Tip For Saving When Renewing A Magazine Subscription
Most people choose to renew magazine subscriptions via the final renewal notice sent in the mail, which carries a big discount over the magazine's regular subscription price. Magazines know that their subscribers tend to renew with this final subscription renewal offer. But what you might not know is that renewing through the renewal notice can cost your a fair amount of money.
Before you send in the renewal notice, take a quick peak at the discount insert cards inside the magazine. These cards are aimed at people who don't yet have subscriptions to the magazine and usually offer deep discounts off the cover price -- so deep that they are usually much better than the discount renewal price you get sent in the mail.
Last time I renewed, Money magazine's discount renewal offer through the mail was over 100% more than the discount insert card that came with the magazine. Sports Illustrated wasn't quite as bad, but still more than 75% higher if I renewed than if I filled out the insert card. Most magazines have similar discrepancies between renewal discount prices and those they offer on the insert cards and it certainly pays to check before automatically sending back the renewal notice.
There is one issue that you need to take care about if you choose to use the insert card rather than the renewal notice. Since the card is for a completely new subscription (and not a continuation of the current one like the renewal notice), there is a chance that you will miss an issue of the magazine if you send it in too late or get an double issue if you send it in too early. For most people, however, this is a minor inconvenience considering the savings that you're likely to receive if opting for the insert card.
Comments
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Free Smart Money Magazine 1 year subscription currently available.
I will put another vote in for Ebay for getting magazines subs. I got about 5 last month and they were under $10 for 3 years. Not bad at all.
Festival of Frugality #13
Welcome, ladies and gentlemen. You have happened upon the very lucky 13th edition of the Festival of Frugality, a weekly compendium of the finest from the realm of the frugal blogger. I invite to step right up and follow along as we take a tour of t...
In addition to the above ways to save on magazine subscriptions, it is also possible to get a number of personal finance magazines for free although it takes a bit of work to do so.
A little known secret is that while the magazines want you to pay for the subscription to help defray their costs, they also want to keep their circulation numbers as high as possible because this allows them to charge more for the advertisements inside the magazine. If the magazine feels it’s going below a subscriber base number they need to attract and charge advertisers what they want, they will often times give away subscriptions for free in increase their circulation numbers.
This means that there are usually a couple of opportunities a year to get magazines for free - even popular ones although the offers for them are a lot less often than lower circulation magazines.
See the attached article from SmartMoney's website for sugestions on obtaining discount magazine subscriptions. The article indicates, as noted in the previous posts, that E-bay is probably the best source for discounted magazine subscriptions
www.smartmoney.com/dea...
Hi, I also have had great luck renewing subscriptions with Ebay. Some favorites like Consumer Repports were not there but most others were. Usually can either get new or indicate it is a renewal.
Ebay is also a notoriously fertile place to get great prices on magazine subscriptions/renewals... publications like Smithsonian and World Affairs won't be around but personal fabvorites like National Georgaphic Explorer and Wired were bargains.