but that's just my opinion

Remember all the uproar on the old Glitter board about how snobby the Budget Living mag was when it started up? Well, I do.

I was at Borders the other day, picking up Christmas gifts, and I saw BL sitting there, looking cute. I wanted a xmas magazine, and it was between that, MS Living, and Gourmet. Budget Living won out because it was cheaper.

So I took it home with semi-great expectations. It looked interesting, the taglines on the front showed promise, the cover was pretty, the mag had a nice feel to it, etc. Sat down to read it. Oh dear.

This is another magazine which has a premise that I love, but an execution that grates. I know it's about, you know, living on a budget and all, but do you really need to complain that many times about how underfunded your magazine is? I know, I complain about money a lot, but you're not paying to read this, are you? I paid almost four bucks to read about how little the staff of the magazine that I PAID FOR gets paid. It wasn't just mentioned once, either, or I could have chalked it up to an oversight.

That said, there were some interesting ideas in the magazine. Some nice DIY inspiration. But for a budget-conscious publication, there sure were a lot of spreads filled with nothing but stuff to buy. And a lot of "this is pricey BUT . . ." captions and buy-this-because snippets. The same people who are complaining about being paid less than a fast food employee are writing about sixty-dollar throw pillows.

I guess the titular "budget" is that of someone with a lot more discretionary income than me. Or, judging by their own claims, more than the employees of Budget Living. Which makes the magazine pretty pointless.