Magazines

Tip #51

Do you subscribe to a few magazines?  Are you reading all of them every time they come?  If not, consider calling the subscription department and ask for a refund.  Sometimes they will refund the amount you have not received.  Others offer a guarantee that if you don't like their magazine they will give you back the entire subscription amount.

At the very least cancel your subscription so you don't continue to receive a magazine that you are not reading and enjoying every month.  My personal rule is if I'm not excited every time I find the magazine in the mailbox then I need to stop getting it.

If you are getting magazines that you are reading and like to receive you may not know what to do with all of those magazines when you're done with them.  If they are just stacking up, some suggestions for getting rid of the magazine clutter around the house:

• Donate your read magazines to a nursing home, hospital, local senior center, or other similar organization. 
• Check with a local pre-school, daycare, or nursery school and see if they need magazines for the kids to cut up and make arts and crafts projects out of.  This is a great use if you have lots of old magazines stacked up. 
• When you are reading the magazine tear out the pages that have an article, tip, recipe or anything else of interest to you.  Instead of keeping the entire magazine for that one good recipe, simply make a binder with sheet protectors in it and file the items from magazines in there.  

        I have a binder that is labeled "Magazine Good Ideas".  I have 5 different sections in         mine: recipes, decorating, kids projects, good tips, and miscellaneous good ideas.          This way I can easily find and try a recipe from a magazine.  If we don't like it I can         get rid of it.  But at least I don't have the clutter of a whole magazine hanging                 around for a recipe.  Periodically I flip through my magazine binder and clean out             anything I haven't already tried or is no longer interesting to me.

Finally, remember that magazines are recyclable!