Hello and welcome to best laid plans. This is the podcast where we talk all things planning

and planning adjacent. And this is your host, Sarah Hart Unger. Today is a review episode and I'll be

going through a couple of brands that may not be as commonly

known. We talk a lot about the big brands on this podcast like Aaron Conjuring, which I do love,

and Hobonichi, which I think is growing in popularity and many more. But these two are some new

kids on the block and I'm very excited to share

them with you. So the first one I'm going to start with is the sprouted planner. The creator,

Heather, emailed me, and she was so sweet. She actually at first said something like,

I think your policy says you don't accept anything for free. So, you know, I just want to get the

details of it out, but I do want to send you stuff, but let me know what I should do. It was so cute.

Just to clarify, my policy is that I don't ask for things to review on the show for free. And the reason is

because if I am asking a company, then I do kind of feel like I owe them something in return.

Like, okay, you didn't have me on your radar, but I had you and you sent me product.

So how can I possibly like say anything negative?

The opposite is when a fairly new or smaller brand just wants to get exposure and they

offer to send me stuff and promise that I can do whatever I want

with it. So it's not a sponsored opportunity. It's just like talk about these if you want,

don't if you don't. And I really appreciate when companies do that. It's not that often because

let me tell you, this podcast is not that gigantic. But I am okay with doing that as long as there are no specifics around what I have to

share. Now, am I likely to share a terrible review of something that was sent to me for free? No,

but what I might do if I hated something that was sent to me for free is not mention it at all. So as long as that's

an option, then I am willing to accept certain products to potentially talk about them on the show

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