In our efforts to cut back our daily expenses, maybe we’ve let magazine subscriptions lapse. Consumer Reports on Health, Diabetes Forecast, Mayo Clinic Health Letter, Nutrition Action Healthletter, Weight Watchers, Yoga Journal, and many others keep us informed, even entertained as we strive to achieve the best health for ourselves and our families. But at $40. or more a year each for 4 or 5 favorite reads, the savings from dropping or not renewing a subscription can be serious money and the difference between a balanced budget and disaster. But is that kind of economizing short sighted? Do we run the risk of not keeping current with health and wellness matters by dropping our paper subscriptions? Without these subscriptions are we doing enough to stay informed?
One alternative is to look online and fortunately, many health oriented publications have an online presence, including Mayo Clinic Health Letter , Yoga Journal, Prevention, Women’s Health, and Living Without . For many readers though, online reading isn’t convenient or possible and that’s where your local library can help out. The Downtown Lansing Library of the Capital Area District Library system subscribes to hundreds of magazines including over 25 dedicated to health issues, and, all but the current issue can be checked out for 3 weeks. You can search the library catalog to see if your favorite title is held and then stop by the library to check (literally) them out. Saving money is something we all must do at some point and taking advantage of the library’s “shared resources” philosophy enables us to do so without feeling deprived.
