FREE STANDARD SHIPPING, ALWAYS
Why My Monthly Mini Subscription Is the Best Thing I Do for Myself (And My Family)
Published 3/1/26
I started my Monthly Mini subscription in January 2021.
And honestly? It's one of the best decisions I've made as a mom.
Pretty dramatic statement, I know. But hear me out, because this little $10/month habit has quietly
become one of the most meaningful things I do. Not just for me, but for my whole family.
Let me tell you how I got here.
The Wake-Up Call: When I Realized Most of My Kids Were Missing
I’ve always been the photo taker and memory keeper of the family. I've always been a Chatbooks person. I love having our photos printed, tangible, real. So I had this beautiful series going that was pulled straight from my public social media accounts, and it was chock full of all our family’s best moments.
And then one day, I actually sat down and looked through them.
And I realized: most of my kids weren't even in them. GASP!
Because here's the thing, I'm out of the baby and little kid stage now. I've got teenagers. Adult kids. And a brand new one-year-old grandbaby (which, if we're being honest, is its own wild adventure). And my kids? They don't exactly love having their picture taken anymore.
They're not running around in matching outfits begging to pose for the camera. They're not doing adorable things I can capture and immediately post to Instagram. They're living their lives, sometimes messy, sometimes private, sometimes just...normal.
And normal doesn't always make it to the public Instagram grid, and private certainly doesn’t!
But normal is actually what I want to remember most.
Enter: The Monthly Minis Subscription
That's when I realized I needed something different. Something that wasn't curated for public consumption. Something that could capture the real everyday life of my family, even when it's blurry, imperfect, or just a random day.
So I started my Monthly Minis subscription.
Every month, Chatbooks pulls photos from my phone for that timeframe, I pick my favs, VOILA!~ Chatbooks does the rest. A small, simple photo book. No perfection required. Just life, documented.
(Pull quote/feature section:) And because Monthly Minis are small (and honestly, pretty low-stakes), my kids have actually made peace with it. They know it's for me. They know it's for my Chatbooks. And because it's not going on social media or blown up on the living room wall, they don’t fight me on it.
Which means I actually get to capture them, not just the sanitized, Instagram-approved version of them.
What Actually Goes in My Monthly Minis
Here's what you'll find in my books:
- Blurry photos of my teenagers doing absolutely nothing interesting (but I love them anyway)
- Screenshots of their social media posts (the ones they'd kill me for sharing publicly, but that make me laugh every time)
- Random moments that would 100% be the first to go if my phone storage ran out
- FaceTime screenshots, like the one from last month of my dad, who still can't figure out if it's a phone call or a FaceTime, so the whole photo is basically just the side of his face and his ear
Is it perfect? Absolutely not.
Is it real? Yes. And that's exactly why I love it.
The Best Mail Day of the Month
When my Monthly Mini arrives, it's the best mail day.
I open it immediately. I flip through every page, oooohing and ahhhhing to myself like I'm opening a present (because honestly, I am).
And then I leave it on the counter.
Not tucked away on a shelf. Not stacked in a closet. Right there on the kitchen counter, where everyone passes through during the day.
And you know what happens? My kids pick it up. My husband flips through it. We laugh at the ridiculous screenshots. We remember things we'd already half-forgotten.
It becomes this little moment of connection, over a $10 book full of imperfect photos that nobody outside our family would care about.
But we care about them. And that's the whole point.
Why Monthly Minis Work When You're Past the "Little Kid" Stage
I know a lot of memory-keeping advice is geared toward moms with little kids. The first steps, the birthday parties, the coordinated outfits.
And that's great! Document all of that!
But what about the rest of us?
What about when your kids are teenagers who roll their eyes at the camera? What about when your adult kids are living their own lives and you only get snapshots via text? What about when you're a grandma now (!!!), and the photos you're taking are split between your own kids and your grandkids?
That's where Monthly Minis shine.
Because they don't require perfection, they don't even require that much effort.
They just require you to keep taking photos, any photos, and let Chatbooks do the rest.
The Real Reason I Keep Going
Here's the truth: I don't do Monthly Minis because I'm some super-organized, memory-keeping guru.
I do them because I'm not.
Because left to my own devices, I would have 47,000 photos on my phone that I never look at, never organize, and eventually lose when I upgrade my phone or accidentally delete the wrong backup.
Monthly Minis take that chaos and turn it into something I can hold. Something I can flip through on a random Tuesday when I need a reminder that life is actually pretty good, even when it's messy.
Something my kids can pull off the shelf someday (because let's be real, they will) and say, "Oh my gosh, remember this?"
And I'll say, "Of course I remember. I made a Chatbook about it."
Related Products:
Other Blogs You May Like:
- How to Give Your Teens a Phone
- The Long Game of Motherhood
- The Easiest Way to Turn Your Camera Roll Into Something You’ll Hold Onto
- How to Make Chatbooks Monthly Minis