Sneaky Bastards

It drives me bonkers when magazines send me subscription renewal forms, even though my subscription isn't due to expire for at least another year. Lately I've started keeping a list of all the magazines I subscribe to and their respective expiration dates, because too many times I've gotten those damn renewal offers in the mail and almost signed up for another year on top of my existing subscription, which by itself will last until like 2030. For example, I'll be getting Money magazine until at least the summer of 2007 because I accidentally renewed twice one year. In fact, for a while they were sending me two copies of the magazine because they thought I had concurrent subscriptions. I had to call them to correct the problem, and then they stacked my subscriptions on top of each other, thereby extending them several more years. For all the good articles that Money has about how to increase your wealth or improve your savings, I've never once seen anything about making sure you don't squander your money to begin with by falling victim to magazine companies' sneaky marketing tricks. That'd be advice worth subscribing to.