I’m making a concerted effort to get my finances under control: pay off debts, save, invest, not bounce any checks or get my house repo’d, etc. For the relatively trivial sum of $10 - $12 per year, are any of the money magazines, like Money or Smart Money worth getting, or am I better off investing even those meager few dollars in hot stocks like the Ammalgamated Buggy Whip Corporation.
Money magazine is pretty good. Even if you don’t find specific advice relevant in every issue, it will help set a mindset and priorities that determine a healthy outlook on money and what it takes to manage it responsibly. Most people have no clue and their lives reflect that.
For starters, if you think Money magazine is going to either give you a hot stock pick that lets you destroy the market OR even give you enough knowledge to do so, it’s not going to.
That’s just an aside though – you don’t actually sound like that’s what you’re thinking.
What it can give you is general knowledge and tips about investing, maybe some things you hadn’t thought of, portfolio management advice, an interesting article about taxes, etc.
However, most of that stuff can be gleaned more concisely from a couple good books at your local library (e.g “The Intelligent Investor” or for a slightly better read, “A Random Walk Down Wall Street”).
However, if you just like reading about money and investing (like some people like reading about sports or entertainment) then, IMHO, it’s a good magazine for that.
I probably wouldn’t go for a magazine as much as a book. You can get a book that targets your needs, whether it’s budgeting, investing, or something else. A magazine has to present different up to date topics every month, who knows when it will touch on something that will help you.
If you want to learn about a subject, do what learning institutions do, use books. The basics don’t change that quickly. If you want to keep current or get new opinions on topics you already know, periodicals are the way to go.
The Motley Fool has lots of good, free intro-level information about investing and money management as well.
I came in to recommend The Motley Fool, so now I’ll just second it. 
Moving thread from IMHO to Cafe Society.