I’ve acquired quite the collection of planner supplies over the years. Some have been great investments, others have been a waste of money. These are the 5 planner supplies I regret buying.

1. Cheap pens

I’m sucker for pens. I still live in hope every time I see a cheap pen pack that they’ll be the latest undiscovered cheap price but write really well pens. That’s happened a few times with the Papermate Inkjoy ballpoint and the A+ smoove but more often than not it doesn’t. I’ve accumulated so many pens over the years that I have an entire shelf in a bookcase filled with baskets of them plus drawers and pen cups etc. I really need to restrain and stop buying cheap pens.

Cheap pens are prone to the ink skipping, the ink pooling in globs or the ink running out quickly and the different colors in the same pack seem to die at different times. Plus, for some of them, you have to push hard to see the ink so the page ends up indented on the back.

2. Notebooks with crap paper quality

Most of the dot grid notebooks I buy are for the purposes of reviewing them for this blog (as readers have usually requested I do a review of them). Otherwise I wouldn’t buy anything less than 120 GSM paper (100GSM if the cover is really cute).

The terrible paper quality in the Moleskine planner – I don’t understand how these ever became (and have stayed so popular!)

3. Jumbo jumbo pen packs

It’s easy to be tempted by those jumbo gel pen picks that have 30, 50 sometimes 100 pens in them. When you work out the cost price it’s only about 50c per pen… But do I actually use all of the colors in the pack? No, I usually don’t like half the colors, or some are neon (which I never use). I tend to just use the same 6 colors and the rest end up drying out. So it’s not really saving money buy purchasing a jumbo pack.

Jumbo pen packs while cheap, also tend to be ‘occasional’ type pens that are so so easy to smear / smudge while writing – they’re not a pen I could use all the time for everyday use.

4. Large page size planners

These days I rarely use anything bigger than A4 page size with the exception of my household binder. My favorite page size is around 7 x 9″ which is the size most planners come in. I do still have a few larger page size planners but they sit on the shelf collecting dust.

Read more: Choosing sections for your planner: what to keep in your weekly planner versus a household binder 

Nice planner… but it’s 8.5 x 11″ so I’ve only used it once.

Using the Erin Condren Teacher Planner for weekly planner 

5. Stamps.

Albeit I don’t have many stamps but the few that I do have, I never use. Stamps just aren’t for me. The ink smears, takes too long to dry. Too hard to line up with pre printed planner pages, the spacing between checklist stamps is either too small or too big etc.

Roller stamps like these are a good idea in theory except they don’t roll that easily, you have to clear them (the ink doesn’t just magically wash off, I had to scrub with a toothbrush to get the ink stains off), they’re harder to line up, it’s easy to accidentally get the date wrong and the ink is prone to smudging on the border of the stamp.

Plus ink is permanent so if you make a mistake you can’t undo! I’ve tried using whiteout tape when I stamped something wrong but if you don’t wait long enough, the ink can smear. Plus a big chunk of whiteout tape looks bad anyway.

Related: Week 44: Planning the week using stamps (MAMBI, Carpe Diem & Creative Devotion)

Self-inking erasable stamps – the only type of stamps I’ll use.

Related: Frixion erasable stamps review

More stationery reviews

• 5 Planner supplies that have lasted more than 5 years
• 7 Planner supplies I don’t regret splurging on 
• 10 Reasons why I hate traveler’s notebooks and will never use one 

Planning tips

• Ultimate list of the best planner pen brands and how to choose colors for color coding 
• 7 Reasons why I decorate my planner 
• My Favorite thin washi tape for planning

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