Best For Beginners

I subscribe to several financial magazines, of which "Money" is one. I think that "Money" is an excellent publication for neophyte investors, as it does provide generally sound information and advice. It is very good at explaining terminology in plain English, which is to be applauded, but investors with more knowledge of investments and financial planning would probably be better off with another magazine, like "Kiplinger's", for instance.

"Money" covers primarily investments in mutual funds, bonds, and stocks, although real estate and retirement planning are also dealt with regularly. I like the investment index feature in the back of the issue: it is honestly the only part of the magazine I routinely use anymore, although I do skim the articles, and read one or two per issue. My chief complaint with the magazine is how formulaic the articles are. It seems like every month there is an article called "The Best Places To Put Your Money Now", for instance. Timeliness is a good thing, but the magazine endorses long term investing (as do I) so the last thing I want to be doing is thinking about where to move my money to this month.

Beginning investors: this is an excellent magazine for you, and I say that without reservation. Overall though, "Money" is not bad, but if you are already fairly knowledgeable about financial management you can do much better.

Great steppingstone to other financial resources

Money magazine is an excellent starter magazine. The information in Barrons, Smart Money and other magazines will go over the heads of those with little or no investment knowledge. Many people don't know financial terminology such as 403(b), ESOP, Wrap fee, 529 plan, and load fund. Money magazine is a gentle introduction to these concepts. You may find in a year or two that you have outgrown Money and by then you should be able to move onto other financial magazines. The negative reviewers here fault Money for being unhelpful in stock-picking. However, there is a lot more to Money magazine than stocks. I personally find the information on taxes, mutual funds, retirement planning, the housing market, saving strategies and the latest business news interesting and helpful. If your interest is mainly in stocks I recommend Barrons instead. But for overall financial knowledge Money is the best magazine for beginners.

Mediocre

After a year's subscription, I dumped the magazine. It has some good recommendations of what not to buy, which works for me since I'm a conservative when it comes to buying stocks. However, recommendations to buy should be taken with a grain of salt. Most of the articles I find are just churn of the mill, non-substantial stuff which I already know or not interested.

Smartmoney, Kiplinger or Fortune are better choices for personal finance.