Reviews (9)

Better than I had imagined!
I purchased a value-package of this magazine and Kiplinger's, and I've been thrilled with both. About 20% of the articles and info are over my head, but the balance is understandable, helpful, and easily applied to my average money management skills. I've since ordered a SmartMoney subscription for three friends and relatives!

Good magazine, very poor customer service
I have subscriptions to Forbes, Smart Money, Money and Fortune. Out of all 4, i like Forbes and Fortune the most, because they seem to give details also on the backgrounds of the companies they are presenting as good buys. Even if Smart Money is not as good as these magazines, it is still well worth the money and provides a cheaper alternative to the beginner investor.

My main problem with Smart Money was not their writing, but their way of doing business. I made a one year subscription through Amazon and i was supposed to get the March issue as the first issue (in February). Well, i received this issue, but with it i was also sent the January and February issues (published in December of last year and January of this year). The complaints i made to their customer service department - for this cheap method they used to shorten my one year subscription by 2 months - were left with no answer. I know many magazines take advantage of their readers by sending them an older issue with the new one, but Smart Money takes the crown, sending me issues published last year!

Overall, if you can go past this, this magazine can be worth getting, especially for beginner investors. Otherwise, get Forbes or Fortune.

An update: I also e-mailed Amazon about this problem and - to their merit - they solved it immediately. While Smart Money still hasn't replied to my original e-mail, once Amazon contacted them, they added 2 more issues to my subscription. Big thanks goes again to the exceptional customer service from Amazon!

The Benchmark for Financial Magazines
Simply the best -- this magazine is very well laid out- not busy like Money seems to be, has some intermediate technical analysis, covers a great range of financial issues including new stock pics (performance of which which they track over time), mutual funds, financial managers/discount and full service broker comparisons, bonds, tax and retirement issues, travel, just the right amount (minimal) of tech product reviews, and a monthly car review/comparison.

I appreciate the focus on bargain hunting, both in stocks and the other areas mentioned above. These guys are not stock pumpers, but value seekers!

SmartMoney
Great financial analysis, insight and tips. Smarter than Money or Kiplinger's......

Nice magazine, geared toward the average consumer.
Great magazine. The editors are somehow able to keep it timely although it is a monthly magazine. It does a great job of addressing the needs of baby boomers. Definitely one of the top ten magazines I recommend to my clients. ... Read more

Amazon.com

The resolute research team at Consumer Reports has broken, melted, disabled, and jacked-up almost everything that's been offered for sale in the last few decades. If you want to know, for sure, if a product lives up to its claim, Consumer Reports has the answer. In addition to providing unbiased detailed analysis of goods ranging from chainsaws to televisions to washable wool sweaters, the canny staff offers common sense advice. Consider this classic, their take on the efficacy of conditioning shampoo: Shampoo is meant to be rinsed out, any conditioner in a good shampoo will go right down the drain. --Edith Sorenson ... Read more

Reviews (13)

A goldmine of helpful information!
I've subscribed to this magazine for years. First of all, I love magazines that don't accept advertising. They are committed to helping consumers make good, educating buying decisions. Each issue reviews a variety of products - from cars to canned soup, from CD players to cell phones, from dishwashers to drinking water - they have it all.

There's an option to have total access to Consumer Reports online. It's $24/year if you aren't a subscriber, and $19/year if you are a subscriber. Even though I subscribe, I still pay the money to have the wealth of information at my fingertips when I need it. I'm not organized enough to find the September 2002 issue handy when my freezer breaks down and I have to hurry out and buy a new one. When our family needs a major (or smaller) appliance, we ALWAYS check out Consumer Reports. Though we don't always buy their Best Buy or top pick, it alerts us about things to look for, features to consider, and what brands are more reliable. I love having all that information when I go to the store to buy something.

I enjoy their Letters section, their short articles, recalls, and updates on previous product reviews. When you subscribe to CR you get the 2004 Buyers Guide, which is a handy thing to have around the house! This is one magazine subscription that I never allow to expire.

Informative magazine with no competition, but . . .
Consumer Reports is in a league by itself. Where else are you going to find reliable information and comparisons on consumer products without the conflict of interest of paid advertising? However, it's a small monthly magazine; so don't be surprised if (1) several issues review no products you're interested in and (2) the item you're thinking of buying was last reviewed six years ago and the information is completely out-of-date.

A less serious problem is that the magazine's reviews occasionally give a product a mediocre rating for reasons that I find picky or insignificant. However, their criteria are clear, so it's not hard to know when this is the case. From time to time, they also seem to miss the point. For example, a faucet-mounted water filter is said to clog easily, when in fact it's designed to cut off after so many gallons. Removing the filter cartridge and reinserting it--which the manufacturer understandably advises against--takes 10 seconds and returns the flow to normal.

Nevertheless, I like the idea of what Consumer Reports offers and represents. That alone might be a reason to subscribe, if you have some disposable income for a good cause.

I don't subscribe and as someone who lives and earns modestly by choice, I probably never will. Instead, I consult Consumer Reports at my public library whenever I'm considering a purchase that the magazine might be helpful with. This has two advantages: (1) I save the price of a subscription and (2) I feel less disappointed and frustrated when it offers no useful information on a particular product (about 60% of the time).

If you buy a lot of consumer products beyond the essentials, then your chances of finding the magazine helpful are increased, the price of a subscription perhaps no problem, and the magazine is probably for you. If you're not sure, consult the magazine at the library before you're next couple of purchases. Then you'll know for yourself whether it's worth having your very own copy in your mailbox every month.

RULE 1: CONSIDER THE SOURCE
After decades of occasionally reading Consumer Reports at the public library and on newsstands, and after comparing my own experiences with the CR editorials and recommendations, I am forced to conclude that CR data are typically based on ignorance, laziness, or perhaps something less savory. Goods that are clearly and outstandingly best in class go unreviewed. Goods that have obvious problems with durability are rewarded top marks. I am forced to conclude that CR is essentially a channel for shilling certain manufacturers' goods, but the motives for and mechanics of their activity remain unknown to me.

informative
Consumer Reports is very informative. They test out different products and write up a review about them, the cool thing is they care about quality and not the brand name. I'd suggest this magazine if you frequently buy things and need to have a guide to inform you which product is the best. Sometimes the issues are filled with stuff that might not interest you, but don't give up because each month is different and overall its a very helpful magazine. This is one of those magazines where I keep the issues for a few months to refer back to when I am ready to make a purchase.

Somewhat Useful
A friend of mine once remarked that CR seesm like a great magazine "until they write about something you actually know a bit about..." and that's the problem with CR. They're great when it comes to quantifiable things like repair frequency, reliability, warranty information and so forth. They're much less useful when it comes to reporting on subjective things, or on technical matters.

That's a problem with trying to review every possible consumer item; you can't be an expert on everything. Sure, CR has their own labs and testers, but they're as likely as not, when confronted with something they can't quantify, to come up with some arbitrary measure and then rate products on that. For example, I've read some hilarious HiFi reviews that never involved actually *listening* to units. Instead, they take some statistic they consider to be critical and rate all units on that. Computer reviews often are very superficial- you'd do far, far better with PC or a similar magazine. And some of their financial advice on life insurance, mortgages and investment has been rather narrow, preaching single solutions for all.

So yeah, read CR when you're buying that next vacuum cleaner, or toaster, or popcorn popper, but before making any major purchasers or investments I'd look a bit further than the pages of CR. ... Read more

Abstract

Formerly called Kiplinger's Personal Finance Magazine.
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Reviews (7)

The Best Mass Market Personal Finance Magazine
I have subscribed to "Kiplinger's" for a number of years now, and will continue to do so into the foreseeable future. The magazine is inexpensive, timely, and authoritative, and conveys complex financial concepts in easily comprehensible terms. The magazine is very in favor of long term, high quality stock market investing, and on a monthly basis covers something relevant to current investment issues in the stock market. It also covers important information on taxes, retirement, paying for tuition, mortgages, and making good car buying (or leasing) decisions.

The magazine is a great source of news as it is related to your financial life in ways that are sometimes obvious, and sometimes less so. For instance they have articles on annuities, which you would expect, but also on drug costs, which you might not. They also have extremely useful mutual fund performance charts in every issue, which I find to be among the best features in the magazine. With the passage of different tax laws, "Kiplinger's" writes on the practical implications of the Federal tax code changes as well as regularly looking at state tax issues.

There are many personal financial magazines covering many different areas available today. If you want only one that will give you the overall most valuable information per page, "Kiplinger's" would be tough to beat.

Balanced? Decent market advice, but...
We used to subscribe to Kiplingers Personal Finance. We no longer do, because we couldn't help but notice a definite bias toward stock/bond purchasing over any other type of investing. This advice continued in the face of lower interest rates, the overpriced bull, then bear, market, and record low mortgage rates. Articles urging us to keep putting money into the market continued to appear regardless of market conditions. A quick look at the regular advertisers provides an explanation. In five years of subcribing, some of these same regular advertisers (whose results in the market were below par) never appeared in the "Poor or Worst" performers columns. For an overall, balanced view of things for the average investor, one of the personal finance magazines such as Money or Smart Money might be more helpful.

Subscription renewal
I have been contacted by mail and phone for renewal, My check for renewal was cashed by you in December 2003. What's up?

Not as boring as it sounds
My retirement plan sends me a magazine, which is so boring that I don't even bother to open it anymore; Kiplinger's isn't at all like that. The best part of Kiplinger's is that it describes how real people with average salaries, kids, and debts can invest for the future. There are also some great articles for parents about how to teach their kids to manage their money. Everything seems practical, but I've yet to try any of it. The magazine is broken into four sections: 'Ahead' short articles about finance news and current event, 'investing' about investing mostly stocks, 'your money' about ways to invest your money though not as technical as the investing section and more diverse, and 'spending' which is basically general interest about new fun technologies and other ways to spend all the money saved or made through investing.

The perfect guide to personal finance!
Kiplinger's Personal Finance Magazine fits right in the middle between the lowest-common denominator approach of Money magazine and the head-in-the-clouds attitude at Worth magazine. Kiplinger's has a nicely balanced style and tone; it never preaches, and I almost always find a tip, suggestion, or tax-saving idea that pays for my year's subscription in every single issue. If that's the measure of the value of a personal finance magazine, then Kiplinger's Personal Finance Magazine deserves a five-star rating. Good stuff, and a good value! ... Read more

Abstract

Personal and family finance magazine with articles providing guidance on making, investing, spending, and saving money.
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Reviews (9)

Best For Beginners
I subscribe to several financial magazines, of which "Money" is one. I think that "Money" is an excellent publication for neophyte investors, as it does provide generally sound information and advice. It is very good at explaining terminology in plain English, which is to be applauded, but investors with more knowledge of investments and financial planning would probably be better off with another magazine, like "Kiplinger's", for instance.

"Money" covers primarily investments in mutual funds, bonds, and stocks, although real estate and retirement planning are also dealt with regularly. I like the investment index feature in the back of the issue: it is honestly the only part of the magazine I routinely use anymore, although I do skim the articles, and read one or two per issue. My chief complaint with the magazine is how formulaic the articles are. It seems like every month there is an article called "The Best Places To Put Your Money Now", for instance. Timeliness is a good thing, but the magazine endorses long term investing (as do I) so the last thing I want to be doing is thinking about where to move my money to this month.

Beginning investors: this is an excellent magazine for you, and I say that without reservation. Overall though, "Money" is not bad, but if you are already fairly knowledgeable about financial management you can do much better.

Great steppingstone to other financial resources
Money magazine is an excellent starter magazine. The information in Barrons, Smart Money and other magazines will go over the heads of those with little or no investment knowledge. Many people don't know financial terminology such as 403(b), ESOP, Wrap fee, 529 plan, and load fund. Money magazine is a gentle introduction to these concepts. You may find in a year or two that you have outgrown Money and by then you should be able to move onto other financial magazines. The negative reviewers here fault Money for being unhelpful in stock-picking. However, there is a lot more to Money magazine than stocks. I personally find the information on taxes, mutual funds, retirement planning, the housing market, saving strategies and the latest business news interesting and helpful. If your interest is mainly in stocks I recommend Barrons instead. But for overall financial knowledge Money is the best magazine for beginners.

Mediocre
After a year's subscription, I dumped the magazine. It has some good recommendations of what not to buy, which works for me since I'm a conservative when it comes to buying stocks. However, recommendations to buy should be taken with a grain of salt. Most of the articles I find are just churn of the mill, non-substantial stuff which I already know or not interested.

Smartmoney, Kiplinger or Fortune are better choices for personal finance.

Flailing...
"Money" magazine has long been a staple of those who are looking to better their financial condition. But time and circumstance have not proven kind to it.

In an age when markets fluctuate wildly from day to day, a monthly newsmagazine for investors cannot match the timeliness and level of information needed to compete adequately in the stock market. Since "Money" has long been a staunch advocate of stock investing, this makes its advice dated and incomplete. As many websites and financial journals ("Barron's", "The Wall Street Journal") exist to fill the void for timely info, "Money" is becoming an anachronism. That its press deadlines are probably a month or two before publication, it lags far behind in catching trends and responding to them. Today's investors need better.

As a proponent of buying stock, "Money" has found its recommendations pummeled lately. Because people buy "Money" to help them make money, if the magazine cannot pick winners then its usefulness suffers. During this bear market, the magazine has flailed in its attempts to ride out the storm, trying to latch on to something, anything, that will work. This does not lend itself to investor confidence.

A case in point can illustrate. The magazine recently suggested a group of mutual funds across a variety of sectors/styles that they felt were good picks. The problem lay in the fact that not a single one had made money in the last couple years. Now certainly to make money you buy low and sell high, but there are several solid mutual fund companies that have made money in this market and would make money in a bull market, too. There are even funds that fared better than the average of the market, though they did not immediately turn a positive result. But "Money" did not pick any of those. With no end in sight to the market downturn, would you put money into a mutual fund that had lost 25% of its value in the last year?

"Money" excels when it discusses strategies for saving money on purchases, aids in avoiding taxes, or looks at financial vehicles that are less common (REITs, etc.), but since its bread and butter is still stocks and bonds, it is less helpful than other resources.

You've got to be able to swim with the sharks. Years ago, "Money" was able to stay afloat. But in today's different investing environment, "Money" is simply so much chum in the water.

Excellent for beginning individual investors
This is an excellent magazine for beginning individual investors. It has good recommendations for stock purchases. Good basic information for financial planning.
This is the magazine I recommend first for beginners to financial planning and beginners to investing in the stock market. ... Read more

Reviews (4)

Not thinking about their long term customers
Bottom Line offers intersting and worthwhile tips on coping in the modern world. What drives me nuts about them is that after subscribing to them for a few years it seems that they could offer loyal subscribers some deals on renewal like they do for new members. All the issues are about to save money. My tip quit subscribing and make them offer you a "new" deal.

Subscriber Beware
This is a good publication, but don't subscribe unless you want your junk mail to increase dramatically. They try to sell you a book on every subject under the sun, and when you ask to be removed from their mailing list there is no response.

Bottom Line/Personal
I have been reading this magazine for past 10+ years. It gives excellent information on wide variety of subjects pertaining to personal life. It talks about health, finance, business, careers, technology, etc. Easy to read and understand for all family members.

A grab bag of useful info
This slim newsletter is jam packed with short articles on a huge variety of subjects: finding a nursing home, managing employees, achieving goals, investment ideas, travel suggestions, you name it. The formula is pretty simple and effective: Talk to experts in a given field and boil it down into a short (rarely more than a page) list of suggestions. Fill in the rest with small factoids: places to write to get info on your bad knee, hot toys, how to handle a temper tantrum, etc. Although it's all over the map and the print is small, you'd be hard pressed to find someone who wouldn't find something of interest here. ... Read more

Abstract

Washington-based letter on tax including forecasts & judgements relating to legislation affecting income taxes & Social Security, as well as analysis of significant tax developments from government agencies & the courts.
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