[Review] The Filofax Refillable Notebook
Regular readers will know I'm a bit of a notebook addict; there's my BOAT (Book Of All Things) for a start and then my recent obsession with pocket notebooks and Midori-style planning systems. All this probably stems from high school when were were provided with two types of planners to use throughout the year. The first was a Homework Diary that was forged by me signed by my mum each week to verify that I'd completed all tasks set for that week. The second was our "jotter" which was an exercise book that was used to take notes during lessons. We were allowed a new jotter when it was full but if it was "lost" (or you'd fallen out of love with the boy who's name you'd doodled all over the front of it) you were allowed to buy a new one for 10p from the school librarian.
So now I'm a bit of a notebook obsessive. There's always a reason to have a notebook, whether it be for a bullet journal, a craft planner, a sketch book, and so many more ideas that we all have. Also attentive readers will remember me saying that I had completely moved out of my Filofax so are probably now wondering why I'm writing about another Filofax product.
Filofax A5 Notebook
The goalposts moved when I found out that Filofax have introduced a range of notebooks, organisers and eAccessories in glorious neon colours. As well as the notebook that I've been reviewing there is a Saffiano organiser and a Saffiano iPad organiser - both in the colour Pear.
The Filofax notebook has a leather-feel cover and a wire spine and closes with a colour-coordinated elastic. It comes with the traditional Filofax bookmark/ruler, 56 pages of 100gsm lined paper and four dividers - one of which has a front pocket - and an additional refill pack with four pages of squared paper and four pages of blank paper. All pages and dividers are punched and cut in line with the spiral spine so they can be added, removed and repositioned with ease. And because of the design of the spine, the notebook opens flat and also folds completely back on itself.
The notebook currently retails at £12.99 and the refill packs are priced from £2.99 for 32 pages (this is the A5 price - the pocket size is slightly cheaper). This does make it a high-end priced 'notebook' so if you write a lot then you may find yourself purchasing refills very regularly.
I haven't yet thought of a project to use for this notebook yet (any suggestions?) but there are two things that I totally love about it already. (1) you can't actually house many pages in it (the 64 leaves plus four dividers and ruler make it totally full) therefore it won't be too hefty to carry around and (2) the cover feels sturdy so once you've used the pages and need to refill it then the cover will withstand the test of time. I'll definitely come back to this and revisit it in, say, a year.
Disclaimer
I was provided with a Filofax A5 Notebook for the purpose of this review
For more details please view my disclosure policy