The other day I realized that I get several magazines that I don’t read. They’re interesting magazines, just not interesting enough for me to make it a priority to read them right now. All of these magazine subscriptions came for free so my airline frequent flyer miles wouldn’t expire (isn’t it crazy that you have to order something to keep an account current?). Each month, the magazines come, and then they either accumulate into a pile, or I toss them immediately into the recycle bin. This seems very wasteful, is definitely a poor use of resourses, and – at best – a source of unnecessary clutter.

So I pulled out the magazines, found the companies’ websites, and sent an email to each of them asking them to please cancel my subscription. I won’t get the miles back, and that’s fine. I just don’t want the unread magazines to continue arriving at my home.

Do you have magazines you don’t read? Whether or not you paid for a subscription, there’s no reason to continue receiving something you don’t use. It not only saves trees and other natural resources to stop receiving the magazine, but it also saves you from having to figure out what to do with it each month. And, if you’re like me, it saves you the heartache of feeling bad about receiving something you’re not going to use. So I encourage you to cancel any unused subscriptions (if you actually read the magazines you receive, great! Enjoy them!).

If you have suggestions on how I can keep my airline miles from expiring when I only fly sporadically that don’t involve subscribing to unwanted magazines, please let me know. I could use some help with this one.