burendasan4 | "Real Simple" Magazine

Have any of you heard of or read the "Real Simple" magazine? It's one of those "home living" magazines that give you all sorts of practical domestic advice (even for a "beginner" like me) and feature some good recipes. For those who know me well, you might remember me getting all excited about this magazine. I even considered getting a subscription for for it because I kept buying it every month. However, over time, I saw that a huge chunk of the magazine is devoted to advertising and a lot of the "tips" were to buy some sort of expensive product. On top of that, it's a rather expensive magazine, so I stopped buying it. I liked the recipes the best but I figured that if it was just the recipes I wanted, that I should go for a magazine like Everyday with Rachel Ray instead. However, every month, the very attractive and beautiful cover of the latest issue of "Real Simple" lures me and I have to will myself not to buy it.

Well, I found my "support group" for this. Last night I was on Amazon trying to find the Rachel Ray magazine (a MUCH better magazine) that I want a subscription of so I could send the link to my sisters. Among the other related magazines that were "recommended" to me, I saw a link for the "Real Simple" magazine. It then occurred to me that I should read the Customer Reviews to see how other people rated the magazine. Well, sure enough, the majority of the reviews expressed the exact same opinion as me. Strangely enough though, a large portion of the reviews gave the magazine 5 stars, but for the most part, the reviews gave the magazine only one star. However, even those "in between" reviews were not every favorable. Now, I don't usually write customer reviews or give ratings, but I just had to do it for this one!

I was drawn to this magazine by the beautiful photography and promises of useful tips on everything from cleaning your kitchen to cheap gift ideas. And yes, there are a few interesting articles, tidbits, and suggestions, but I started to notice that a large portion of each issue is used for advertisements. And as many others have pointed out, there is a LOT of product placement within the articles/features themselves. And many of these recommended products are so expensive that I concluded that this magazine is targeted at wealthy housewives who can afford these things.
However, what I like most about this magazine are the recipes. I've cooked some really yummy meals that were featured in the cooking section and recently they've added a "shopping list" section that puts all the ingredients needed for the recipes in one shopping list. I bought the magazine for several months but unfortunately, the recipes alone were not worth the hefty price (and mostly empty content), so I stopped buying the magazine.
Defenitely NOT for the budget-minded!

So if you've ever thought about buying the magazine, don't even bother :-P