Save Money On Reading

I do a lot of reading of both books and magazines which can become costly if you are not careful. I know I could get a super deal by going to the library for free, but I like having the stuff and it makes me feel good. In the scope of things reading books and magazines is pretty cheap entertainment.

One area that I found huge price discrepancies was in magazine subscriptions and that is the purpose of this review. A magazine usually costs $4-$7 for a single issues while a subscription to that same magazine might only run $10 to $20! You can basically get 12 issues for the price of 2 or 4 issues and in most cases save about 75%.

Stop Paying 400% Extra!

So, get a subscription if you find yourself buying the same magazines at insane markups! I see people in line at the grocery store with magazines in hand and I have to question their sanity!

I decided to check around online and see what kind of magazine deals were floating around and where I could get magazine subscriptions for under $10.

The largest and most obvious place to look for magazines is none other than Magazines.com. I have used them before, but I am not that happy with their auto-renew policies or their prices.

Magazine Comparison

Magazines.com sells a subscription to Money for $19.99 while Books A Million sells the same subscription for 50% less at only $10.

Books A Million sells a subscription to Psycology Today for $16.97 while Best Deals Magazine sells the same subscription for only $5.95!

These are the same subscriptions for vastly different prices! You can save a lot of money with a little comparison shopping.

Say No to Auto-Renew

I got caught by this one by Magazines.com. I found a $5 coupon and got a subscription to Travel and Leisure for really cheap. A year goes by and all of a sudden my subscription has been renewed at a substantial markup! It was pretty darn sneaky if you ask me.

I could not cancel this online either. I had to call an 800 number, wait on hold, and demand back my money to cancel the renewal. I find this practice unethical, but sometimes it cannot be avoided as individual magazines are starting to do this to (I will probably just cancel them and read something else).

I never reordered my Travel and Leisure subscription because I was so pissed off about this! Had they just sent me a reminder and politely asked me to renew at a reasonable price, I would have had no problem. To bait me with a deal and then price gouge me on an automatic renewal just ruined my experience with Magazines.com.

So where would I go if I were looking for a great magazine under $10 without auto-renew? In no particular order, the following are my top 3 places to look for magazine deals.

1- Amazon.com

I like Amazon because they have a good selection and clearly state weather a subscription is subject to auto-renew. If I could not find a magazine I was looking for at Best Deal Magazines or Books A Million, then I would take a look here.

Their prices tend to run a bit higher, but they are straight forward and do not throw any surprises at you. You can also cancel the auto renewal online from what I read on their website so no hassles with 800 numbers open for only limited hours.

Amazon also features their own special deals from time to time, so it’s worth checking out to see what they have on sale.

2- Best Deal Magazines

Of all the sites I have looked at or tried, ironically I found the best deals at Best Deal Magazines. Their selection is limited, but they have many magazines for less than $10 and over 100 for less than $5! You can check out their Deal of the Day Offer to see what is on sale right now.

I ordered 2 subscriptions from them for less than $6 each. One of them was their weekly special and I only ended up paying $3.95 for Budget Travel which is about $12 on every other magazine website!

Best Deal Magazines DOES NOT auto-renew your subscription at a higher price like some other sites and I have not been able to find better magazine deals anywhere!

3- Books A Million

Books A Million has really good deals on many of their magazine subscriptions like one year of Travel and Leisure for $20 or 2 years for $25. That’s a no-brainer right there.

I’m gonna go ahead and order this from them since I now hate Magazines.com, but I cannot find any details about their auto renewal policy. I will be sure to let you know if any horror stories develop, but if there is auto-renew it will have to be disclosed to me at some point.

I think Books A Million has a really good selection and really good prices so I’m going to give their magazine service a try.