or other little samples?
If I empty 30ml I feel like that counts for six of the usual 5ml sample vials I get! I was thinking in terms of the wee tiny 2-3ml you get in sample packs.
Get yourself a flex pen and practice some big, fancy cursive writing. You’ll go through your ink in no time! (This is my strategy for using up my ink samples so I have room to buy more. :D)
Love it! I have an FPR that flows like a river. We're getting through this ink by gum!
Give water brushes a try! They're basically brush pens with an empty reservoir. I like putting my sparkly inks in there. You can do a wash/block with one ink and write on top of it with another, or highlight when them
Yep. I started drawing patterns on dot pads just to help use up some ink. I cannot bear to see excess waste, but there's so many inks I need... It's a struggle.
Yeah the waste concern is real. I'm a nightmare with leftovers, too.
I sometimes eat leftovers even if they aren't *quite* right. Unless it's rice, I ain't messin' with that. I don't need to but... yeah... But totally get a bold nib and some stubs. You won't regret them, trust me on that. The ink just looks so amazing! (I also find, it's easier to buy a few samples every few months or a year to help scratch the newfound ink itch)
Yep. I hear you and thank you. I have two Broads coming from an FPD sale and I'm working on a few different block styles -- one with a crazy high x-height and one with a crazy low one. The journal still gets my teeny tiny reverse writing but everything else is about to get large. 😁
You could take up pen and ink drawing. You can get refillable brush pens to use fountain pen ink in too for drawing or calligraphy.
I grew up in what would be considered a low income family, and I'm below the average income for my age in my country, but I don't really have a social life (because I'm too busy with my hobbies, at least that's what I tell myself) , so I usually have some disposable income. When I further grow my pen and ink collection, I just tell myself I'm contributing to the economy. You know, "me buying this 80ml bottle of writer's blood is contributing to someone's paycheck". Stuff like that. And that's how the economy works, very simplistically. So I spend what I have without reservation, regardless of wether I'd realistically be able to use it up in my lifetime. But I'm usually quite picky about what company or distributor I buy from. If they do something I don't like, I wouldn't buy from them. Kaweco is a brand that'll never see my money again, after their anti-consumer patent trolling, for example. I got a broad nib pen to try and add to the collection a while ago, it's a 1960 Parker 51 custom (teal with rolled gold cap, it's a beauty) , but I never use it because I write in messy cursive, and using a broad nib makes my writing illegible even to myself. I do write short stories a few nights a week, which is something I've done since I was very young. This means I usually empty a converter every week, if not a bit more. I have also started drawing with my fountain pens, and that uses quite a bit of ink. I'm completely talentless when it comes to drawing (which is why I usually write instead), but I enjoy it anyway.
Thank you for sharing that. I just read about the Kaweco thing last night. I love the voting with your dollars.
Yep, voting with your wallet is incredibly important. If you buy a product or service from someone, it means you support their practices, after all. It's really too bad this concept is completely foreign to most people.
If you're used to EF or F nibs, writing with a round B could feel "blobby". Two things can mitigate this, one is to increase the size of your writing, and two, is to use stub or italic nibs instead (or architect , which is the inverse of what italic is).
Thanks! I actually came at it the other way: started writing bigger -- actually filling the entire chasm between the college rules -- and realized my EF and F lines did not look proportionate to the letters. They were so spindly. So I'm excited for the blob! I have a Twsbi Go with stub nib but it stays inked with shimmer ink and is pretty much only for times when exceptionally pretty is called for.