But you are in luck! I didn't want to have to buy an expensive bullet journal when I started either. When I started, I used a composition notebook with lined pages, which made it a lot harder for me to make layouts.

When you start, you will want to begin in a cheap book, because you won't know which layouts work for you or even if you like bullet journaling.

After a while, I gave it up, because it was too hard to make layouts in a book with lined pages which were rather thin as well.

Then I used my ring-bound planner for a combination of bullet journaling and planning. And now I just got this beautiful Minimalism Art Classic Dotted Notebook to use for my bullet journal collections!

This is how mine came from Amazon and it was covered in plastic to keep it from being scratched or damaged which is always a plus. it is terrible to be super excited to receive a product and then have it be damaged when you get it.

I did not receive this product for free. All of the opinions in this post are my own. :)

A Pocket - It comes with a pocket in the back, which I haven't tried out yet. I don't know if I will because I don't need it, but it is good to know about if you want a pocket to hold some stationery supplies in it.

192 Pages - The bullet journal comes with 192 dotted pages. It doesn't come with an index or any extra already made pages, but I wanted to make all of my own pages, so it was perfect for me. The pages are also not numbered, which might annoy some people, but I don't mind because I can number the pages whenever I create a new layout. Not having numbered pages is almost a plus for me because then I can leave pages that I don't want on the index unnumbered.

Bookmark Ribbon - One ribbon is included, which you can use to mark your most-used page or your monthly etc. The ribbon for my bullet journal was the same color as the rest of the journal.

Size - The size of the Minimalism Art Classic Dotted Notebook is 5 inches by 8 1/3 inches. I really like the size, which is bigger than the pages I could add to my ring-bound planner, so it is perfect to add collections to.

At first, I thought the color was a little bit more like lilac than pink, but then I realized it was just the light I had it in. :)

I like the elastic closure and the ribbon bookmark, but I hope that the elastic closure doesn't get stretched out.

This is the first thing you see when you open the cover of the book. It has lines for your name and address, but I chose to add my name and contact information instead. I added my blog URL too because there was enough room! 

On the other side, is the Minimalism Art Logo and plenty of space for you to add a bullet journal key, or a motivational quote. There are no dots on this page so anything you add you will have to measure.

As you can see, my bullet journal won't lay quite all the way flat yet, but I think as I use it more it will open up. When I am writing or drawing in it, I don't have a problem with it closing. :)

When I turn the page with my information on it, the next page is my title page. The left side of this page has no dots on it, so it is the perfect page to add a quote to. My word for the year is "create" so I made sure that it was in my quote. You can see how I did goal setting for 2020 in my bullet journal here. 

If you are interested in recreating this page for your own bullet journal, the supplies I used are put below.

On the word "create" the ink bled through the page a little bit because I blended it. When this happens, I have been using my gel pen on the other side to cover some of it up. As long as you aren't using too much ink all over the page, you shouldn't have any problems with ink bleeding through.