Tips for Getting Free Stuff

When you are trying to build your savings, nothing is better than receiving free products or services. Believe it or not, there are plenty of free things out there waiting to be claimed by you. You are probably thinking that nothing is ever really free; so, there must be a catch somewhere. Well, the payment that you will have to put into your free items will only be your time and attention, but never cash. That price has to be pretty attractive to anyone interested in saving money.

1.    Find Free Samples
There are plenty of companies out there that are either new, or are offering a new product or service. These companies are often willing to give you a free sample in the hopes that that sample will entice you to return and spend your money on more items. A great way to stay in tuned to these offers is to sign up for free newsletters and electronic offers. If you’re like me, you typically choose to opt out when a company asks for your email address because the spam emails can become annoying. This is why you should create a second free email address just for these situations. You can have your personal email address separate from your free offer email address. You can then periodically scour your second email address for emails containing valuable deals and precious free samples.

2.    Complete Surveys
Companies want information from you. They want to learn the tastes and preferences of different demographics. This is why your survey answers are quite valuable. In return for answering a few questions, many companies will offer you a free gift to compensate you for your time.

3.    Visit Trade Shows
Stay aware of when trade shows are being held in your area. You may be required to pay a small entrance fee to enter the show, in some cases you will not, but once you are inside, you can find that many of the businesses at the show will have great samples and giveaways. Many businesses will give away small items such as shirts, pens, or other items with their business information printed on the side so that you will remember them later.

4.    Volunteer
You can get many services performed for free if you are willing to volunteer for students. This can range from getting your hair cut to having dental work completed. The students need practice and you can often get this work completed for free if you are willing to be a test subject of sorts. This might sound risky, but remember, these students are always supervised and the instructors would not allow them to work with the public if they did not show the competency to do so.

5.    Review 
Companies are always looking for ways to get their brand out into the public eye. If you enjoy being creative and writing about your opinions and experiences, start a blog in which you review products and services. If you generate enough buzz, companies will be willing to send you free items or give you free services in exchange for a review on your blog. Obviously, in this case, you would want to concentrate your review topics on the types of items in which you personally like, want, or need.

As you can see, if you are willing to put in the time and effort, you can get plenty of goods and services for free or next to nothing. Of course, in some of these cases you are going to have to do a little bit of work on your end, but in many cases the value will greatly outweigh the cost. 

Debbie Phillips enjoys writing about ideas to help stay at home moms from saving money to keeping the kids busy at FreeStuffandSamples.com.