magazine subscriptions? Nobody I know subscribes to a magazine today unless they have been reading it since the days of movable type. Usually with bifocals.

Who the hell orders a magazine at this point? "Oh please, send me a half pound of garbage every month! And let me pay you for the privilege!"

Quick Jeeves, get me my monocle and spats and bring me the etchings for the summer home!

jayhawk88: Who the hell orders a magazine at this point? "Oh please, send me a half pound of garbage every month! And let me pay you for the privilege!"

I still occasionally get free subscriptions, but I end up recycling them anyway, so I really should stop signing up for them.

Maybe that's just a small example. I've been able to cut my cable bill $30 a month, and my wife quit smoking, which saves $120 a month. That's $1700 in my household right there. Nevermind that it's balanced out by hikes in gasoline prices, my garbage, water, and electric bills...along with my property taxes, and health and dental insurance. Even those of us who work hard and cut back where we can, we still get nailed on the other end. While people shouldn't spend out of their means, it would be nice to spoil oneself from time to time. And you can't do that when everything goes up in price every third month, yet you haven't had a raise in 3 years...no matter how hard you work. Therein lies the real problem.

We are? I just got laid off...and live in a county with pretty consistent 10% unemployment.

So, not so much. But, thank God I'm completely delevereged at least.

So I'm confused, are we supposed to spend money to get the economy moving and increase demand enough for there to be more jobs, or do we want to save all our money and decrease demand and watch the economy grind to a halt?

jayhawk88: Who the hell orders a magazine at this point? "Oh please, send me a half pound of garbage every month! And let me pay you for the privilege!"

I subscribe to several science and aviation magazines. You're right that most of it is garbage and ads, but there's always a few interesting articles, and when you can easily get them for about $1 an issue who cares? I find flipping through a magazine on the couch every so often to be kind of nice, even if I could go sit at the computer and read the same thing online.

Guelph35: So I'm confused, are we supposed to spend money to get the economy moving and increase demand enough for there to be more jobs, or do we want to save all our money and decrease demand and watch the economy grind to a halt?

Clearly we need to scream about rampant consumerism while creating art to sell that no one truly needs.

I get a few magazine subscriptions as gifts for Christmas, and many times they sit around unused, but there are times when there is a good recipe or instructions on building something and the floppy magazine format is very useful for moving around and putting in awkward locations. I also don't need to worry about spilling things on it like with my laptop or phone.

Also, Cooks Illustrated is more like a coffee table book than a magazine. That one I would pay for a subscription, if I didn't get one as a gift.

I've cut down on just about everything, but sometimes I get good beer instead of swillage if I can.

Guelph35: So I'm confused, are we supposed to spend money to get the economy moving and increase demand enough for there to be more jobs, or do we want to save all our money and decrease demand and watch the economy grind to a halt?

Both and neither.

We're supposed to spend money we actually have to get the economy going again while at the same time have the self control to not buy things we don't really need.

Need that economic churn going - if you can be just a bit more frugal than your neighbors you'll do better in the long run.

/so get the medium Starbucks instead of the large.
/yes, I know, shut up.

How are we supposed to create jobs if people don't buy stuff? As for magazines, I subscribe to Discover. Used to subscribe to Readers Digest, but after watching the ads incrementally crowd out the real material over the past 50-75 years, ( I've read the majority of my grandmother's old issues,) and seeing the general tone of the articles change, I'm done with it.

TheShavingofOccam123: You can have my Sunset magazine when you pry it from my cold, dead fingers. Third generation subscriber. I learned how to make boraks and pasties from Sunset.

Is that like Grit?

I subscribed to GQ on a whim in 2006.
I still receive the magazine because I'm too lazy to cancel the subscription and the cost is
automatically charged to my credit card.

i upped my meds-up yours: magazine subscriptions? Nobody I know subscribes to a magazine today unless they have been reading it since the days of movable type. Usually with bifocals.

I subscribe to The New Yorker and The Atlantic.

The New Yorker is the best journalism out there. The dig deeper than anyone else and there articles are more entertaining than most of what's out there on TV. A lot of the content also informs my professional life. Further, at no extra cost they give you their tablet app. It costs me like $70/year, or $1.50 per issue.

I could probably go without the The Atlantic, but the politically reporting tends to be quite good.

Cubs300: Maybe that's just a small example. I've been able to cut my cable bill $30 a month, and my wife quit smoking, which saves $120 a month. That's $1700 in my household right there. Nevermind that it's balanced out by hikes in gasoline prices, my garbage, water, and electric bills...along with my property taxes, and health and dental insurance. Even those of us who work hard and cut back where we can, we still get nailed on the other end. While people shouldn't spend out of their means, it would be nice to spoil oneself from time to time. And you can't do that when everything goes up in price every third month, yet you haven't had a raise in 3 years...no matter how hard you work. Therein lies the real problem.

You sound like you have wealth envy, you class warrior! Get a better job!


/I endorse your statements
//Response above is what the Libertarian goons actually think

why would anyone buy magazines? The stuff on them can be months out of date and thanks to the wonders of the internet I can get most of the pics online

Hoorah! Anecdotal evidence the economy is saved. Why is the Fed talking about 2-4 more years of 0% interest? I mean, Apple Stock is at all time high right? I thought Newt told me that Fartbongo has put more people on food stamps. Save me Mitt Romney! Zero taxes for the job creators. SEC and banking regulations be damned, I can trust business and Wall Street and the free market to save me from the fires of Hell and rapture me up to the Golden Gates. I cannot wait for my alabaster split-level ranch style track home with two chickens in every garage! Spend baby spend and all my sins are washed away. Yeah, I say unto thee, free market capitalism will keep thee as pure as pearls from the asses of Angels.

Guelph35: So I'm confused, are we supposed to spend money to get the economy moving and increase demand enough for there to be more jobs, or do we want to save all our money and decrease demand and watch the economy grind to a halt?

You're supposed to save 10% of your income.

It's a crappy article, but the point it makes poorly is that people would be more liquid if they splurged less, such as buying store brand vs name brands, or making their own coffee instead of buying it at Starbucks every day.

BeerBear: why would anyone buy magazines? The stuff on them can be months out of date and thanks to the wonders of the internet I can get most of the pics online

I don't like bring my laptop into the bathroom.

Southern Living reader here. Some of my favorite recipes are from that magazine and whenever they feature a spot in Virginia, I try to go check it out for myself.

Does not really matter. It's those gluts of money hoarded by billionaires and huge corporations that need to be busted up and returned to the economy.

That's all that will really get us moving again. Saving your money in a bank just means that the executives of the bank can say 'poof' and your money is gone. You know, 'cause regulations are bad.

Guelph35: So I'm confused, are we supposed to spend money to get the economy moving and increase demand enough for there to be more jobs, or do we want to save all our money and decrease demand and watch the economy grind to a halt?

That's the sad part. Our economy seems to thrive mainly on people consistently spending more than they can actually afford. Their wages barely keep up with their expenses, if they even actually do. If you're a producer or provider then this is great for you though, and it can be good for those relatively few who don't overspend either.

My wife and I haven't increased our spending terribly in many years, even though there have been some wage increases. We live on the same amount of money that we used to make even though we make more now, and we're fairly satisfied with the arrangement. We also try to buy things that last even if they cost more than other competing products, because we'd rather have the stuff last years and years instead of needing costly replacement. And we don't buy cars very often either.

We are arguably aren't necessarily good for the economy, as we do not conspicuously spend or consume. But, our habits have remained fairly consistent throughout the turbulence, so we probably aren't actually bad for it either.

As for subscription services like cable TV, if you have a TV with an ATSC tuner or if you have a digital converter, hook it up. You might be surprised by how much free-to-air content there is these days. We get 21 channels of unique content without including any religious channels. There are a couple of old movie channels, a couple of old TV show channels, a channel for living an active lifestyle, and three PBS channels among the selections. Plenty to choose from for us, and they're free. We had cable TV for many years, but got tired of more and more channels being taken to digital and increasing fees, and once Turner Classic Movies went away from analog we got rid of cable and have been happier for it. At least now we don't have to pay to find out that there's nothing on TV.

Here in the burbs on NYC the economy is worse than ever.

The number of jobs in the paper has been pitiful since sept 2008 but the past couple weeks has been much worse than usual.

since 2008, I've gotten my credit card balances to zero and paid off a car. I am continuing to make a car payment to myself to prefund the next car. I'm going to drive the one I have until the wheels fall off, and I'm hoping to pay for the next one in cash. I managed to put aside a household emergency fund which has been come in handy twice.

/C financial SB

TheShavingofOccam123: BeerBear: why would anyone buy magazines? The stuff on them can be months out of date and thanks to the wonders of the internet I can get most of the pics online

I used to be able to find plenty of pics on the internet that I can't find there anymore. There's a reason why they call it "a hard copy".

I'm worried about all those movies and tv programs I "bought" from Amazon.com. What happens if Amazon decides to close down its servers? Or start charging me to access them?

still plenty of places finding hard to find pics and I have a huge file saved and back up.

when I want to watch some old TV series I usually go on netflix or some other place

Am I the only one who wonders how the hell they managed to get un-crumpled bills into the piggy-bank in the first place?



Or is this one of those GMO hog banks with superpowers?

Trickle didn't doesn't work, so working Americans have trimmed their budgets and have finally found some breathing room.

Why should the middle and working class be tasked with injecting capital into the economy when rich farks like Romney wire it offshore?

Sooo what exactly are we supposed to do with our extra money?
Savings account?
CD?
Investments?
70" LED television?

Trickle down didn't and doesn't work, rather.

TheShavingofOccam123: I should have canceled Cox Cable the minute they took TCM onto digital. It was years ago and I finally canceled cable this month. I think I figured it would cost me 4 times what it used to cost me to watch TCM.

We did it the first month. We realized that if we took the ~$60 per month and used that money to buy boxed-sets of TV shows or movies we could actually get more content that we wanted to watch per month than if we kept cable.

Right now we're working our way through M*A*S*H. After that I'm going to pick up more of I Spy, and I'm thinking about getting Babylon 5 and Get Smart. We get to choose what we want to watch and when.

Cubs300: Maybe that's just a small example. I've been able to cut my cable bill $30 a month, and my wife quit smoking, which saves $120 a month. That's $1700 in my household right there. Nevermind that it's balanced out by hikes in gasoline prices, my garbage, water, and electric bills...along with my property taxes, and health and dental insurance. Even those of us who work hard and cut back where we can, we still get nailed on the other end. While people shouldn't spend out of their means, it would be nice to spoil oneself from time to time. And you can't do that when everything goes up in price every third month, yet you haven't had a raise in 3 years...no matter how hard you work. Therein lies the real problem.

Go have a moonlit Dinty Moore date.

Public Savant: Am I the only one who wonders how the hell they managed to get un-crumpled bills into the piggy-bank in the first place?

[www.mnn.com image 530x300]

Or is this one of those GMO hog banks with superpowers?

Can't you roll them up like you're doing a line and push them through the coinslot?

I read magazines when I poop, which is a lot.

ph0rk: Can't you roll them up like you're doing a line and push them through the coinslot?

You know, I think you're on to something there...

*roll* *roll*

This Old House, great magazine esp. if you have an old house.

I can't decide which to go with:

"All hail the Bush recovery!"

or

"And refrigerators. Don't forget the refrigerators, man!"