I’ve updated the heck out of our free birthday food list this morning. In addition to adding a half dozen or so offers, I removed any offer that I had yet to be able to confirm, so the list is a bit leaner and more accurate now.

If you happen to know of an offer that I missed though, please feel free to comment on that post and fill me in! It’s been a few months since I’ve gone through those comments, so I’ll be doing that later this afternoon.

The exclusive Swagbucks code for Hiffers that I wrote about last week expires tonight at 11:59 PT. If you haven’t signed up yet, what the heck are you waiting for? Go sign up for a free account, then use the code FREECODE (case sensitive), before basking in the glow of your free six Swag Bucks you now have.

If you’re new to the site, here’s the initial review I wrote about Swagbucks back in January.

How many times have we written about Swagbucks here? A gazillion? It probably has something to do with how awesome the site is – in fact, I just cashed out my fourth $5 Amazon giftcard this weekend thanks to them.

For anybody who is new to HIF, Swagbucks is basically Google + prizes. You search with them just as you would with Google, but the key difference occurs randomly when you win swagbucks, which can ultimately be redeemed for gift cards, books, posters, and starting today – video games!

In fact, to promote some of the new changes they’ll be rolling out this week, they’ve given HIF an exclusive code. Signing up for a free account will net you 3 points automatically. Then you can use the code FREECODE to gain an additional 3 points, giving you 6. For reference, a free $5 Amazon giftcard costs 45 points, so you’ll already be 13% of the way towards your first prize. Like I said in my previous Swagbucks post, I average about 2-3 swagbucks a day though my normal search habits, which takes me about 15-20 days to earn my prize of choice. (the code above will expire on June 16 at 11:59pm PST)

Some of their new features this week include a widget that you can place on your blog / website, a newly designed frontpage, and a favorites section in their store. If you were ever wondering why Swagbucks destroyed Blingo and Winzy, I think you now have your answer!

I know it kinda stinks that the Swagbucks code doesn’t work for members who have already registered, but they are holding point giveaways for all users on their Twitter, Facebook, and blog this week. Plus, I’ll be starting another survey tomorrow afternoon with some prizes. So there’s that to look forward to

Unless otherwise noted, all of the freebies below are available on Sunday, May 10 (Mother’s Day!). As always, be sure to call ahead to your local store to make sure they’re participating in the freebies.

And of course, if you know of any that I missed, please leave a comment!

Bob Evans – Print out this coupon and get a free slice of pie after 4pm.

Champps – Moms get a free entree with the purchase of an equally valued entree.

El Pollo Loco – In a fabulous PR move, they are offering to honor the KFC coupon that many of us printed but were unable to use thanks to KFC not being prepared to meet the demand. Here’s to El Pollo Loco stepping in to fill the free chicken void in our lives.

Ikea – Moms can get a free small breakfast and coffee. No word on whether or not you can eat it while lounging on some of the furniture.

Kodak – First off, shipping is not included in this offer, but if you use the code FREECARD, you can get a free custom photo card worth up to $2.49.

Michael’s Kids’ Workshop On Saturday, there’s a Make it for Mom Bead Event (pretty self-explanatory) while on Sunday, they have a Decorate a Cookie with Mom event. Both are from 1-4pm. (thanks Scoring Deals!)

Outback Steakhouse – Bring “mum” in and she can get a free $10 gift certificate good for her next visit.

Smokey Bones – Moms get a free meal (up to $20) with the purchase of an equally valued meal.

TCBY – They’re offering a free cup or cone of yogurt to all moms!

T.G.I. Friday’s – With the purchase of an entree, mom’s get a free mom-sized (what the heck is that?) Brownie Obsession or Spiced Up Cupcake.

Texas de Brazil (warning: their website auto-plays some amazing eurodance techno music. Do not go there if you are prone to outbursts of dancing and/or raving) – Here’s a coupon good for up to two free entrees with the purchase of two regular sized dinners.

Texas Land & Cattle – Mom’s can get a coupon good for one free entree (up to $15), which can be redeemed during their next visit.

Ugh. Income Tax Day is only 48 hours away and I’ve still yet to finish mine. I’ve only entered in my name and address on my Turbo Tax account, but the status bar still reads as 0% complete. That’s not too encouraging if you ask me. I have an inkling I’ll be pulling a Homer come Wednesday. Why couldn’t I be more like Flanders?

In the mean time, enjoy this list of free Income Tax Day freebies and deals! As always with these day-long freebies, you might want to call ahead and make sure your local branch is participating.

Tax Day Freebies

Free Taco Del Mar Taco – This freebie actually arrives as a coupon via e-mail, so be sure to sign up for it now just in case it takes them a day to send it to you.

Free Cinnabun Bites – This one’s only going on from 5-8pm, so be sure to plan your trip accordingly. I almost made a horrendous pun about planning my trip, as in falling down, and how I felt weird about it. You’re welcome that I abandoned aforementioned pun.

Free MaggieMoo’s Ice Cream – As part of their “e-cone-omic” ice cream stimulus package ( ), they’re giving away a free scoop of ice cream to anybody who stops by throughout the day. As a thank you for the freebie, I officially forgive them for using the term “e-cone-omic.”

Free HydroMassage – If you have a location near you, call them up today and make an appointment for Wednesday! My back has been killing me lately, so I would die for a free massage right about now.

Tax Day Deals

P.F. Chang’s China Bistro Discount – Stop in for a meal and get 15% off your bill.

McCormick and Schmick’s Gift Certificate – Basically, if you eat here on tax day, they’ll give you a $10.40 gift certificate for any future visit. That’s kind of a key point, because I can see a lot of people mistakenly thinking they’ll be able to use the GC as soon as they eat on Wednesday.

Chick-fil-a Rebate – I can’t find an official press release from them, but a few different news outlets are reporting on this so I feel it’s fairly legit. Go to your local Chick-fil-a on Wednesday, make a purchase, and save the receipt. Then take the receipt back any day between April 16-30 and get a free meal of whatever you purchased!

T.G.I. Friday’s Gift Card – Spend $15-$25 on April 15th and receive a $5 gift card. Spend over $25 and receive a $10 gift card. In addition, remember the latest Budget Busters post where I mentioned TGIF had a reward program? Well, it turns out that for the entire month of April, you earn double points. So if you spend $50 between now and April 30th, you’ll receive an $8 gift card to boot.

Know of any that I missed? Then please feel free to comment and let us know. Heck, leave a comment even if you don’t know of any more!

Baseball is ten times the sport football is. There, I said it. I’m sick and tired of pretending that football is the greatest American innovation and that baseball has long since been relevant, let alone exciting. Call me crazy, (on second though, hold off) but baseball freaking rocks. And it starts during the spring! That’s like taking a giant birthday cake and dumping a pan of brownies on it. Tell me that wouldn’t be the best cake ever. You could probably slather some icing on top of them and then bust out the ice cream before…

Wait, where was? Oh yeah, baseball. It’s here! And you know what? Some of the Major League teams offer free kids programs. I’ve included as many as I could find in the post below and will update this as/if more become available. Some of the offers are clearly better than others, so here’s to hope your kids favorite team is listed below with some cool freebies.

Arizona Diamondbacks No Chew Club

This one won’t be available until April and they don’t say what you’ll get, but it’s going to be free, so it’s worth bookmarking and coming back to next month. They also have a free Kid’s Club where you can earn points for going to games and such.

Baltimore Orioles Birdland Package

1. Register below and Orioles.com will e-mail you a voucher good for one (1) FREE Upper Reserve Ticket to see one (1) Orioles 2009 regular season non-prime home game during your birth month.
2. After you register for yourself, you can then register on behalf of your child by filling out the “Birthday Celebrant Information” below to help them celebrate their special day! It’s our way of helping you create your own Orioles Magic.

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To go along with Jen’s recent post of free eCoupon sites, I decided to put together a list of what I consider to be the best printable coupon sites. In short, you can go to any of the sites below, select the coupons you want, and print them out right at home! Many of these coupons can be printed once per computer, so if you have access to a computer & printer at home, work, and/or school…well, you get the idea

One small tip: if you’re having trouble installing any of the printing software for the couple of sites that require it, you might want to make sure you’re using Internet Explorer and that you have any ad-blocking software turned off. I use Firefox for my normal web-surfing, but sometimes it has trouble printing the coupons.

Coupons.com – Hands down the #1 leader in printable coupons. Their selection is gigantic and they update coupons at least once a month. I routinely print a dozen or two coupons from them every month and regularly save $20 or more.

Box Tops 4 Education – Their selection is sparse, but they make up for this slight drawback by having some that no other site has.

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You know what’s going to be here before we even know it? Travel time! I was reminded by this fact when I saw a California state tourism commercial last night and that got me to wondering what each state offers in the way of free state maps and travel guides. Coupled with our free museum admissions list (which is actually fully completed now!), your summer trips might now be a bit more fun and free!

I linked to the official travel guide for each state below. As a fail-safe, I then provided a link to each state’s DOT page if their travel guide didn’t explicitly say it came with a highway map. Here’s to never getting lost again!

Free Alabama State Map – This is the first .travel website I’ve ever seen. Cool.

Free Alaska State Map – Here’s the first case of “so, does this come with a map?” (dot map)

Free Arizona State Map – What exactly is Old West activities? Like riding around on a horse and shooting pistols in the air? Arizona, here I come!

Free Arkansas State Map – They have a plethora of travel guides and kits, including golfing, hiking, and fishing guides, calendar of events, and even a Living in Arkansas guide for those considering moving there. Wait, where are you going?

Free California State Map – I would have been ticked had they not offered some free maps, considering the fact that I see their freaking tourism commercial every 10 minutes.

Free Colorado State Map – Colorado’s official state slogan: Let’s Talk. Aw crap, they’re breaking up with us!

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You know what’s going to be here before we even know it? Travel time! I was reminded by this fact when I saw a California state tourism commercial last night and that got me to wondering what each state offers in the way of free state maps and travel guides. Coupled with our free museum admissions list (which is actually fully completed now!), your summer trips might now be a bit more fun and free!

I linked to the official travel guide for each state below. As a fail-safe, I then provided a link to each state’s DOT page if their travel guide didn’t explicitly say it came with a highway map. Here’s to never getting lost again!

Free Alabama State Map – This is the first .travel website I’ve ever seen. Cool.

Free Alaska State Map – Here’s the first case of “so, does this come with a map?” (dot map)

Free Arizona State Map – What exactly is Old West activities? Like riding around on a horse and shooting pistols in the air? Arizona, here I come!

Free Arkansas State Map – They have a plethora of travel guides and kits, including golfing, hiking, and fishing guides, calendar of events, and even a Living in Arkansas guide for those considering moving there. Wait, where are you going?

Free California State Map – I would have been ticked had they not offered some free maps, considering the fact that I see their freaking tourism commercial every 10 minutes.

Free Colorado State Map – Colorado’s official state slogan: Let’s Talk. Aw crap, they’re breaking up with us!

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Please raise your hand if you’re shocked when I reveal that I started a massive project and never found the time to finish it. Ok people, not cool, put your hands down! A while back, I decided I wanted to put together a list of every museum in the U.S. that offered free admission. Turns out there are a lot of museums in our country.

Here’s what we’ve got so far on the free museum admission list. As you can see, we’ve only completed 42 states and D.C. (Holy crap, that’s way more than I’d originally thought.) I understand that glancing at it for the first time might lead to some sensory overdosing, but it’s really not all that confusing when broken down. If a museum’s name is blue, it’s been verified. If it’s red, somebody (perhaps you?!) needs to check it out.

Some of the lingo can be confusing to a newbie as well, but again, it’s designed to save space while conveying as much info as possible. Here are a few examples and how to interpret them:

Patterson Homestead – Dayton – This museum is located in Dayton and since there’s no additional markings, it’s free to everybody on every day.

Southeast Museum of Photography – Daytona Beach – FTA? – This museum is located in Daytona Beach and we’re not quite sure if it’s free or not because their site was unclear. Anything with FTA? is a perfect opportunity for somebody to pitch in and help us figure out what their admission policy is!

Sometimes we group museums together in cities that have a ton of them, thus allowing us to save space by not repeatedly putting the city after the museum name. Like these, which are under New York:

New York Botanical Garden Museum – FTA Wednesdays – This museum is free to everybody all day on Wednesdays.

American Folk Art Museum – 11AU & FTA Friday after 5:30pm – This museum is free every day to anybody 11 and under. It’s also free to all (FTA) on Friday’s after 5:30.

You have to login to edit the wiki, but since I’m cool, I’ve integrated the wiki with the forums! So if you already have an account on the forums, simply use that info to sign in. Otherwise, why not create a free account today and join in on the fun?

Here’s to hoping you find some free fun the next time you’re stuck visiting distant relatives in an unknown city! We have a thread on the forums where we talk, ask questions about, etc. the wiki as well. Come chime in!

Well hello my freebie friends! I know it’s late but Merry Christmas! And if you didn’t celebrate Christmas, Happy Kwanza. Feliz Navidad. Froehliche Weihnachten. Buone Feste Natalizie. You get the picture!  I hope your Christmas or whatever it is you celebrated was amazing. You know what else is amazing? Freebies. This past year has been good to us, offering some of the best freebies ever available!

This is my year end freebie review for you, where I am going to go through some of the best things we have gotten this year…with a little help from some of the hiffers. Since most, if not all, of these freebies have long since died, I will let you know where you can get them and at what price. (Goob: I’ve linked to each freebie’s website. If I make a notation that’s it’s still available, then obviously head on over and snag a freebie you might have missed!) Also I will list the website for you too! Make sure you always check on HIF for the freebies, I have a feeling 2009 is going to be big!

Let’s get started! (more…)

About a year ago I put together a list of websites that let you send SMS or text messages for free. It was a pretty popular post, but the only thing is that a few of those sites have since died while many other (and potentially better) sites have sprung up. So, here’s a new list!

Call Wave – Call Wave easily wins the award for “fastest delivery time.” I sent myself a text message using their free downloadable widget and before I’d even had time to click back over to HIF, my phone was buzzing with the new message. They have versions that you can add directly to your Google or Yahoo Homepage as well as your Apple or Windows Vista computer. I especially like the fact that you can not only save phone numbers that you frequently text, but it even imported all the listed cell numbers I have saved in my address book on my computer! Nifty!

Chikka – You have to download a small program, which is basically just an IM platform, but built on sending text messages to your buddies instead of IMs. Your friends can then respond to you from their phone and it’ll show up on your computer in a message box. Not only have they since expanded the countries you can text since last year (US, UK, India, Japan, Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore and Hong Kong), but they also now offer free texts to everybody in the US.

Full list after the jump. (more…)

About a year ago I put together a list of websites that let you send SMS or text messages for free. It was a pretty popular post, but the only thing is that a few of those sites have since died while many other (and potentially better) sites have sprung up. So, here’s a new list!

Call Wave – Call Wave easily wins the award for “fastest delivery time.” I sent myself a text message using their free downloadable widget and before I’d even had time to click back over to HIF, my phone was buzzing with the new message. They have versions that you can add directly to your Google or Yahoo Homepage as well as your Apple or Windows Vista computer. I especially like the fact that you can not only save phone numbers that you frequently text, but it even imported all the listed cell numbers I have saved in my address book on my computer! Nifty!

Chikka – You have to download a small program, which is basically just an IM platform, but built on sending text messages to your buddies instead of IMs. Your friends can then respond to you from their phone and it’ll show up on your computer in a message box. Not only have they since expanded the countries you can text since last year (US, UK, India, Japan, Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore and Hong Kong), but they also now offer free texts to everybody in the US.

Full list after the jump. (more…)

I don’t think it’s any great secret that the economy is nosediving right now and as such, coupons are becoming more and more valuable with each passing day. At the same time, what’s the first thing to fly out the window whenever money gets tight? That’s right, eating out. There’s a whole slew of reasons to make your own meal every night: it’s cheaper, usually healthier, etc.

But admit it, sometimes it’s nice to treat ourselves to a large meat lovers pizza after a long week. That’s why I thought it might be a good idea to put together a list of some pizza companies that offer free coupons & deals on their website. Here’s to enjoying a little treat every now and then while lessening the wallop it puts on our wallet!

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Are there really only three days left of the Olympics? That might actually be beneficial for me. I’m pretty sure I qualify for federal assistance at this point, because I guarantee you that I’m addicted. If you haven’t been watching it as religiously as I have though, you might not realize that many of the athletes stay in what’s called the Olympic Village. And do you know what they have there? Freebies upon freebies upon glorious freebies.

So while you and I have zero access to them, I thought it might be cool to list the awesome freebies that some of the world’s finest athletes are enjoying right now.

Free Food

You’d think that elite athletes would eat nothing but healthy food during their training and for the most part, you’d be correct. However, since it takes a ton of work to make it to the Olympics, most athletes tend to take a break once they’re finished competing and enjoy the finer aspects of dining. As Australian swimmer Melanie Schlanger put it, “There are vending machines everywhere, and the dining hall has McDonalds¹, as well as piles of Snickers bars and freezers full of ice creams.”² If there’s one thing I excel at, it’s eating unlimited amounts of Snickers. In fact, they should make that an Olympic event just so I could go and win a few medals.

Of course, there’s more than just junk food and candy. The Village has a ginormous cafeteria stocked with every food imaginable: fresh fruits, veggies, meat, breads, drinks, and everything else imaginable.³ If they don’t have what you want, chances are one of the dozens of chefs cooking will be able to whip it up for you. As a matter of fact, I tried to apply for a spot as one of the chefs, but was told that my peanut butter & jelly sandwich specialty was already covered by somebody else.

The athletes don’t have to worry about tainted food, either. After fears that commonly used pesticides and growth hormones might seep into the foods and trigger false positives during Olympic drug testing, China set up hundreds of organic farms to specifically grow food for the Olympians. However, they even went one step further and set up a tracking system for every single food item.⁴ So if a track star from Uganda thinks that carrot he just ate tasted a little funny, it’ll be no trouble to track it’s history and see where it was grown and who handled it.

A quick side note: guess how many apples will be eaten in the cafeteria? An estimated one million.⁵ Or to put it another way, they’ll eat about 936,000 bananas, which is enough to circle the Olympic marathon route more than three times. (Photo from China Daily⁶)

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1. http://olympics.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/08/15/a-steady-diet-of-medals-and-fast-food/?scp=8&sq=olympic%20village&st=cse [↩]
2. http://www.thedaily.com.au/news/2008/aug/06/mel-spree/ [↩]
3. http://centercircle.ussoccer.com/fullStory.jsp_1-8912898.html [↩]
4. http://abcnews.go.com/WN/story?id=5419184&page=1 [↩]
5. http://www.healthcastle.com/sports_olympics_diet.shtml [↩]
6. http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/life/2008-08/12/content_6927800.htm [↩]