With so many planners to choose from these days, and so many of them costing at least $50 I thought I’d do a roundup of the best planners (in my opinion) that are under $50!

Prices current as of September 2017. 

1. Plum Planner

Plum Paper is my favorite planner company. They have tons of different layouts – all of which are highly functional. I particularly like their notes + list layout and the Me Planner layout which has 7 different sections to compartmentalise your plans.

Planners start at around $30 USD and can increase up to around $40 USD if you choose to add extra pages. They are the only planner company I’ve found that has affordable shipping to Australia (and it’s still affordable even if you buy a lot of planners in one go!)

Related: Plum Paper Planners Haul & Review (better than the Erin Condren?)

Plum Paper Planners

• 7 Weekly planner layouts to choose from including student planners, teacher planners and more unusual planner layouts you can’t find anywhere else!
• You choose your cover from their designs – you can even choose the type of frame, the font, if you prefer a monogram, name or other text
• Can personalise the cover with a photo
• Lined writing space in the weekly spread
• Start planner in ANY month
• Choose from 12-18 months
• Month & Year-at-a-Glance Pages
• Monthly Highlights Pages
• Monthly Notes Pages (2/mo)
• Double Sided Pocket Folder
• Durable Aluminum Binding Coil
• Durable Mylar Coated Tabs
• Paper Weight: 70lb text
• Paper Size: 7″ x 9″ or 8 ½” x 11”
• Tear proof & water resistant cover with a clear plastic protective sheet

The paper feels so nice and pens don’t bleed through the page

Related: Planner pen testing in the Erin Condren Life Planner, Plum Paper, Happy Planner by MAMBI and Limelife Planner 

My favorite of their layouts is the Me Planner – I used it for week 29 of the 52 Planners in 52 Weeks challenge.

More Plum Paper:

• How to print printables at Plum Paper planner size from your home printer (step by step tutorial) 
• Arcing my Plum Paper Planner – everything you need to know if you’d like to try it yourself! 
• Review of the Plum Paper Memory Keepers Book 
• Plum Paper Vertical Priorities Weekly Spread
• Creating a custom recipe book with Plum Paper
• Plum Paper Horizontal Priorities
• Plum Paper Horizontal Lined + Notes (and a comparison or colorful versus neutral)
• Plum Paper Grid Weekly Spread

2. Blue Sky

Blue Sky do lots of collaborations with other planner companies such as the Day Designer, Dabney Lee and most recently, May Designs.

Related: Day Designer for Blue Sky Horizontal Weekly Planner Review 

Related: Using the Dabney Lee for Blue Sky Weekly Planner 

Their planners are very affordable at around $20USD.

Unfortunately they don’t ship to Australia 🙁 You can get them via Amazon but shipping will be expensive.

One of the unique things about Blue Sky Planners are that they have horizontal planners i.e. some of their planners have the page oriented to landscape format rather than portrait to give you extra wide columns for writing – something very few planner companies do!

Blue Sky Planner Features:

• Lots of cover designs to choose from
• The inside pattern matches the front cover
• Start mid year (academic year) or calendar year (January)
• Format: Daily, Weekly or Monthly
• Binding: Wire
• Cover: Plenty of options to choose from!
• Horizontal weekly planner layout
•  Page Size: 5″ x 8″ or 8 ½” x 11”

Related: Printing Tips (including how to resize printables)

3. Mi Goals Planner

One of my favorite Aussie planner companies, the Mi Goals Planner recently launched their 2018 planner on Kickstarter. Love the improvements they’ve made to the weekly layout adding an in-built to do list for each week and more habit tracking spaces – I’ll definitely be testing out the new layout next year!

This company also has a Goals Book and Get Shit Done notebooks.

Related: Mi Goals Planners Haul & Review (Planners made in Australia) 

Price: $30AUD

Features of the Mi Goals Planner

• Sections for purpose and vision planning
• 10 goal worksheets (much more space for goal setting than most planners offer)
• Quarterly review section to track your progress
• Week to two-page spread with habits tracker
• Monthly view for priorities at a glance
• Budget planner to track financial goals
• A5 hardcover notebook
• 100gsm inside pages
• 208 pages
• 2 divider ribbons

Week 19: Mi Goals Weekly Planner 

One of my favorite features of the Mi Goals planner is the non-traditional layout of the monthly planner – you can fit so much more into the 3 lines than you can in calendar boxes.

Using the Mi Goals planner for monthly blog post content planning 

4. Sugar Paper Agenda

Sugar Paper Planners are sophisticated, simple and feature pops of gold foil (my favorite part!)

Price: $30USD

• Gold foil accents – need I say more?!
• Choose between book binding and spiral binding
• 12 month planners
• Calendar year
• Extras pages – birthday and thank you note tracker + a notes section
• Medium Size – 7.25 x 8 inches

After purchasing the planner, I have to say that the paper is very thin – you can see the printing of the reverse side and almost all pens had ghosting or bled through

Sugar Paper Weekly Planner

Related: Ultimate planner page size guide (with printable reference cheat sheet) 

5. Passion Planner

For all my hourly layout planner girls, this one’s for you. The passion planner features a compact and comprehensive planner layout. It’s minimalist black and white layout means you can plan using colored pens without worrying it’ll clash with the colors of the planner.

This planner is very goal oriented and would ideal for students or those that are easily distracted and need hourly scheduling to keep them accountable!

See my review of the Passion Planner in this post!

Price: $30 (they usually do a Kickstarter to launch each year’s planner which is sometimes cheaper) 

Passion Planner Features

● Passion RoadMap: Exercise that helps you define your short and long-term goals and create a step-by-step game plan to reach them
● Weekly layouts (Sunday – Monday) that run from August 2017 – July 2018
● Annual and monthly overview calendars
● Monthly reflection questions to keep you focused on your progress
● 20 additional blank pages
● 20 additional gridded pages
● Weekly and daily focuses to keep your attention on the most important tasks.
● Weekly plans from Sunday – Saturday, 6 AM – 11 PM. Every day, broken down into 30 minute sections to help you manage your time.
● “Good Things That Happened” section to keep you focused on the positive.
● A motivational quote and challenge to inspire positive action.
● Personal and work to-do lists organized by priority to encourage work-life balance, because very often we forget to take care of ourselves.
● “Space of Infinite Possibility” where you can take notes, draw, create, write, brainstorm or customize to fit your needs.

● Soft and durable faux leather cover; animal and vegan friendly!
● Super smooth high quality 100gsm thick paper, about twice as thick as a standard sheet of printer paper.
● A4 size 8.5”x11” (about the size of a sheet of printer paper)
● About 212 pages

 

6. Otto Weekly

This planner popped up on the Officeworks website a few months ago so of course I went and bought it! They’ve released 3 versions of the Otto Weekly planner – the Goals Planner, Business Planner and Wellbeing Planner.

These planners are very similar to the Erin Condren only way better – a much more functional layout and lots more extra pages such as project planning worksheets.

These planners are very affordable at $30AUD each – and if you buy them in store you don’t have to pay shipping!

Otto Goals Planner Review

Related: Otto 2018 Business Planner Review (from Officeworks) 

Features

● Size: 7.75″ wide x 9″ high
● Coil bound
● Cover can be removed (inter-changeable like the Erin Condren)
● Month starts on a Monday
● 2 page vertical weekly spread starts on a Monday
● Very functional layout – lots of checklists!
● Plenty of goal setting worksheets
● Weekends get their own day (not combined)
● Laminated tabs with the months printed on the front and back
● 1 color per month (ideal for color coding)

Related: Using the Otto Goals Weekly Planner (blue & pink themed weekly spread)

More Planning Posts:

• Ultimate Comparison: Erin Condren Life Planner versus Plum Paper Planners – Which planner is better? 
• 5 Ways to use sticky notes for school or college
• Planner companies that will let you download, print and try their planner layout for free 

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