Getting Free Shit

[area51drone]

I'm curious of ways you all might have of getting stuff for free, aside from picking crap up on the side of the road, watching the craigslist free ads, dumb stuff like that.   I'm talking about relatively clever ways to get free stuff - stacking coupons, hacks, etc.

I'll tell you one - if you use bing as your search engine, you can use a greasemonkey script called "Bing Rewarder" that will get you the maximum points per day.   After about a month or so, you should have enough points to get a $5 amazon gift card, or a month of Xbox live, etc.  There are a slew of "rewards" you can cash your points in for.    I've probably earned about $70 so far, and honestly although bing isn't as good of a search engine, it gets the job done.   It isn't a lot, but it does add up and now and then you get to reward yourself with a new game or toy.   

[Zoo]

I learned this when I lived on the street. Go to a local fast food joint and look in the trash. You are looking for a receipt that has a special order (No Pickles, No Onions, or etc). Call the restaurant and tell them you came through earlier and you are allergic to whatever the receipt says. You were so upset that you threw the whole meal away. The Manager will give you anywhere from the meal or a $20 credit. Go back and oreder what you want just remember if it said NO ONIONS you order NO ONIONS again!!1

[Gd5150]

The best free shit I know of is this website called bellgab.com. You give them your email and name and you get access to everything from political commentary to literary haiku. And the best part? It's all free! You don't even have to rummage through dumpsters.

[jazmunda]

The best free shit I know of is this website called bellgab.com. You give them your email and name and you get access to everything from political commentary to literary haiku. And the best part? It's all free! You don't even have to rummage through dumpsters.

The jokes on them because I gave them a fake name.

[jazmunda]

I learned this when I lived on the street. Go to a local fast food joint and look in the trash. You are looking for a receipt that has a special order (No Pickles, No Onions, or etc). Call the restaurant and tell them you came through earlier and you are allergic to whatever the receipt says. You were so upset that you threw the whole meal away. The Manager will give you anywhere from the meal or a $20 credit. Go back and oreder what you want just remember if it said NO ONIONS you order NO ONIONS again!!1

The only down side is that you have to rummage through garbage.

[Zoo]

The only down side is that you have to rummage through garbage.

When you have nothing; garbage is not that big of a deal!!1

[jazmunda]

When you have nothing; garbage is not that big of a deal!!1

Homeless eh? That explains the "glug, glug".

[analog kid]

http://www.reddit.com/r/Frugal

http://www.reddit.com/r/beermoney

I like this guy's idea - start  a website with reviews of local restaurants, get a decent enough following to get free beer and food.

[Robert Ghostwolf's Ghost]

Outmaneuver your siblings and cousins by any means necessary to make sure you obtain absolute power of attorney over your senile grandmother's considerable financial holdings.  The richer you are, the more free stuff you get. 

[area51drone]

Outmaneuver your siblings and cousins by any means necessary to make sure you obtain absolute power of attorney over your senile grandmother's considerable financial holdings.  The richer you are, the more free stuff you get.

Ahh, that works well.  My father in law's Dad ended up leaving him absolutely nothing because his wife's kids somehow got power of attorney over him, voided his will and took everything for themselves.  So yeah, that works.

Do any of you remember Kozmo.com?   My girlfriend at the time discovered that a $5 off coupon they were handing out could be applied over and over (stacking) by going back one page and applying the same coupon over.    I ended up getting a few sandwiches and dvd rentals out of the thing, but eventually my friend took the deal to the extreme by trying to get them to give him a free Nintendo.   After that, they caught on.   It was good while it lasted though!

[WOTR]

Free money is easy... Set up a bank, take out money at 0% interest form the Fed, charge 5%, engage in fractional banking so you can loan out $10 for every $1 you hold and watch the $$$ roll in.  Write bad loans and demand the government buy them at full value then use that money to write more loans which you package and sell to unsuspecting investors (oh, use a rating service to make sure they appear to be solid investments.)

After you get enough money, you can manipulate the LIBOR rates to enrich yourself to the tune of billions and pay a few million in fines when discovered.  Use that profit to buy warehouses that deliver commodities such as copper and aluminum and slow down deliver to manipulate the prices for those commodities and rake in a little more cash.

If you still are not satisfied, you can always buy software and hardware to trade just ahead of your client and skim a fraction of 1% of each trade to keep for yourself.  Don't worry- it's perfectly legal being as you are the conduit to the market.

I can think of many other ways- but that should give you a pretty good start on obtaining free stuff for yourself.

[nooryisawesome]

http://www.icravefreebies.com/

http://freebies.org/

[area51drone]

http://www.icravefreebies.com/

http://freebies.org/

Hey, those are pretty cool, thanks

[paladin1991]

Free money is easy... Set up a bank, take out money at 0% interest form the Fed, charge 5%, engage in fractional banking so you can loan out $10 for every $1 you hold and watch the $$$ roll in.  Write bad loans and demand the government buy them at full value then use that money to write more loans which you package and sell to unsuspecting investors (oh, use a rating service to make sure they appear to be solid investments.)

After you get enough money, you can manipulate the LIBOR rates to enrich yourself to the tune of billions and pay a few million in fines when discovered.  Use that profit to buy warehouses that deliver commodities such as copper and aluminum and slow down deliver to manipulate the prices for those commodities and rake in a little more cash.

If you still are not satisfied, you can always buy software and hardware to trade just ahead of your client and skim a fraction of 1% of each trade to keep for yourself.  Don't worry- it's perfectly legal being as you are the conduit to the market.

I can think of many other ways- but that should give you a pretty good start on obtaining free stuff for yourself.

*facepalm*  Why didn't I think of that?  Oh yeah, I have marginal scruples and still bear a passing resemblance to something human.

[paladin1991]

Hey.  Pretty neat.   

[yumyumtree]

Got Trader Joe's?  If you're out of coffee some morning, you can get a tiny cup of free drip coffee in these parts.  Also, like CostCo, they have food samples EVERY DAY, not  just on weekends? I do buy a fair amount there, so don't feel guilty taking advantage.

Also, is anybody here on freecycle?  I've never gotten everything from there, but unloaded many things, especially before I moved.  I didn't have quite enough that had enough value to have a sale.  But I gave away houseplants and pots, fabric scraps, empty jars, cleaning rags, a matchbook collection from my chambermaid days, board games, Stephen King books, some shelving, lumber scraps and tomato plants. They do have rules, though.  The stuff must be 100% free, no strings attached, and people are not supposed to get greedy with outlandish requests(requesting an old-fashioned TV is reasonable --a new plasma or whatever is unrealistic.)  My peeve is people who want transportation.  No, I'm not able to transport leftover crafting supplies from Capitol Hill to Lake City.  You need to arrange that for yourself. Anyway, check it out.

When I lived in Seattle, you could score amazing stuff in some neighborhoods at the end of the month when people were moving.  They would just put it out, in alleys, near dumpsters or on parking strips. I got pots and pans, dishes, glassware, small furniture items, electronics, DVDs, videos, books, magazines, art supplies, pictures, posters, frames, bedding, towels, clothes, shoes, small rugs, pictures, frames, pet supplies, laundry baskets, dish drainers, plants and pots and Christmas stuff.  I don't do it here, mainly because people in Everett are too poor to put out anything good.

Do be careful of bedbugs.  Remember they don't just get into textiles.  They can also hide in wooden furniture, paper and

electronics.

After re-reading the question, I guess that my answer falls into the "dumb stuff" category.  Oh well. 

My experience with a lot of these other things is that when companies get onto you, loopholes get closed. For example people used to try to beat the phone companies at their own game by switching service constantly.  Now they lock people into 2 year contracts. A woman phoned Rush Limbaugh about her scheme to take advantage of pharmacies like Rite Aid who give a gift card for $10 or $20 when you change your prescription to them. She was very poor, on disability(probably) and medical and food benefits so was using them to buy non-food neccessities like toilet paper. I'm not a promiscuous prescription changer, but had to change when I moved to Everett anyway, so decided to try it at Safeway, who was offering gift cards.  It doesn't apply to people on government benefits for prescriptions, which I am. It may have once, but not any more. It's their right, of course, to make any rules about it they want, but I imagine it was because people were gaming the system. I've since switched prescriptions to QFC.  I didn't even ask about gift cards, but was happy to see that their co-pays are lower.

[Kelt]

Try taking things from other people's pockets as you mingle in a crowd.

[paladin1991]

Try taking things from other people's pockets as you mingle in a crowd.

Sometimes I find things before other ppl lose them.

[area51drone]

After re-reading the question, I guess that my answer falls into the "dumb stuff" category.  Oh well. 

Nah, freecycle is a good reminder of an alternative to craigslist, and certainly the finding stuff after people move out at the end of the month is a good idea.

[yumyumtree]

We have had a lot of craigslist horror stories up here--I mean true horror stories.  Frankly, I avoid them like the plague, even for jobhunting.

[eyenoeyeno]

We have had a lot of craigslist horror stories up here--I mean true horror stories.  Frankly, I avoid them like the plague, even for jobhunting.

I have purchased and sold many things on Craigslist, and always been a little concerned about being murdered. As well as it's so damn hard not to read the casual encounters section,  and in a small town that can really be horrifying. 

[Uncle Duke]

Back in the early 70s, a friend of my brother's decided to hitch hike from Ohio to San Francisco.  With him he carried a small pill bottle full of dead flies.  He'd go into places to eat, order a meal, then about 2/3 through it, he'd chuck a dead fly into what was left.  He'd then call over a waitress/employee, point at the deceased bug, and start to make a scene.  Worked great, never paid for a meal.......until he hit some little diner in the middle of nowhere, Kansas. 

When he complained to the waitress, she went to get the boss/cook/owner, a guy my brother's friend described as looking like "Cookie" in "Beetle Bailey".  Guy walks over, looks at fly, then reaches down and flicks it out of his beef hotshot.  Things went down hill from there as he refused to pay and they got into a shoving match.  A couple local redneck types got involved, and they proceeded to beat the snot out of him.  Somebody called the cops, and when he was patted down, they found the bottle of flies.  He spent a week in the local jail before being released.

[bateman]

Back in the early 70s, a friend of my brother's decided to hitch hike from Ohio to San Francisco.  With him he carried a small pill bottle full of dead flies.  He'd go into places to eat, order a meal, then about 2/3 through it, he'd chuck a dead fly into what was left.  He'd then call over a waitress/employee, point at the deceased bug, and start to make a scene.  Worked great, never paid for a meal.......until he hit some little diner in the middle of nowhere, Kansas. 

When he complained to the waitress, she went to get the boss/cook/owner, a guy my brother's friend described as looking like "Cookie" in "Beetle Bailey".  Guy walks over, looks at fly, then reaches down and flicks it out of his beef hotshot.  Things went down hill from there as he refused to pay and they got into a shoving match.  A couple local redneck types got involved, and they proceeded to beat the snot out of him.  Somebody called the cops, and when he was patted down, they found the bottle of flies.  He spent a week in the local jail before being released.

Best story ever.

[bateman]

http://www.icravefreebies.com/

http://freebies.org/

Thanks for this!! http://www.icravefreebies.com/2014/11/12/free-sample-of-mccormick-indian-essentials-seasoning-mix/

[popple]

Here is a sample/freebie site for tasty Canadians http://freestuff.smartcanucks.ca/

I would always look for free samples but the good stuff was usually limited to American citizens 

Here is something for flu&cold season. Take care bellgabbers <3 http://www.neilmed.com/usa/samplerequest.php

[area51drone]

Thanks for this!! http://www.icravefreebies.com/2014/11/12/free-sample-of-mccormick-indian-essentials-seasoning-mix/

I love how you have to answer the questions to see if you "qualify" to get the free seasoning.  LOL.  But, I found houseparty, which seems like it might be cool

[Bobbysaltereg0]

This works:

Find every product you can and go to the website and write  complaint. 9 out of ten times they will send you free products in the mail or really good coupons. Its just protocall for them to do this.

I even did one as a joke complaining about a product that wasnt even the company's. I complained to tasty kake about their ding dongs. Either they didnt read it or thought it was funny cause  they sent me coupon for a free family pack of tasty kakes

I did it with :
tasty kake (free family pack coupon)
Mach razor blades (proctor and gamble) (mega coupons)
baby diapers (free diaper coupons)
clif bars (actually got 3 free ones in the mail)

a few department stores and some more but  i forget.

[area51drone]

LOL.  I believe you 100%.   My wife wanted to buy some replacement lids for some kid bottles, and called the company just to ask where to buy them.  They said they only offered replacements for damaged ones - you couldn't get them otherwise.   So she told them they were damaged in the dishwasher - even admitted it was her fault, and they still sent her new ones, no charge.   She didn't even have to prove she owned the product, or that they were damaged for real.    So yeah, Bobby, I agree, that's a great idea if you can spin it the right way without flat out lying to them.

[yoego]

This was on a banner ad for me just now http://freebies.shareyourfreebies.com i didnt go past the first page but it looked legit.

Also you can get free cell phone service occasionally if you call customercare and report a problem. If the first guy dont help ask for a stuperviser. They got the keyz to the kingdom of cuss'em'more retention.

[Heather Wade]

This was on a banner ad for me just now http://freebies.shareyourfreebies.com i didnt go past the first page but it looked legit.

Also you can get free cell phone service occasionally if you call customercare and report a problem. If the first guy dont help ask for a stuperviser. They got the keyz to the kingdom of cuss'em'more retention.

That's an escalated call.  Please don't mess with inbound customer service agents because you want a new phone.


Do it via email.  Usually supervisors deal with emails.