I Don’t mean to demean your effort there, it’s certainly a fine intro but since I’m such a newbie, I didn’t understand that the margin account would be involved and that it was an additional downside.

I had read about it in other places as well, and none of them mentioned that the extra cost was going on…or they may have called it a “margin account” which is meaningless to me (though I’m now beginning to understand more…)

All told, I really understood that I shouldn’t be messing with “shorting” until I understand a LOT more about investing in general.

For instance, I learned a little bit on a blog (FMF?) about “short selling” which I’ve always wondered about. Part of the discussion was that you borrowed shares from the broker. What I DIDN’T realize from that discussion (and others) was that you needed to open a margin account and that you would likely be charged interest while you held your stocks. I learned that in a similar discussion in Better Investing. (at least, if I’m remembering it correctly). Nothing earth shattering to those who are experienced I’m sure, but I’m a newbie.

I haven’t rigorously researched it to see if it has some sort of bias.

Blogs are great and I can almost always learn something neat.

Even Consumer Reports has major problems for me: they sometimes are too ignorant to even know what to test (electronics, especially) and then tend to test only big-ticket items. Also, they pretend to be catering to the entire US, but it’s clear they are based in the northeast–they often talk about regional retailers that aren’t available to me, gardening practices that would be very loopy for people in hot climates to follow, etc.

I prefer blogs. Seeing what regular people are dealing with on a daily basis is much more valuable to me. And that’s true even though most of you guys are much younger than me, have much higher salaries than I do, and are still getting out of consumer and/or student loan debt. For example, I learned about online savings accounts, money-saving recipes, and strategies for making your spending fit better with your values from blogs.

I’d also rather re-read The Tightwad Gazette and Your Money or Your Life than to read those magazines. They get me back in the proper mindset when the commercializing brainwashing has gotten to me again! Those money magazines feel like part of the brainwashing.

But if you insist, the only other one I’d recommend is Kiplinger’s.

Now if you want real fun and a GREAT magazine, go for The Family Handyman magazine.

@KC, I have to chuckle when you point out that SmartMoney is elitist. My first job was writing for SmartMoney, and I learned how to sound as snobby as possible in as few words as possible. That said, I’ve often thought SmartMoney might be hurting themselves with that tone.

They write for the readers they think they have, but I’ll bet more of their readers are ambitious but still struggling than already-made millionaires.

Money is really the only one you mentioned that I regularly find to have interesting content. Business Week and Kiplinger’s are hit or miss and Smart Money, Forbes, and Fortune are mostly miss, IMO. I actually currently get them all thanks to expiring Delta frequent flyer miles. I don’t have much experience with CR Money Advisor but I like CR.

My favorite is Kiplinger’s. I like both it and Money. But Kiplinger’s won me over when it ran a Green Issue a few months back focusing on ways to make money by “going green and investing green.” At first I read it as any other magazine (I’m not exactly a “greenie.”) But Kiplinger’s took a lot of backlash for that issue from conservatives and they defended their point by saying they don’t take a political stance, but rather look at ways to save their reader’s money, and that was what the issue focused on. I liked their opinion and gumption to stand up to the bullies. My guess is the majority of folks at Kiplinger’s are conservative, but they realize their mission is to save money for their readers and that’s what they were doing. I really respect their viewpoint now regardless of their or my political leanings. We are focused on the same goal – saving and making me money!