# Smart Investor is pretty dumb



## waimate01 (16 February 2015)

I quite like glancing through the Smart Investor magazine. It doesn't waste time telling me I should roll all my credit card debt into a personal loan, or reduce my expenses (I'm looking at you, Money magazine).

So I have been a subscriber for some years.

Today this arrived:

_Dear Waimate01,
We're changing how we deliver your copy of Smart Investor.
From 20th March Smart Investor will be inserted in the Australian Financial Review (AFR) on the third Friday of every month. As a result of these changes, Smart Investor is no longer available as a subscription product which means you have a $18.24 credit on your subscription.

	You can use this credit to transfer to an exclusive AFR subscription package which gives you the Friday and Saturday newspaper, plus digital access (web, tablet and mobile) for 12 weeks - valued at $264!_

In other words, _we won't accept your money any more and insist you start purchasing a product you've demonstrated you don't want._ Followed by _we'll give you some for free, even though you're doubtless well familiar with the product, on the assumption we know what you want better than you do._

Pretty dumb, Smart Investor.

See ya around.


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## So_Cynical (16 February 2015)

Smart investor and AFR are both Fairfax publications....both publications would be struggling financially.


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## Julia (16 February 2015)

waimate01 said:


> I quite like glancing through the Smart Investor magazine. It doesn't waste time telling me I should roll all my credit card debt into a personal loan, or reduce my expenses (I'm looking at you, Money magazine).
> 
> So I have been a subscriber for some years.
> 
> ...



I haven't had that letter yet.  I would not take up such an offer.  If there is a credit they will have to pay it out.
I wish myself luck with that:  I terminated my Telstra service (landline and mobile) at the end of November.
Having paid in advance as per their requirements, I ended up with a $72 credit.  A cheque has been promised.  And promised.  And promised.  Now almost mid February and it has yet to arrive.
Obviously the amount is unimportant, but I'm damned if they should get away with not paying out.

What will you do about your credit as above, Waimate?


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## waimate01 (17 February 2015)

Julia said:


> I haven't had that letter yet.  I would not take up such an offer.  If there is a credit they will have to pay it out.
> I wish myself luck with that:  I terminated my Telstra service (landline and mobile) at the end of November.
> Having paid in advance as per their requirements, I ended up with a $72 credit.  A cheque has been promised.  And promised.  And promised.  Now almost mid February and it has yet to arrive.
> Obviously the amount is unimportant, but I'm damned if they should get away with not paying out.
> ...




I've asked them to send the money. I really don't want 12 weeks worth of AFRs to have to carry out and put in the recycling.

Newspapers really are going the way of the blacksmith. As the SMH readership dwindles they keep raising the price. Astonishingly shortsighted to just ratchet up on the remaining customers when what they need to be doing is reinvent themselves. TV is on the same trajectory, just a decade or so behind.

It'll be (slightly) sad to see the passing of Smart Investor. Do you know of any alternatives?


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## clowboy (17 February 2015)

waimate01 said:


> I've asked them to send the money. I really don't want 12 weeks worth of AFRs to have to carry out and put in the recycling.
> 
> Newspapers really are going the way of the blacksmith. As the SMH readership dwindles they keep raising the price. Astonishingly shortsighted to just ratchet up on the remaining customers when what they need to be doing is reinvent themselves. TV is on the same trajectory, just a decade or so behind.
> 
> It'll be (slightly) sad to see the passing of Smart Investor. Do you know of any alternatives?




The wording is a little hard to decipher but it seems no matter how much credit you have you can have the same package, 12 weeks.  That's adding further salt to the wound, would like to be the individual that has $8 credit and can take up the offer.

Given that they stipulate that SI will now be in Fridays magazine every third week of the month the solution it would seem would be to just visit the local newsagent on that day?  Sure you might be getting a bunch of paper you don't want but I suspect the price will be that of the newspaper and not the magazine?  Can't charge 3 times as much once a month, surely?


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## ROE (17 February 2015)

waimate01 said:


> It'll be (slightly) sad to see the passing of Smart Investor. Do you know of any alternatives?




Third Friday of each month when you do your shopping pick up a copy of AFR


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## PinguPingu (17 February 2015)

ROE said:


> Third Friday of each month when you do your shopping pick up a copy of AFR




I've thought about getting the online subscription, because I enjoy reading about general macro news.


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## waimate01 (17 February 2015)

ROE said:


> Third Friday of each month when you do your shopping pick up a copy of AFR




For sure. But clearly Fairfax is saying they see too much overlap between the two and no longer want SI to have its own existence. I foretell that SI will wither within AFR. It'll look much the same for the first three months, then over time become not much more than a 'special section' until it eventually sinks beneath the waves.


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## ROE (17 February 2015)

waimate01 said:


> For sure. But clearly Fairfax is saying they see too much overlap between the two and no longer want SI to have its own existence. I foretell that SI will wither within AFR. It'll look much the same for the first three months, then over time become not much more than a 'special section' until it eventually sinks beneath the waves.




if you a regular reader of AFR what covered in Smart Investors cover in AFR through out the year with article here and there, AFR is more broad where as SI is concentrated on stocks and general personal finance.

you can generally get the same information with AFR subscriptions but you have to read a lot or filter out
stuff you only want... AFR and SI will merge and that cant be a bad thing for them, one edition, one print
less cost for them and hopefully more resource for better financial coverage


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## ROE (17 February 2015)

PinguPingu said:


> I've thought about getting the online subscription, because I enjoy reading about general macro news.




it is a must for any share market investors with decent portfolio


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## Julia (17 February 2015)

waimate01 said:


> It'll be (slightly) sad to see the passing of Smart Investor. Do you know of any alternatives?



No.  But some months ago I took up offer of three months free copies of "Money".   I was actually pleasantly surprised.  More general than SI, but some good commonsense stuff which would be really useful for people starting out.  
They do a lot of examples of personal situations where various experts respond to the financial questions, ranging across SMSF, shares, property, mortgages etc.


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