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Money Leaks: Unused Magazine Subscriptions
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The trouble with magazines is that they aren’t expensive. If you are patient, you can usually find someone selling a subscription for just a few dollars. Even if you buy it direct, it often comes out to much less than a dollar an issue. Magazine publishers are struggling to get their readership numbers up and so many even offer them for free, in the hopes that you subscribe on the renewal date.
That said, spending $10 on something you don’t use is $10 not put towards an emergency fund, debt, savings, or something much more useful. So take a few moments to look around your house and check out the magazines you have. When was the last time you read it?
If it goes directly into the recycling bin, consider calling up the magazine and canceling your subscription. You will usually get a pro-rated refund. You can spend that on some coffee. 
(Photo: i-rocksteady)
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You are sure right about magazine publishers struggling to get their readership numbers up. For the past few months we have been getting “special offers” from magazines we haven’t subscribed to in years. They must be going through the ‘past subscriber’ lists.
Do be careful of those freebies. Most often you must unsubscribe in writing only and within a time limit of the free issues ending.
The only subscriptions that we have, came from our Delta Sky Miles account. The points were about to expire, and they were not even close to buying us a flight, so we bought about 15 subscriptions.
My wife and I enjoyed the magazine, but we found that we were instantly overloaded. We both enjoy reading, but 15 subscriptions per month was WAY too much. We also had magazines lying all over our house, which got to be really annoying.
Bottom line, we were glad when our subscriptions ended and we could have a life and house of non-magazine bliss again.
Wow, yes 15 is a ton.
I have been profoundly guilty of this over the last couple of years (why wouldn’t I want Bon Appetit for $6/year?…oh yeah, I’m not really gourmet chef material), but I’m getting a little better at it. Even when I see “bargains” online for magazine subscriptions now, I generally look past them unless it’s one of my top two or three magazines that I definitely read every month.
I get one magazine subscription and only the Sunday paper. Really has cut down on the clutter in my house. I’m still an avid reader so I get my fix on the internet. Love it love it love it. My internet is well used and worth every penny.
I’m almost embarrassed to say we too get the Sunday paper, but we do nothing with it. We pull the coupons and the paper goes right into the trash can in the garage. It doesnt even make it in the house.
Lately the only magazine subscriptions I have are free. And even then I don’t read half of them.
I only get free magazines too. I just google “free magazine subscriptions” I can always find a forum where people list whatever’s currently being given away.
I’m careful not to subscribe to magazines that I do not read, but I really like to have something to read when I’m working out. The only other options I have are sweating on my Kindle or on the magazines in circulation from the library, and neither of those is very good.
I subscribe to both Time and Businessweek and, boy, do I make them suffer. I wait until I get offers of .25 to .50 per copy delivered before I bite.
i used to have somewhat of a problem with this, but i did manage to read most of the magazines i would receive. as my available time has decreased, i managed to cut down to only two…and i read them.