This post is inspired by a post by my friend Stefanie. She mentioned renewing her subscription to Runner’s World, which made me realize that I do not have a single magazine subscription. Back in high school and for the first year of college I subscribed to Newsweek. Probably an unusual magazine for a teenager to read, but I read it to improve my English. Learning about politics and economics was a nice side effect, though.
When I lived in the US and for the year after that, I had a subscription for Cosmopolitan. In 2006, I let it expire and never renewed it. I don’t think I have ever subscribed to a German magazine. Frankly, that is because German magazines are almost as expensive when you subscribe as when you buy them in a store, so there is no incentive to pay for a one year subscription, when I can just buy it in the store when I actually want to read it and pay the same price.
US magazines are so much cheaper to subscribe to, even when you live abroad. Currently, a subscription to US Cosmopolitan is $45 a year. If you buy the US Cosmopolitan in a German store (station book stalls usually have international magazines) you pay around €10, nearly $14, for an issue. No offense but I’d rather buy a paperback book or two for that money!
I have often considered renewing my Cosmopolitan subscription. It seems they recycle the same articles in every issue, but it’s such a guilty pleasure too. At the price they charge at German stores, buying it occasionally is not an option for me, unfortunately.
But then I had the idea that it might make more sense to subscribe to a healthy living magazine. It would definitely make for more interesting and informative reading and it would tie in with my efforts to change my lifestyle. It would give me another source of information and it’d definitely be a better use of my money.
This is where you come in: do you ready any health magazines, such as Health, Women’s Health, Shape, Runner’s World? If so, would you recommend them? What is it you like / don’t like about them? And if you read any other interesting magazines, feel free to recommend them too!
I noticed too that it is really not worth it to subscribe to magazines in Germany – you can just browse at the store and buy the one you actually want/find interesting. I like Runner’s World because, well, it’s all running stuff: training plans, races, stories on other runners, gear reviews and so on. But I heard a lot of good things about Women’s Health. I think it talks about a lot more issues like healthy diets, weight loss, strength training and of course, exercising. Maybe you can browse in one of those huge “magazine shops” at the German train stations and see for yourself which magazines you like the best.
Love the new header.
Very nice. Are you going to blog here from now on only?
No, I am still blogging at my personal blog, just not feeling inspired lately. I hope that’ll change again soon. I just have a lot more to talk about on this blog at the moment.
Ah, I love this idea and also had never really thought about it! I used to subscribe to ZEIT (the newspaper) for a year because the subscription was in fact a great deal for students and also had a subscription for Greenpeace magazine and the ocean/travel themed MARE. But clearly I just read those for fun and interest. I think I’d like to get some new ideas and knowledge on health/dieting/weight loss/exercising every month from a reputable magazine… Because the whole weight loss thing and whatever I’m doing to reach my goals can get pretty boring and dull. I don’t have an recommendations but let us know if you end up liking a specific magazine!