Confession: I have an issue with magazine subscriptions. They appeal to me for numerous reasons - I love getting mail, I love magazines, and when you subscribe they are like a bazillion times cheaper than buying them at the supermarket (we are talking $1/issue instead of $6). What a deal, right?? It's like sending presents to myself! But, as part of my current attempts to par down (for money purposes, environmental purposes, and just "having less stuff" purposes), I made some cuts. Here're the subscriptions I canceled:
Vogue
TeenVogue
Allure
Glamour
Running Times
Details
Vegetarian Times
Vanity Fair
Health
Cooking Light
GQ
Esquire
Everyday Foods
Fitness
and....my beloved NYTimes weekend subscription.
And the ones I kept:
Whole Living
Self
n+1
OP
Atlantic Monthly
Harpers
Runners World
The New Yorker
Bitch
Bust
The NY Review of Books
Wow, intense to see them all out there. Yes, it's embarrassing to admit the magazines I subscribe(d) too, but it's all part of a process....The way I decided who to cut was to think about not only which ones I really enjoy, but also which ones make me feel good - or at least, don't make me feel bad (i.e. like some women's mags). I also considered which I'm happy to support because of the publishers or organizations that put them out. Finally, I tried to get rid of the magazines that focused on or encouraged more consumerism. Fighting against that impulse is hard enough without being reminded of the importance of STUFF every month....My love for magazines is the same as most of my consumer pull - the promise that somehow these purchases will transform me. Somehow if I get magazines about being stylish and organized and healthy, I will become that way. Now, sometimes magazines can be encouraging towards these things, it's true. But for the most part they just end up making me feel bad about myself and inclined towards purchasing shit. Don't need it.
Other attempts at cost saving: putting my YMCA membership on hold for the next two months, since it's nice out and I can excercize outside. Biking into work 2 days a week (saves gas, the environment, and I get excercize sans gym! Takes some planning, to be sure....). Selling books and clothes. Reports to come....
5 comments:
What a great start! I used to have piles and piles and piles of magazines. When I started getting rid of some, I started a binder where I could keep my favorite pages. I love it and still look at it often. It's all the inspiring things I love without all the ads.
It makes me giggle to think of you reading Glamour of Vogue, you don't seem like that kind of person! (I hope that's not offensive?)
If I subscribed to that many magazines, they'd probably go unread. I subscribe to Whole Living and Shambhala Sun and I always forget to read them! Every few months or so I'll sit down for an afternoon and just read issue after issue.
Your reasoning for ordering so many is pretty valid though, I love getting mail, too!
Thanks for the encouragement Taysa! Id be interested to hear more about the responses youve gotten throughout this process. Sometimes it's hard to be open about this stuff, because I feel like people criticize my spending, etc....It's an intimate process
Haha, Steff, I KNOW, I'm not a Vogue person at all....let alone Teen Vogue...
awesome.
That's an impressive list of cuts.
Though I'm now awfully curious, what are you still subscribed to?
-Ben
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