I always have enjoyed magazines and over the years, most times was subscribed to a couple or more at a time. Phone and online looking have definitely diminished not only my subscriptions but my time I will choose to look at one. Summer has always been a high magazine reading time for me. On vacation, at the pool or beach.
Now I get only one, Real Simple. I WANT to look at it but I don’t seem to make the time. I choose something else (sometimes my Kindle). It’s almost like a luxury of time I can’t seem to give myself to enjoy.
What do you still subscribe to?
What magazines do you read online or through a library link?
Magazines of the past for me were:
Midwest Living
BH&G
HGTV Living (?)
Food Network
Time (when my brother wrote for them)
Rachael Ray
I never did the entertainment magazines though if one of someone else’s was laying around I’d look at it.
I wonder if I wasn’t working and had more free time if I’d pick up the magazine habit again.
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My mom is in the process of culling her magazine subscriptions (and my dad’s). At one point, she was giving me a big brown paper bag of her previous issues every 6-8 weeks. I would flip through most, rip out recipes that would pile up until I tossed them out. I used to look at the bag and comment about all the trees that are dead because of them… I’m glad she’s down to 3-4 and my dad just gets Consumer Reports and Kiplingers.
I used to subscribe to Martha Stewart Living and HGTV but they ran out and I didn’t bother renewing. I stopped renewing my Entertainment Weekly because they started publishing monthly without changing their name (I used to get it to keep track of books I wanted to read and tv/movies to stream). The only one I have left is Real Simple and I really like it. It always has ideas for a new lip gloss or some small “pick me up” I can try. It runs out in 2023 so who knows what I’ll do then.
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When both of our Ds were younger we got lots of fashion magazines. Now I only get Food Network, Us and People. I give all of the Us and People magazines to D1 when finished and she takes them to friends at work.
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I still get magazines, The New Yorker and The Atlantic, but am more likely to read them online. I miss going on trips and stocking up on magazines I didn’t normally read, like Outside and Men’s Health and People and *.Texas Monthly. Come to think of it, pre pandemic, I used to grab magazines at check out.
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The current The New Yorker cover took my breath away a bit.
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I subscribe to no magazines. Yet, I keep getting some in the mail that I have never ever subscribed. Sports Illustrated, Good Housekeeping, Inc., Outdoors. This is such a waste of paper. I just throw them in the recycling. But I don’t know how to get it to stop.
I confess that when my neighbor’s son was selling magazines for the middle school I was his best customer. I am kind of a “magazine junkie”. I still subscribe to several including Midwest Living, Southern Living, Real Simple, Runner’s World and a few more. After I am finished I pass them along to friends.
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I only subscribe to Southern Living. My D gets it now as well. I am guilty of talking about the latest issue to arrive with her at several points in the last year by beginning the conversation saying it feels more like a brochure than a magazine now. I still love the recipes and the home decorating ideas.
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I don’t subscribe to any at this time. The only one I buy now and then off the stand is Closer. I call it the old People “People”. I know pretty much everyone in it. The current People magazine, I know a fraction. My past subscriptions were
More (my favorite magazine until they changed, now there is NO more).
Oprah
Good Housekeeping
National Geographic
I used to buy off the stand at one time:
Real Simple
Cottage Living
People
Us
Women’s Day
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@conmama - I LOVED More Magazine. That’s the one I miss.
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I don’t remember ever hearing of More! What type of magazine was it?
@abasket I would describe it as Glamour magazine (back when it was really good) but specifically for women over 40.
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Currently, we receive:
The New Yorker
Foreign Affairs
National Geographic History
Smithsonian
Car and Driver
Consumer Reports
Time
And via my Kindle Unlimited I occasionally will read People and Real Simple. But rarely.
When S heads to college in fall, I plan to only renew the last three on the list. If he wants to continue receiving the others at school (I doubt it) then I’ll do so.
And Time I only seem to renew Bc when I let the subscription end they harass me with deals that are impossible (eg $20 a year for 52 issues) to ignore so I give in. But even then I tend to pass them onto my parents who now complain about the small font. (Although I did enjoy the Amanda Gorman cover and story quite a bit a few months back.)
So a farewell to Time is anticipated, too. 
Edited: I like the New Yorker cartoons and recommended books column. But I’m often searching for a good discount. So it’s renewed only periodically.
New Yorker and New England Today, both online. Over the years, though, I’ve subscribed to Metropolitan Home, House Beautiful, Southern Living, Bon Appetit, and several other decor/home/food-related magazines. They all lapsed when I realized that the Internet gave me everything and more that I was getting from the subscriptions and helped keep my house free from paper clutter. Hubby, OTOH, gets Cigar Aficionado, Wine Spectator, and Whiskey Advocate, all oversized mags that take up waaaay too much space. I give him the evil eye every time a new one enters the house.
The only magazines we current subscribe to separately are The New Yorker and No Depression (music).
I use the separately qualifier because we also get Smithsonian, Soccer Coaches Journal and a couple of others as part of a membership in an organization
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Right now the only magazine that comes in the mail is Consumer Reports. I love Real Simple. I miss Eating Well…it was my favorite.
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I think Car and Driver is the only physical magazine I still receive. It’s getting mighty skinny, but it’s something like $7 per year. Many of my others have gone out of business.
I still prefer a physical form, and miss my old habit of paging through a Sunday paper for hours, but have come to accept using my iPad for just about everything these days.
I just happened upon More at the gym one day in my early 40’s. It was specifically for women 40 -60. Started in 1998. Lots of interesting, In depth articles that ranged from the quite serious to fun and frivolous geared towards middle aged women. Fashion part was age appropriate, but not fuddy Duddy. It was a good size magazine and I really looked forward to it each month. Then they hit a new editor and she ruined it.
Starting changing the demographics skewing younger and over the next 10 years it became a shell of itself and died.
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Only one - Cook’s Illustrated. I have every single issue since the charter issue back in 1993. I’ve always loved reading this magazine and can’t bring myself to part with them even though I also have online access to the recipes.
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I remember saying to my mother, “Mom, nobody has time to read everything in the New Yorker every week.” And she said, “Your father does.” I no longer subscribe to the New Yorker but my brother carries on where my father left off.
When I was a kid I devoured every issue of Time and Life. I still get Time but I start at the back because it is no longer a news magazine and I am usually uninterested in whatever deep dive they’re doing in the latest double issue.
I like Real Simple but I rarely see it at the supermarket. Has it gone to a bimonthly schedule or something?