We have been in our new home for about two weeks, and we have unpacked none of the boxes that contain books. So when I was at WalMart the other day, I looked for a couple magazines to buy so we’d have some things to read. I saw the magazine, Real Simple, on the stands. “Ah,” I thought, “that will be perfect.” You know - we have a new house out in the country. The simple life sounds wonderful. This magazine would have some articles that would help in making this home the simple and calming place we want it to be. It seemed a little strange that a magazine about living simply would be so big, but I bought it nonetheless.
What silliness! It is a huge magazine - thick and oversized - almost 400 pages (396 to be exact). And I’d be willing to bet that at least 300 of those pages are advertisements. As a matter of fact, one gets to page 31 before the first article appears. The first 30 pages are ads and table-of-contents type stuff. Titles of articles are run-of-the-mill stuff like “Updos for holidays or Monday,” “The best cleaning tools,” “A survival guide to cold-and-flu season,” “Five Easy Dinners,” etc. Same old, same old. Where is the information about living simply? I may as well be reading Family Circle or Woman’s Day.
I feel cheated that I spent over four bucks for a magazine of ads. I can now understand why so many people stand in the store and read the magazine before buying it. Looking at the Real Simple website, I see that a yearly subscription runs around $24. You’d be better off spending the money on a couple good books or on a nice potted plant. Those would be the real simple pleasures.
I didn’t plan to write a slamming post about this magazine, but everytime I see that big old monstrosity of a magazine sitting there on the coffee table, I feel duped. It’s nothing but a typical women’s magazine but with about double the size and triple the ads. Yuck! It is definitely trash-can-bound.
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November 6th, 2007 at 6:43 pm
Enjoy your blog…but gotta disagree with you on Real Simple. It’s one of the only magazines I’ll subscribe to when I can afford subscriptions…..but you’re right, it’s not really about living super simple.
TMS: It was probably more my expectations. I was anticipating something that had to do with simple living - and it didn’t at all. It was just another women’s magazine with recipes, decorating tips and “how-to” articles. Thanks for stopping by - and I’m happy to hear another opinion.
November 6th, 2007 at 10:30 pm
The only thing really simple in life is sleeping, and when you have an infant and a toddler, even that’s not simple.