Todd Romer, Executive Director of SparkleTeddy, sent me a few copies of SparkleTeddy to check out recently. I first saw a review of the publication on Get Rich Slowly and I was intrigued with the prospect of a personal finance magazine targeted towards college students. Before I heard of SparkleTeddy, I’d never seen a personal finance magazine focused towards college students so I think they’re definitely targeting an under-served niche. If you think about it, magazines like Kiplinger’s and Smart Money target an older demographic that actually has some significant income to put towards things like investments and retirement. When you’re in college, retirement is the farthest thing on their mind (they don’t have 401k’s, but they do have the option to go Roth IRA), so it’s not surprising that this is the case.
So, onto the magazine itself. The magazine has basically one main in-depth feature article with a bunch of one pagers surrounding it. The magazines I read featured Grady Sizemore, Miss Issa, and Danica Patrick; all young phenoms in their field. From the perspective that the magazine is about personal finance, the fact that the feature is all flash and not really actionable personal finance advice is a weak point. However, as a college student, I think that these type of pieces are interesting to read, even if they aren’t applicable to their daily lives from a personal finance perspective.
Now, the mini-articles they put around the feature are certainly relevant and in nice bite-sized nuggets that a college student would be able to read in about fifteen minutes and put to good use. For example, in the Grady Sizemore issue, there is a guide to build better credit, a guide to studying abroad, a list of top ten internships, and an overview of money market funds. In the Miss Issa issue, there’s a top ten resume mistakes article as well as an overview of tools to help you keep track of which of your deadbeat friends still owe you money.
Overall I think the features are interesting though not necessarily useful whereas the mini-articles are useful if you figure they’re targeting college students. SparkleTeddy is bimonthly and with an annual subscription price of $15.95, whether or not it’s worth it is up to you.
Thanks for the post and review of SparkleTeddy. We appreciate the time you took to look through the publication and provide insights. We always welcome to feedback that will make the next issue of Young Money better than the last. Since launching Young Money several years ago we still battle with providing the right mix of educational content along with other engaging content based more on todyay’s young adult lifestyle. So, we look forward to continuing our quest to provide an authoratative money and business magazine that keeps an element of fun and entertainment too.
