Customer Reviews

Kiplinger's Personal Finance magazine (1-year)

5 star:		(43)
4 star:		(18)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(6)

 

 

This magazine has paid for itself many times over with its very simple, relevant financial tips. I won't go into my personal details, but I estimate that by acting upon the advice I found in different articles over the past year, I will have saved and earned over $2000, and perhaps much more. This amount has not come from major windfalls from stock purchases, but rather from sound advice on taxes, credit cards, savings options, fee comparisons, etc.-- the types of things we all deal with often. I have subscribed to many magazines over the years, and the majority were only for 1 year-- this one I will continue renew for years to come!

Kiplinger's Personal Finance Magazine fits right in the middle between the lowest-common denominator approach of Money magazine and the head-in-the-clouds attitude at Worth magazine. Kiplinger's has a nicely balanced style and tone; it never preaches, and I almost always find a tip, suggestion, or tax-saving idea that pays for my year's subscription in every single issue. If that's the measure of the value of a personal finance magazine, then Kiplinger's Personal Finance Magazine deserves a five-star rating. Good stuff, and a good value!

I've read other personal finance magazines before and found them to be either too basic to be worth my time, or too focused on some obscure area. I'm not a financial professional, but I like to constantly increase my knowledge of personal finance. Kiplinger's has been great for that. I skip 80% of the articles in this magazine, but that still leaves one or two in every issue that teach me about an area I didn't know about -- where to buy bonds online the most cheaply, how to find good financial advice, why options are priced the way they are. One good article pays for the entire annual subscription. Each issue has a wide range of articles appealing to lots of levels of experience.

We used to subscribe to Kiplingers Personal Finance. We no longer do, because we couldn't help but notice a definite bias toward stock/bond purchasing over any other type of investing. This advice continued in the face of lower interest rates, the overpriced bull, then bear, market, and record low mortgage rates. Articles urging us to keep putting money into the market continued to appear regardless of market conditions. A quick look at the regular advertisers provides an explanation. In five years of subcribing, some of these same regular advertisers (whose results in the market were below par) never appeared in the "Poor or Worst" performers columns. For an overall, balanced view of things for the average investor, one of the personal finance magazines such as Money or Smart Money might be more helpful.

I had been subscribing to Money magazine for the past 14 years. At some point I wanted a change so I try Kiplinger's. I'd say comparing between the two Money seems to target more on upper income readers whereas Kiplinger's middle to lower. Money's written style is more technical whereas Kiplinger's is less.

Overall I'd say Kiplinger's content seems more fundamental than Money.

My retirement plan sends me a magazine, which is so boring that I don't even bother to open it anymore; Kiplinger's isn't at all like that. The best part of Kiplinger's is that it describes how real people with average salaries, kids, and debts can invest for the future. There are also some great articles for parents about how to teach their kids to manage their money. Everything seems practical, but I've yet to try any of it. The magazine is broken into four sections: `Ahead' short articles about finance news and current event, `investing' about investing mostly stocks, `your money' about ways to invest your money though not as technical as the investing section and more diverse, and `spending' which is basically general interest about new fun technologies and other ways to spend all the money saved or made through investing.

Kiplinger's Personal Finance is a worthy challenge to Money Magazine for a monthly dose of economic and investing trends, helpful financial tips, and - in KPF's case - a kind of populist advocacy for the little guy investor.

I came to KPF by way of the well-read hand-me-downs of one of Kiplinger Letters (for which, see elsewhere on [...]) that were pressed into my hands by my mother-in-law 25 years ago. She probably thought that without I'd lead her daughter into the financial wilderness, where we would thirst and die in good romantic fashion.

I eventually migrated up the Kiplinger food chain to the glossier KPF and have never left.

Much of the information provided by KPF (mutual fund and ETF results and the like) are widely available. The same could be said of the investing advice (look for no-loads with low fees, diversify, don't bail under pressure).

Where KPF excels is in the short articles and tips, which have often prodded me to take money- and/or sanity-saving moves. Two fine recent examples: the articles in the September 2006 issue entitled 'Buy a 2006 car on sale?' and '5 things to ask about silk ties'. Both of these articles provided solid input into two buying decisions I'm likely to make in the new year. What's more, the conclusions reached by these two authors are probably *not* the ones you'd anticipate.

In terms of macro-economic instincts, the Kiplinger Washington Editors run bullish, though not quite so much as Money's more cosmopolitan-posed writers. KPF won't lure you into buying quite as many fancy gentleman's toys either, a fact that is well observed by their authors, who tend to be mutual fund companies rather than designer suit or German auto makers.

Don't get me wrong, I read other financial rags and might not be as enthusiastic about KPF if it were my only source. But KPF's monthly arrival is still always welcomed, as it has been for years. It remains firmly entrenched in my top tier.

I have read several financial magazine: Money, Forbes, Business Week, Fortune, Smart Money, and Kiplinger's Personal Finance Magazine. I must say that of all these magazines, Kiplinger and Smart Money are the two most useful magazines in terms of personal finance. Of this two, Kiplinger is the better one. I find that most finance magazine provide very narrow opinions on investment and finance planning. The writers of Kiplinger, however, provide very diversified opinions on investment and finance planning. This may not sound like a good idea for novice, but it is certainly a welcome feature and the most feature, in my opinion, for a sophisticate reader.

I have subscribed to "Kiplinger's" for a number of years now, and will continue to do so into the foreseeable future. The magazine is inexpensive, timely, and authoritative, and conveys complex financial concepts in easily comprehensible terms. The magazine is very in favor of long term, high quality stock market investing, and on a monthly basis covers something relevant to current investment issues in the stock market. It also covers important information on taxes, retirement, paying for tuition, mortgages, and making good car buying (or leasing) decisions.

The magazine is a great source of news as it is related to your financial life in ways that are sometimes obvious, and sometimes less so. For instance they have articles on annuities, which you would expect, but also on drug costs, which you might not. They also have extremely useful mutual fund performance charts in every issue, which I find to be among the best features in the magazine. With the passage of different tax laws, "Kiplinger's" writes on the practical implications of the Federal tax code changes as well as regularly looking at state tax issues.

There are many personal financial magazines covering many different areas available today. If you want only one that will give you the overall most valuable information per page, "Kiplinger's" would be tough to beat.

I have been reading this magazine fo rover 4 years and have enjoyed the articles and have benefited from the advise. Although as I have read and educated myself even further I have started to grow more financiallt "mature" than what the magazine has to offer. I have since canceled my subscription. This is a great magazine for individuals and families looking to better understand the finance World in a consumer perspective. The article are very well written for the masses and if you send an e-mail to the staff they will get back to you very quickly.

If you read the advise you will be on the right path for your finances.