Free Magazines: Save Money on Your Magazine Subscription Renewal

Anyone can get free magazines. No, this isn't a scam. Yes, it really does work. It's actually quite simple. All you need to do is wait to complete your magazine subscription renewal. Often, magazine companies will send you free magazines for months before you actually have to pay for your magazine subscription renewal.

You see, magazine companies rely on circulation numbers to attract advertisers. The advertisers don't care whether the readers pay or don't pay for the magazine - they just want to make sure that the magazine circulation is high so that their advertising is actually seen by readers.

In turn, magazine companies need both readers and advertisers. Yes, they want you to pay for your magazine subscription renewal. They won't pay for you to receive free magazines forever. But, in order to keep a high circulation rate, many magazines are willing to send you their product for months before they force you to pay for your magazine subscription.

I learned about this concept of magazines needing a high circulation rate in MBA school, but decided to try it out on my own. The idea of "free magazines" is great and what's the worst that can happen - I'd stop getting my magazines and would have to actually pay for them.

So, when my Newsweek subscription expired, I did nothing. I sent no payment and just waited to see what would happen. Sure enough, even after I received the "This Is Your Last Magazine" letter for the fifth time, the free magazines kept coming. I received free magazines for two months, which was a pretty nice treat.

This can work with newspapers too (probably not your local paper though, but it's worth a try). I tried the same ploy with The Wall Street Journal and received the paper for free for at least a month or two after I stopped paying. I'm not sure if that was my carriers fault, or an attempt by the Journal to keep their circulation higher. Either way, I was pretty happy with my free newspaper.

Of course, at some point the free magazines will stop and you'll have to figure out whether you want to start paying for them again. No matter what, it makes sense to wait to complete your magazine subscription renewal until you can get as many free magazines as the publisher will send (I'm trying again with BusinessWeek right now and I'm up to two free issues - here's hoping for at least another ten more).