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As
you can very well guess, I was spending a lot of money on
reading material, particularly magazines. Initially I
would simply buy whatever I fancied in a bookstore but that
was just too much. So I made a list of the magazines
that I really liked and subscribed to them. It still was
a lot of money. I tried to use my airline miles to order
subscriptions, but when I added up my yearly expenses on
magazines, despite my best efforts, I was still paying over
$300. Now on a monthly basis, it might not seem like a
lot of money but I just did not like the idea of spending so
much money on magazines, which have literally no value after
you read them. I mean I can decorate my study with books
and impress women with my collection but magazines are
perceived as garbage after they are read.
How did I discover eBay?
Stupid that I
was, I never really got into eBay. In fact I used to
think that it was crowded with people who were essentially
trading junk with each other. Then as I talked to a
friend of mine who was making a living selling antiques on
eBay, I realized that I had to explore it.
I started by
buying small things here and there and my wife started to bid
on fashion magazines from the fifties and sixties since she
wanted to make some artwork. It was during that period
that we discovered that you can buy magazines not only from
five decades ago but also bid on magazine subscriptions in the
future.
And the prices
are simply incredible. Recently we bought subscriptions
for six magazines for one to three years and the total price
is less than $6. I don't want to know how they make
money (they probably sell my mailing address and will send me
junk mail for next 50 years) but I think it is worth it.
A few things to
remember about magazine subscriptions on eBay:
- Magazines are often sold in bundles so
you might end up receiving some that make no sense for you
(e.g. we now receive a magazine on parenting while we do
not have kids; we plan to give it away to friends).
- Some magazines are simply not available
at these low prices.
- The durations of each magazines can
vary. So while some subscription might be for one
year, others will be for longer durations.
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