Why does nobody warn you about fancy dot grid notebooks that bleed through
I dropped $32 on a hardcover dot grid journal at a shop in Asheville last month because the paper felt thick and the cover was pretty. By week two my Pilot G2 was ghosting so bad on the back side that half my weekly spread was unreadable, and a Sharpie bleed straight through three pages into next month's log. I tried to save it by switching to pencil, but then the whole point of color coding my habit tracker was gone, so I went back to the $8 Exceed from Walmart. That cheap one has held up for 4 months now with zero bleed, and I feel silly for thinking price meant quality. If you are standing in a store squeezing a notebook, press your thumbnail hard into a back page first and see if it leaves a dent. What is your actual test before you buy a new journal, or do you just gamble like I did?
Oh man, that Pilot G2 ghosting would drive me nuts. Nothing worse than flipping a page and seeing the back of your own handwriting staring at you like a bad memory. I had the same thing happen with a moleskine I paid way too much for, and now I stick with cheap composition books that cost a dollar and hold up fine. That thumbnail test is smart, but I also flip to the last page and scribble a tiny line with whatever pen I actually use, then check the other side right there in the store. Sometimes the workers look at me weird but who cares, better than wasting thirty bucks.