Thursday, September 24, 2009

A mountain of magazines


Today, I want to share with you how I get so many magazines for free. Now I am both a) a magazine junkie and b) a magazine editor, so I probably have an unusually high level of interest in reading magazines. They are a source of news and entertainment, but they also give me ideas I can use in my day job. So, there's that. But it occurred to me that some of you might be interested in this: Of the 24 subscriptions I receive at home, I get 22 of them for free. Which ones?

In no particular order: Saveur, Better Homes and Gardens, Woman's Day, Marie Claire, Elle, Old House Journal, Martha Stewart Living, Garden & Gun, Country Living, Gourmet, Fast Company, Entrepreneur, Everyday Food, New York, Traditional Home, Esquire, Business Week, Smithsonian, Body and Soul, Forbes, Living the Country Life and the Wall Street Journal. The two I pay for? More (which was some great deal like $6 for a year) and Victoria (for which I actually pay full price). I currently buy my tea magazines on the newsstand, and that's about all I buy for myself.

How do I get so many magazines for free? Three ways. Freebizmag.com, e-rewards.com and mycokerewards.com. Sign up with freebizmag.com and they occasionally send you offers from magazines (and not just business magazines) trying to increase their circulation. At e-rewards.com, answer surveys and earn dollar credits which can then be used to purchase free, no-credit-card-on-file subscriptions, so you don't have to worry they'll automatically renew you. Finally, once every few months I enter the boxtop and bottlecap codes from Coke products at mycokerewards.com. The points add up and can be used to "purchase" magazines. So while you may not want as many magazines coming to your home as I do, you just may find that some of the ones you already read and pay for can be obtained for free!

Some of the latest tea news from October issues:

-- In Body and Soul, I read that Martha Stewart likes a small cup of cappuccino ("good cappuccino") each morning, while daughter Alexis likes to drink Earl Grey "boiling hot with nothing added."

-- In Better Homes and Gardens, the "Fresh Finds" include the new Double Dark Chocolate Maté from Republic of Tea. Yum!

-- In Traditional Home, I saw this ad for the perfect car to take us to tea! (Oh, that Waverly would get in the car business!)

-- Gourmet's "Obsessions" include an unusual teacup and saucer set I am happy to see is sold out, removing all temptation.

4 comments:

  1. Your magazine reading reminds me of when I was director of tourism of our town. I went into welcome centers and picked up tourist information brochures, looked at them, folded them and returned them to the rack. I was looking at the layout and design. I only kept a select few. Not that I'm back to being a regular tourist, I just go for the brochure content.

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  2. What an industrious person you are!

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  3. Wow, that's a lot of free magazines. You must be a whiz at speed reading. ;=)

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  4. Martha Stewart is a coffee drinker? That's a bit sad, in my opinion. You'd think such a prolific homemaker would go for the tea. It's only sensible. --Teaternity

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