Moneywise Magazine

I sent off for a free copy of this magazine and the February edition arrived in the post today. We used to subscribe using our Tesco vouchers, so we got it for free but I discontinued it last year as I found the advice too vague and not sufficiently focussed on actually saving money. Sending off for the trial edition was so I could have a look and see if it was worth getting a free subscription again !

So first of all the magazine has had a design revamp so that makes it easy to read but it is still full of adverts for financial products that are not that easy to understand, Fidelity China Special Situations anyone ? Now we do invest with Fidelity, as they have very low charges, but I don't think that this is their easiest to understand fund ! However, there is a good section in the magazine called 'Best Buys' which could be helpful to MissShoestring as this month it is all about finding a good mortgage deal.

An article I thought was a bit misleading was the one about taking volunteer trips once you are retired. One of our main aims in retiring early is to be free to do more volunteering but the cheapest trip featured in this article costs £895 ! I think the articles should really have been called 'Going on very expensive long-haul trips and paying to be allowed to volunteer'.

To counterbalance that there is quite a good opinion piece by Jasmine Birtles of 'money magpie' fame which talks about showing appreciation to the special people in your life all year round not just on commercial holidays such as Valentine's Day.

Is 'Moneywise' magazine good value for money ? Yes, if you can get it for free, I would not pay the £3.95 cover price as a great deal of the information inside is available at free sites such as 'Moneysaving Expert' and 'Motley Fool'. If you need a little reminder to go and get a few financial things sorted, such as having your savings in the place where they earn the most interest it can be a good read. It also runs good basic articles about real-life finances such as the one in the magazine on renting a flat. So, will I be subscribing again, possibly, if I can do it for free !

If you are interested in having a look at the magazine yourself then here is the link to get a free copy :-

https://www.moneywise.co.uk/free-copy