Get Your Free Lunch Living Off Freebies

I have always admired those who walk among us, grabbing freebies of whatever they can, wherever they can get them. In many ways, it seems to be a gift. One has to have the right levels of self-entitlement (the belief that you are somehow owed free stuff), the right levels of chutzpah, and a nice big dollop of luck. What seems like luck, however, often amounts to a lot of legwork that you just don’t consider.

How often have you walked right by free draws that require you to solve even the simplest puzzles because you can’t be bothered? How often have you declined to grab a free gift because you don’t want to be bothered to hear the pitch? Well, you are going to have to get over some of that pride and some of that annoyance if you are going to become one of those people who excels at getting free crap.

Who You Know
Unfortunately, I have found that the most common receivers of the best freebies are those people who can actually afford to buy stuff. The rich are great targets for freebies. They constantly have companies and individuals trying to gain their favour by tossing them freebies every now and again. This can range from shwag like free dinners, free tickets to sporting events or concerts, to discounts on services they can damn well afford.

As a mere peasant, one tip I have found to be very effective in getting freebies is befriending the rich and powerful. The thing is, people who have grown up with the knowledge that people are just going to hand them things for free don’t often appreciate or care about them. Consider this: if you had to work your can off to afford to buy season tickets for your favourite sports team, wouldn’t you make sure you were at every damn game, lest you let some of that hard work go to waste? Now, imagine that you have always gotten season tickets, in a corporate box filled with free booze. If you miss a game, you didn’t pay for it anyway, and even if your team is having a crappy season, you’ll have tickets again next year. Who cares if you miss a game, or arrive halfway through?

And if you do have to miss a game, who are you going to give the tickets to? Another rich friend who is in the box beside you? Or your lowly, poor buddy who expressed how lucky you must feel to have the box, and how much you must appreciate it. You know that he will appreciate it, and you feel generous, having given away something that cost you nothing to begin with. See? Everybody wins!

One way you will not be the beneficiary of second-hand freebees is if you are a dick, or if you greedily covet the freebies your richer friends receive. People like to give free stuff to nice people who they think will appreciate it. If you are given a freebie, even if your friend didn’t pay for it either, be grateful. Thank them, and reciprocate however you can. This will put you on the priority list for future freebies.

Free Services
One thing that can kill you financially are services: those things that you keep putting off, depsite your mother’s voice in your head, because you cannot afford them. One of the biggest money suckers is any sort of healthcare. While discount medical care is not usually a good idea, you can cash in on free, or next-to-it, dental, optical and massage by soliciting the schools that teach these skills. Almost any program that trains in personal care service requires that students acquire skills on actual human beings before they graduate. While many professions cop out and do this in a “practicum” setting, there are some that offer free or cheap services in order to give their students experience.

One of the biggest money-savers is dental colleges. You will find that training schools for orthodentists, dentists, dental hygenists, or dental assistants all require live, plaque-filled mouths to work on before they collect their degrees or diplomas and start charging you through … well, the teeth. If you need braces or other appliances, orthodentics is where you need to go. For fillings and root canals, see your dentists-in-training. And if you just need a clean, all dental hygenists and dental assistants need to scrape a quota of mouths before they are unleashed on the public.

On a much more pleasant note, massage therapists also need to get their hands on a certain number of bodies before they are able to be licensed by their governing body. If you are aching, call up all of the massage therapy schools in your city and find out if their students need a body to work on. There are so many schools for massage therapy popping up all over the place that you could probably manage a massage every couple of weeks. (Just don’t expect a happy ending—those are never free.)

If what you are looking for is a hot new look, or even just a trim, there are a couple of ways that you can cash in on free haircuts. If you are particularly experimental, offer your head to local salons and hairdresser schools for hair shows. They are always looking for people, who are adventurous to give up their locks to them to experiment on. You may even get yourself in a hair show or hairstyle magazine if you’re cute. Hair show cuts are usually free, as you give up most of your control to the hairstylist. If you want just a basic cut or colour, go to the hair dressing schools. For the cost of a large coffee, you can usually get a pretty decent toss.

Finally, the oldest trick in the book, which takes some motivation on your part, is keeping your eyes peeled for free trials. This is a classic way of “trying” a new gym every month, keeping in shape while constantly changing your locale. Another one to look out for is free car diagnostics. These are offered on the premise that if anything is wrong with your car, you will get fixed at the place running the free diagnostic, but hold your ground. If you a true freebie aficionado, you should have a backyard mechanic on retainer to check and see if it is a real problem, and then fix it for you at a fraction of the cost.

Products
If what you are after are products, then you might have to do a little more legwork. One great way to get new, free CDs, books, or DVDs is to get yourself a gig reviewing them for any old rag. When I worked at the local university paper, hundred of CDs came through the office, unsolicited. If you can attach yourself to a half-reputable publication (print or online), then chances are that you will get to keep the review copies that all of the distributors send you.

The old school method of getting free products was to write to companies complaining about a certain product. If you actually took the time to sit down and type a letter of complaint to a company now, you would likely still get a box of free shwag, just for the effort. Luckily, companies have caught on to the “free sample” marketing idea and have welcomed it with open arms. Most have chosen the Internet as their means of distributing said freebies, as it has a broad audience and the consumer actually signing up to receive their free samples connotes that they are interested, as opposed to sending out a million free samples in the mail which end up sitting in a drawer along with other unsolicited crap.

Many company Web sites have free offers on their sites, but luckily, the Internet community is nothing if it isn’t efficient. The heyday of Internet freebies has given birth to those who would further cash in by creating Web sites strictly for the purpose of accumulating those freebies all in one area for your convenience.

While many are suspicious of free offers on the Internet (and with good reason), using your melon will help you weed out the cranks and get you the free stuff. Don’t offer any personal information you are not comfortable sharing. For instance, they will obviously need your mailing address to send you the freebie, but there should be no need to give out your phone number, credit card info, social security number, or other sensitive info. If you have to give out an email address, create one from a free email site strictly for freebie purposes. That way, any spam lists you get thrown onto will not affect your primary address.

There are a few sites that will give you tips on freebie etiquette, tips for picking out the phonies, and lists of current freebies being offered. As with any Internet dealings, your best bet is that, if you are uncomfortable giving out the info they are requesting, or if the offer seems over and above what you are sued to, then leave it and go on to the next one.

There is a whole world of companies out there trying to sell you their services and products. The best way to beat them is at their own game: take what they are offering, but don’t but their line of bs. It is time to take back the power of the consumer. As much as companies have a right to invade every crack of your life with their marketing and advertising, you have a right to sample, for free, what they are offering. Why? Because they can’t afford to ignore your consumer power. Think about that during your next free massage.