Hey, It’s Free!

Last year in the midst of the cold and flu season, I was working retail. Alright, alright. I was a cashier at a Wal*Mart Neighborhood Market. One of the grocery store versions of Wal*Mart. And even more so, I was the Liquor Clerk.

And while all of that alcohol around me would have been a great antiseptic for my sore throat and would have helped me fall asleep even with my worst headache and stuffy nose–and quite well too, might I add–I just kept drinking a huge bottle of water filled with Airborne alongside sucking on zinc lozenges like they were going out of style. And if you could get past the funky neon greenish color that my water had turned, well, I guess I was pretty normal.

Even still, I learned how awesome Airborne really was. And what’s even cooler is this free Airborne Power Pixies sample they’re giving out right now on their website. It’s the kids version of the stuff, so to make it the “hip thing” for the kids, there’s no water needed and you pour it right on your tongue. Its like a medicinal Pop Rocks!

And better than that, because it’s made for kids, you know it’s bound to taste good. Because, well, even though my water was neon green? Let’s just say that you had to pair the taste with the color…

[via the forums]

Technorati Tags: free, airborne, neon green, kids, pop rocks

There are three channels that as a man I stay far far away from. Those being Lifetime, Lifetime Movie, and Oxygen. And those who are in the know, know that Womens Entertainment, or WE as they call themselves, isn’t as bad as the others. Hell, they actually play Princess Bride every other week somewhere in their lineup, so there’s a reason to watch it.

Still, there’s just something about the other three that never sits right with me. And amidst those, you have reality shows like the whole “Tori and Dean: Inn Love.” Well, if I just dissed your show, I’m sorry. But here, to make up for it, I have this free “I ♥ McDeany” t-shirt offer that Oxygen happens to have available for folks.

And gentlemen who might have been dissed too? Sorry, I’ve got nothin’. It’s a ladies baby-doll shirt for the show, so unless you rip off the sleeves to turn it into a masculine muscle shirt for the gym, well, you’ll have to wait for my next freebee.

Though, I’m sure that the guy working out next to you would wonder who McDeany is…

EDIT: And an hour after I post this, it’s already dead. I guess a lot of people really love McDeany…

[via the forums]

Technorati Tags: free, shirt, Oxygen, womens television, gym

Here’s a link to the video above just in case it’s not working for you. Also, I know I said I’ll be taking a break from the Internet in the video, but come on, it’s me we’re talking about here. I’m sure I’ll find a cyber cafe or ninety while I’m there Don’t forget about the Kiva.org Charity Drive that we’re doing and if you have any questions about it, post them in the comments or on the forums!

Until next time!

There’s an old adage that when the boss is away, the workers will play. Or something of that sort. I like it the way I said it because it rhymes.

Needless to say, folks, Goob is going to be out of town for the next two weeks or so down in South America, meaning you’re stuck with me for these next 14 days. If I had known about these free Murad skin care samples a week or so back, I could have a spa day while the boss here is gone. No worries, just cucumbers and facial mud and a fuzzy white robe (Not actual contents of sample package, but I’m allowed to dream!)…

But, because it takes two to three weeks to get here? I guess I’ll get that day as soon as he gets back… And it means I get to be the person who plays here for your freebee loving goodness of doom.

So uh, if you find any freebees over the next few weeks? Feel free to send them to me on the forums or to my e-mail (Found on the forums, so why haven’t you joined yet?), and I’ll do my best to get them up here for you as soon as possible.

Unless I raid my wife’s skin care cabinet and have my own spa day first…

[via the forums]

Technorati Tags: free, skin care, murad, goob, spa day

EDIT: The button below should be working now.

So there’s been a section on the freebie forums called Hey, It’s Free…To Help People! for months now, which I have yet to do a darn thing with. But I decided to change that today.

A few days ago I heard about Kiva.org, which is a non-profit website that specializes in helping aspiring entrepreneurs in third world nations. Using microfinancing, they are given small loans to be used to improve their daily lives before they ultimately pay the loan back to us lenders. To idea is to enable people to help themselves individually instead of simply throwing billions of dollars in aide to a foreign government and hoping it trickles down to the people. In fact, Muhammad Yunus recently won the Nobel Peace Prize for his research into microfinancing and wrote a book called Banker To The Poor, where he details how effective the method is.

Just to give you an example, José Medina lives in Paraguay and is trying to raise $600 to purchase supplies for his handcrafts business. In 12 months time, he would have made enough money to repay the loan in full . They have had 2171 loans paid back in full and only 7 which have defaulted! Those are some darn good odds if you ask me.

Now, Kiva lets anybody loan money, but the minimum amount is $25. But I thought if anybody out there wanted to simply donate $5 or $10, that we could put our money together in a HIF pool or something and then pick a person to “sponsor” and help! It’d be kinda cool to think that all of us here at HIF specifically helped one person out there in the third world better their life!

So the basic plan of action is this: Donations of any amount can be sent to me, where I add them all together. No matter how much or little money we actually raise here, come September 12th, I’ll post two or three different potential people that we can “invest” in to help them out. We’ll take a day to pick a person and then I’ll invest all the money I collected into their venture. We’ll all be able to follow their progress along via Kiva.org I’ll even post a progress bar here on HIF or something. Then when they ultimately (and hopefully!) succeed in their business, they’ll pay me back. At which point, I’ll announce that we need to pick a new person and start the process all over again!

The beauty of this is that your one time donation doesn’t just help one person, but multiple people time and time again. If this is something nobody’s interested in, no worries, but I thought since we all get so many freebies all the time, maybe we could muster up a little support and pass the baton to those who could really use it.

So if you want to donate something to this cause, you can send it to my Paypal address, which is shyzer@shyzer.com or you can just click the donation button below. (Shyzer.com is my personal website that I owned years before HIF, hence when my Paypal account isn’t a HIF e-mail :)) You can donate money using a debit or credit card or if you already have a Paypal account, you can donate through that.

Thanks for taking part in this and here’s to actually making a difference in the world!

My wife calls me a human garbage disposal. The five second rule is more like a ten second rule for me if I watch it drop, and even if it’s been a little bit longer, I’m not afraid to sniff and nibble. Because, well, let’s face it: when you’re hungry, you’re hungry.

And I’ve been going through our pantry and eating all of the old food that we need to get rid of. Granola bars that expired last June, popcorn that says “Good before 8/30/06,” and the Sty Stallone Protein Pudding that I think said 2005 on the side of the nuclear proof style can. It tasted a little tinny, but it hit the spot.

Needless to say, I don’t think I can wait too long for this free Kashi snack. It was already long enough of a wait to click the “Free Snack” button, then the “Skip” button, just so I could request it that I found myself peeling open a Larabar, throwing away the half with the light spiderweb like mold, and snarfing down the other half.

Iron chef? Maybe not. But I’m working on having an iron stomach. Now, you’ll excuse me. I think our milk just expired and I’m thirsty…

[via the forums]

Every time I look at that title, it’s like I’m seeing double. Double vision. Like that Foreigner song.

And if it wasn’t for a foreigner named Juan Mann, we wouldn’t be even thinking of September 10th being International Free Hugs Day. So in preface to that, I happened across a free hugs pin. Just head to that page and send them an e-mail as per instructed, and they’ll get you one as soon as they can. And with the high demand they’re in, you might not be able to get one in time for International Free Hugs Day. If that happens to be the case, I offer you an alternative that’s almost free:

1) Head out to your garage or junk drawer and grab the duct tape. Yes, I know you have a roll. If you don’t, you should get one because everyone should have a roll of duct tape around somewhere.
2) Take a cheap freebee shirt that you don’t like the design on and make sure it’s clean and fresh smelling with some freebee detergent.
3) Turn said shirt inside out and make sure again that it’s clean and there’s no armpit-sweat stains. Those bring bad karma for free hugging and drive people away.
4) Use duct tape to write “Free Hugs” on your shirt.
5) Wear with open arms. And lots of deodorant.

And I’ll be back to remind everyone of International Free Hugs Day in another few weeks…

[via the forums]

When I first saw the link to this free Darfur Olympic Dreams temporary tattoo, I laughed. I’m sorry, but I just assumed from the name that this was a tattoo that was requesting for Darfur to be allowed into the Olympics or something. And then I though, yes, the #1 priority for every living person in Darfur must be to see their area represented in the 2008 Summer Olympics. It’s right there at the top of their priorities list, ahead of peace, a permanent home, and food. Then I actually clicked the link and saw it was a serious effort to help get peace, shelter, and food to Darfur. Through China. Or the Olympics. I’m not sure, all I know is that I might be headed downward after I die for laughing at the people of Darfur.

[via the forums]

Hey folks, remember, the free Orange Julius offer is going on today and tomorrow only! Check out the post I made earlier where I list the times and other details. Enjoy!

Friend of the site KristoferBrozio.com is giving away a free Star Wars R2-D2 1gig USB drive. All you have to do to enter is either comment on the site, post a link to the free offer on your blog (if you have one), or send an e-mail to dsmcontest [@] gmail.com with the subject line as “MIMOBOT.” It’s actually a limited edition item, as there were only 3,500 of these made. This one is labeled as #667, so not only is it cool, but it’s kind of a collectible! You have until September 6th to enter, but why wait? Go do it now! Actually, on second though, don’t go enter. The fewer Hiffers who enter the contest means I have a better chance of winning it

[via KristoferBrozio.com]

Okay, okay, so I’m posting a coupon that’s technically not a completely free freebee, but how many times have you stood at the checkout line of your grocery store and those great little impulse displays are catching your eye. And you see the rows of glistening Coke bottles with their beads of condensation dripping off of them slowly. And with that, you think of its smooth sweet taste dripping in the same way slowly down the back of your throat, leaving you wanting more and to finish by chugging the rest of its seductive sultry sugary substance down as fast as you can just to burp your alphabet in an unimpressive show of dominance and feral masculinity?

Oh, you haven’t? Well, uh… Nevermind then.

But still, print and enjoy buying one and getting another Vanilla Coke (or Vanilla Coke Zero) for free. Maybe you’ll get some extra carbination to get you from N-Z?

Not that I’d know anything about that…

Coupon expires on September 22, 2007

[via the forums]

Technorati Tags: buy one get one free, vanilla coke, burping

Quick question folks. Raise your hand if you’re a fan of getting a lot of money for hardly any work. If you just thrust both of your hands in the air so quickly that you might have dislocated your shoulder, then you’re gonna love me in just a minute here. Earlier this month, I discovered a site called ExpoTV.com that pays you for making video reviews of items. I wanted to make sure this site was legit before I posted it here on HIF, but after having 10 of my videos approved yesterday, I have a smooth $100 waiting for me in my account.

You read that correctly! $100 for 10 reviews means I netted $10 per review. Now, it turns out that this site has been around for over a year now and as such, a lot of people are getting in on the action. Which means they are lowering the price for most reviews to $2 (an updated guide can be found here letting you know how much everything is worth). However, electronics are still $10 and will be for at least the rest of this month, which means you have over a week to review things!

For instance, I reviewed the following 10 electronics: My ipod, cell phone, digital camera, xbox360, xbox360 wireless controller, nintendo wii wireless controller, Nintendo Wii gaming system, my mom’s cell phone, my mom’s digital camera, my Macbook pro laptop. And later on today I play on reviewing everything else I can find. All of my TV’s, my dvd player, my playstaion 3, all of my old video gaming systems, my universal remote control, my webcam, my older computers, etc.

Just to give you an idea of what some of the reviews are like, here are two of my favorite reviews so far: A slurpee review and a box of grits review. Seriously, you don’t have to be a regular Steven Spielberg or Brad Pitt here. Just record yourself for 2+ minutes talking about a product and then upload it. I’d highly suggest getting in on this now, as it’s insanely easy. There’s no telling how much longer the site will be paying some reviews for $10, so I’d sign up now rather than later. I just wish I’d found out about this sooner.

You also get $5 for every friend you refer who completes just 1 video review, so for everybody who thinks they are going to sign up for this site, I ask that you please do so through this link and help support HIF! Every dollar I earn from referrals will go towards running the site and creating new contests and whatnot. Thanks!

I’ve posted more info on the forums, so check that post out and ask me any questions you’ve got there! Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to go review some pet food.

QUICK EDIT: You’ve got until tonight to review anything related to pets, baby products, or sports and have your review still count for $10. After tonight, those three categories drop to $2. So get in on it quick!

Technorati Tags: Expotv, expotv.com, video reviews, paid reviews, product reviews

I’ve got to say that when you want a chicken sandwich, there’s no better place to go than Chik-Fil-A. And what’s even better is their morning chicken biscuit. So simple of a concept–chicken on a biscuit–but so amazingly awesomely good. Like biscuits and gravy.

Well, the only thing this free chicken sandwich and coke coupon for Chik-Fil-A doesn’t cover is the waffle fries, which I could make a whole other post on itself.

Sign up fast. 1,000,000 coupons won’t last long with people drooling over the thought of that chicken patty.

Now I’m hungry again.

And of course, allow 6-8 weeks for delivery, but still, it’s a good free coupon!

[via the forums]

Technorati Tags: free, chicken sandwich, coke, chik-fil-a, coupon

I use to be a hidden nerd in school. I say “hidden” because I hung out with the group of kids who had a little bit of everybody in our group. A few band geeks, some drama people, a jock or two, you get the idea. And I was our token smart guy masquerading as a normal dude. I kept my worrying about making B’s instead of A’s to myself and I didn’t like to let people know that I studied more than I probably should have. That said, had I found these free pocket folder insert back then, I would have gone crazy. “OHHHH, look! A way for me to somehow become even more anal retentive in my note keeping skills! Hooray!”

On a sidenote, I have a feeling I’ve already shared this little anecdote with y’all. After posting 1,090 freebies so far, it’s hard to keep track of what stories I’ve already told

[via the forums]

Technorati Tags: Goob’s a nerd, school, notes, freebies

Proctor & Gamble is giving away a free coupon booklet with $29 worth of coupons in it. They are for various products, like Febreze, Iams, Dawn, Mr. Clean, Swiffer, Cascade, etc. It’s a pretty good offer, at least for my family it is, since I’m pretty sure we buy everything I’ve named so far. Well, maybe not Iams, but darn it if my dogs aren’t about to start eating Iams! And if they don’t like it, the cat will get it. And if she doesn’t like it, well then all I can say is my littler brother is about to have a change in his diet.

[via the forums]

Technorati Tags: Coupons, Dawn, Swiffer, Cascade, Mr. Clean, Iams, Febreze, freebies

With the end of summer fast approaching, I know some families out there are gonna go for one last vacation soon. And we all know what that means. ROAD TRIP! Where the joys of being cramped in a small, suffocating enclosure with your family meets the thrills of hours upon hours of pure boredom! Back when my family used to take road trips, I remember my mom going crazy trying to make sure we had enough things to entertain ourselves. She knew we were always dangerously hovering over the edge of going stir crazy and beating the crap out of each other, so she would always have something random, like these free children’s activity books for us to do. Nevermind that were probably twice the recommended age of these things. If she handed them to us and thrust a red crayon at us, by God were we expected to color the entire thing as many different shades of red as possible. And people say Road Trips aren’t fun!

[via the forums]

Technorati Tags: road trips, activity books, freebies, kids, children, angry moms

Looks like I missed this free Orange Julius drink this weekend, but fear not, because they are offering it for free this coming weekend as well! On Saturday, August 25 from 12-4 and Sunday, August 26 from 1-4, you can go and get a free drink from Orange Julius.

I’ll post a reminder Saturday morning, but I thought I’d let you know now so that you can start spreading the word to your friends!

[via the forums]

Technorati Tags: Orange Julius, free drinks, freebies, samples

Men, there’s hope for us yet. Every day we are faced with a tough decision. Either dump a bunch of our clothes in the washing machine, pour some of this free Purex Ultra Concentrate detergent in with them, punch blindly at a few buttons, then pray our clothes don’t come out pink and/or small. On the other hand, we could just do as this label suggests and rest easily. Okay, it’s not nice to say it’s women’s job to do laundry, but God help us if we try to be nice and put some of their clothes in the wash with ours. I tried to wash my mom’s shirts back in 1998 and I’m still not allowed within 50 feet of the laundry room.

[via mcpaladin]

Technorati Tags: wal mart, laundry, detergent, freebies, purex

EDIT: Dead now

Up until last year, had you asked me if I had allergies, I would have smiled brightly and answered you by skipping around outside in a field of flowers for hours on end. And then the Allergy Gods figured I had lived a happy enough existence and decided to strike me down with allergies that I think were made up especially just for me. I mean, seriously, I fully expect to walk outside one day and find that I’m now allergic to rocks. But when it comes to indoors, well thankfully there are products like these free Pledge Clean & Dust wipes to help keep the little allergy devils at bay. Wait…oh great…yep, I’m pretty sure I’m now allergic to my computer monitor!

[via Froggie]

Technorati Tags: freebie, Pledge, cleaning, dust, allergies

EDIT: Dead now

If I were to make a Freebie Hall of Fame for companies that are awesome at giving out free stuff, 3M would be the first inductee. Seriously, it’s as if they have a Freebie Department whose employees just sit around all day thinking of new products to send to us. And you guessed it, they’re at it again, this this with a free Post-it sampler pack. You’ll get some free post-it notes, a free highlighter pen, some free flash cards, and more.

[via the forums]

Technorati Tags: freebies, 3m, post-it notes, highlighters