I’ll admit to a not very frugal or green side of me. I like magazines. I have been known, when a little luxury spending cash comes my way, to buy five or six magazines at a time. Granted, this only happens once every three to six months - but it’s still not very frugal of me.

“Why don’t you just subscribe?” my husband asks me. “That way, you’ll get the magazines all year for much less.”

I know, I know. He’s right of course, but I always balked at spending the money on a subscription. Well, that ends now. Now, I have decided that I will not only subscribe to my favorite magazines, but I will only subscribe to those who offer a digital edition. I had no idea how nice they could look.

Mothering Magazine, for example, has a wonderful digital edition. It’s the magazine. Period. I’m not sure how many other magazines have digital editions. I am investigating that today and will post the results. But I am also writing to all of my favorite mags and asking them to offer a digital edition.

Look, I love paper. I do. I love my books and I love my catalogs too. But I can’t justify all of the extra paper anymore. Also, I love to keep them. So, going digital stops the clutter too. And I can burn my new digital magazines to CD and have them forever. I don’t have to worry about getting all clutter bug angst-ridden one day and throwing everything out!

Alternatively, if your favorite magazine doesn’t offer a digital edition, you could buy something like Amazon.com’s Kindle. I don’t have one of these yet, but I really like the idea. It reminds me of those PADDs on Star Trek (yes, I’m an admitted Trekkie). I know there are other readers of this sort available as well.

At first I didn’t like the idea of reading on the computer all of the time. I thought I would miss pages and the feel of the paper. And I do a little bit. But I had to ask myself, “is it worth killing the tree because I like the feel of a magazine in my hand?” No, of course not.

I recently gave my husband an iPod Touch for our anniversary. He’s a computer guy, so I thought he would like to have his own music, coupled with the Internet features (I didn’t get him an iPhone because we don’t get cell service here in Vermont - and certainly not from AT&T). I don’t particularly want one myself, but I did spend an enjoyable Sunday morning, sitting in my chair in the sunny window in the dining room, sipping coffee and reading The New York Times with his iPod. While it was the same experience as spreading the paper out in front of me on the couch, it was similar enough to make me not miss having to drive into a town that actually offers The Times and bringing it home and then reading it.

Also, with something like Kindle, you can download a copy of Newsweek off Amazon and get it for $1.50. That’s very frugal!

It is for this reason that I discontinued the Organically Inclined print newsletter. I no longer felt that I could call myself Organically Inclined and still print a newsletter. And, in keeping with the frugal and green idea, I am offering my novel, “Gandhi was a Libra,” as an e-book for free. Just send an email to me at mishkennedy@yahoo.com and you will receive the e-book. No strings attached. No strange offers. And I never sell e-mail addresses.

After you read it, let me know, not only what you thought of the book, but what your experience was reading a book in this format.