Applebee’s – Applebee’s is offering free meals all day long! Well, the offer is all day long, I doubt they’ll let you actually eat meal after meal throughout the entire day. But heck, why not try?!

Golden Gorral – A ginormous video staring Gary Sinise pops up on this page, which makes perfect sense. When I think of Veterans Day and Golden Corral, I obviously complete the trifecta with thoughts of Gary Sinise. Anyway, GC is giving away a free military appreciation thank you dinner on Monday, Nov. 16 from 5-9pm.

Krispy Kreme – All veterans and active military personnel can get a free doughnut of any variety, including glazed, kreme filled, and chocolate cake. Whoa, whoa, whoa – chocolate cake doughnuts? Wouldn’t that simply be a slice of chocolate cake? Somebody at Krispy Kreme Laboratories needs to stop slacking off and come up with better ideas.

McCormick and Schmicks – They’re hosting a special dinner on Sunday, Nov. 8 and space is limited. There’s a reservation form at the bottom of their page, so RSVP today if you want to attend! Parties cannot be larger than 6 though.

*NEW* Outback Steakhouse – All veterans and active duty military get a free Bloomin’ Onion and beverage.

Sam’s Club – Over 25,000 Hugo canes will be given away free of charge to United States military veterans in need of mobility assistance. Sam’s Club membership is not required, but supplies are limited so you may want to call your local store before heading there.

Uno Chicago Grill – They’re offering a free entree or individual pizza with an entree or pizza purchase of equal or greater value. A BOGO isn’t the best offer on this list, but at least you can feed the entire family for half the price.

U.S. Department of Interior – All of the areas managed by the DOI is offering free admission to any and everyone on Veterans Day. This includes all national parks, forests, and monuments.

Those are all of the national freebies I could find for Veterans Day, however there are a ton of local offers available in a few dozen states. Military Avenues seems to have the best collection of them, so be sure to check them out! And by all means, if you know of a nationwide freebie I missed, please let us know about it in the comments!

We’re only a few days away from Halloween and so I thought I’d whip up a post of freebies that are available this coming Saturday. Apparently I’m now too old to steal my siblings candy, so I’ll have to take advantage of a few of the freebies below.

Free Black Jack Taco – Taco Bell is giving away tacos from 6pm until midnight.

Free Chipotle Burrito – After leaving Taco Bell, drive over to Chipotle between 6pm and close to get a free burrito. You have to dress up as a burrito in order to get a freebie, but last year my brother just wrapped a loop or two of tin foil on his head and he was good to go. Unfortunately he’s still wearing it as I convinced him I have telepathic powers.

Free Lamination at Mardel – I’ve never heard of Mardel, but apparently they’re a Christian and education store in Arkansas, Colorado, Kansas, Missouri, Oklahoma, and Texas. And the best part is that they’re offering free lamination of anything up to 50 feet. If I lived near a store, I’d take them up on this offer in a heartbeat and laminate the most mundane items. via Freebies 4 Mom – thanks!

Free Event & Prizes at Michaels – From 10am-noon, stop in at your local Michaels to get a free trick-or-treat pail. Plus, they’ll have a free coloring activity with free Crayola Model Magic Fusion and build a Make-It Take-It Halloween frame. Children will also receive a balloon and candy because that’s exactly what they need on Halloween – an early start on the sugar intake followed by a helium chaser!

Free Menchies Frozen Yogurt – Available on Friday and Saturday, you can get a free frozen yogurt at participating stores if you print out a silly hat and wear it in. There’s a slideshow of people wearing the hat on their site and I must say, those people look way too happy and shameless. via Rain – thanks!

Free Toys R Us Treats and Giveaways – I have no idea what “treats and giveaways” mean, but that’s what will be given away from noon-3pm on Halloween. The press release I linked to is long, but here’s the good stuff:

Toys”R”Us stores nationwide will host Trick “R” Treat events on Halloween, complete with costume parades, complimentary treats and giveaways.

As always, you might want to call ahead and make sure your local store is participating.

Bass Pro Shop Freebies – On Friday from 4-7pm there will be a trick-or-treat event throughout the store with a kids’ costume parade at 6pm. Then on Halloween from noon-4pm, there will be mask decorating, marshmallow roasting, and sample dutch over apple cobbler. I one time dropped a mini-dutch oven in a river as a kid. Well, it wasn’t so much “dropped” as “used it as a submarine for my army men.” I got away with it too – sorry, Dad!

Free Mattel Toy at Sears – Bring your child in to any Toy Shop at Sears and get a free Mattel toy. In addition, they have a $5 off $20 toy purchase coupon available. It’s valid between now and 11/1, so you could use it for a Christmas present or something. Be sure to click the red “click for store locations” on their site to see if your store is participating. It looks like mainly stores in California and Illinois are in on the offer, though I suspect any store will take the coupon.

Free YoCrunch Yogurt Coupon – For up to two weeks after Halloween, you can send in any candy wrappers in exchange for a coupon good for any YoCrunch yogurt. Yea! Eat candy and then get free candy yogurt! You’ll probably want to include a note with your address on it as well. Wrappers can be sent to the following address:

Shaina Zalma
YoCrunch
9507 Santa Monica Blvd., Suite 300
Beverly Hills, CA 90210

Discount Sonic Food – I couldn’t find anything official My local Sonic said they were participating in an offer to sell $0.50 corndogs from 5pm-midnight on Halloween. Nicole from Savvy Shopper was kind enough to forward me some official info that shows this is a nationwide event!

Free Brunswick Bowling Coupons – And finally, don’t forget about the free Brunswick Bowling coupons that we posted a few weeks ago. They don’t expire until Nov. 24 and while they’re intended to be given out as Halloween treats, there’s nothing stopping you from saving a few for yourself

*NEW* Macy’s Events – Looks like Macy’s has a ton of offers on Saturday. To start, the first 100 people in the store will receive a free $10 gift card. At 11am, there will be a coolest costume contest at 11am and free face painting at the makeup counters all day long. (hopefully with scary paintings, not makeup) And finally, everybody gets a free trick-or-treat bag while supplies last.

So there you have it – all of the confirmed freebies I could find. Know of any I missed?

Updated: 10/30/2009

Over the past months, a trickle has turned into a torrent of e-mails from people telling me that X store doesn’t take printed coupons and Y store does but only if you use less than five and Z store has no limit and… you get the point. The thing is, in this example, Walmart was X, Y, and Z store!

So, I set out to see if there was a universal corporate coupon policy for any of the big name stores. I compiled the list below and began emailing corporate offices asking if they accept Internet coupons. Long story short: yes, most have an official policy and in the majority of stores, printed Internet coupons are okay.

But as I’ve hinted to, everybody seems to have a horror story of a cashier who refuses to accept the coupons and suddenly the total bill balloons. Nine times out of ten, that cashier is in the wrong and this is where a little education, planning, and hopefully this post will come in handy. If you shop regularly at any of the stores below, you might want to print out the policy and carry it around in your purse when you go shopping next!

There’s no reason for anybody to be denied savings when they’re rightfully entitled to them, especially in this economy!

A&P – Holy Mother of…A&P simply did not want to respond to my e-mails at all. But after a mere trillion messages by me, I received an e-mail with the following statement:

The internet is a powerful vehicle for getting information out to people and at the same time it is also a vehicle for false information. Unfortunately, internet coupons are not accepted in our A&P stores due to an abundance of fraudulent coupons circulating over the internet.

I know this is not the answer you and your readers want to hear at this time, but we are listening to you and other customers who are seeking alternate means of stretching their food dollars. Currently, we are working on a solution that would allow our customer’s to download coupons from the internet directly to our loyalty cards electronically. We are exploring this idea and hope to put it into fruition in the near future. I apologize for the delay in my response, as I wanted to wait until we had more information of the new clipless electronic coupon service we will be offering. We are working with an external vendor and hope to have this service available starting August 7, 2009. [ed: so...it's released now?]

So that’s kind of promising as it sounds like they’ll be rolling out their own Cellfire version within a month in the past.

Acme – See SuperValu

Albertsons – See SuperValu

Aldi’s – No official response was received, but the general consensus on the Internet is that Aldi does not accept any coupons – printed or otherwise.

BiLo – Repeated emails went unanswered, however I sent a message to their official Twitter account and they replied with “@heyitsfree Currently, we accept internet coupons.”

Costco – I kind of expected this response, but it’s always good to double check.

Costco Wholesale does not accept general manufacturer coupons. We have our own coupons and promotional offers, which are distributed to members in the mail and at our locations at various times throughout the year.

We are able to offer consistently low prices because our buyers negotiate the best deals with our vendors. Manufacturers often will simply ‘load’ the cost of a coupon program into the original pricing of their product. We will not permit our vendors or buyers to do this since there is no advantage to the member.

CVS – They sent me an epic response with pretty much their entire corporate policy, but the important part for us is this:

Although we generally do not provide store policy in writing and do empower our store management to make decisions regarding coupon acceptance, let me clarify some of our coupon rules for you.

Our registers are set to allow 1 CVS coupon and 1 manufacturer coupon per item. In a situation where there is a BOGO sale and the customer has BOGO coupons, they would be accepted and the customer would only pay sales tax if applicable. We do not give cash for coupons, so if the coupon had a higher dollar off value than the price of the product, the amount of the coupon would be adjusted.

CVS/pharmacy does accept manufacturer’s coupons that have been obtained from an approved Web site sponsored by the manufacturer. The coupon should be complete and contain a bar code that can be scanned at the register.

Dominick’s – See Safeway

Food Lion – Upon emailing their customer service center, I received a short reply that included the following: “We will accept internet printed coupons in our stores, however, we reserve the right to decline acceptance if the coupons are deemed to be fraudulent.”

Fry’s – See Kroger

Giant – Their website has this to say:

Customers with a GIANT BONUSCARD may redeem coupons that have been printed from the Internet. We do not accept internet coupons for free products, or those with a value greater than $5.00. We reserve the right to refuse any internet coupon that appears to be fraudulent.

Harris Teeter – “We gladly accept internet manufacturer’s coupons for product; however no “free” product internet coupons are accepted.”

Ingles – After a few e-mails, I finally got the following response:

We will NOT ACCEPT “FREE” internet coupons, only cents off. We will only accept 2 internet coupons per manufacturer product per visit per day. We reserve the right to reject any internet coupon that is altered or does not scan properly.

Jewel – See SuperValu

Kmart – I never initially heard back from Kmart and proceeded to do a ton of legwork collecting circumstantial evidence. Then literally 10 minutes ago I got the following response:

“Kmart does accept secure print-at-home coupons. Effective March 1, 2009, Kmart will accept industry-standard, secure print-at-home coupons. If the coupon dos (sic) not scan properly it cannot be accepted. Kmart will not accept coupons for more than about 75% of a product’s value. Kmart will not accept “FREE product” (no purchase required) print-at-home coupons.

Kroger – “Effective November 2007, all Kroger divisions accept industry-standard, secure print-at-home coupons.” And for the record, Kroger is the parent company for many other supermarkets, like Ralphs, Fry’s, and another dozen or so. Scroll down a bit on the previous page to see a collection of the logos of all their subsidiaries.

Martin’s – Their website states the following:

Customers with a MARTIN’S BONUSCARD may redeem coupons that have been printed from the Internet. We do not accept internet coupons for free products, or those with a value greater than $5.00. We reserve the right to refuse any internet coupon that appears to be fraudulent.

Meijer – They sent me a succinct reply stating the following:

“Meijer does accept all legitimate internet coupons. Coupons that are more likely to be rejected include computer printed coupons for free products, and coupons that do not have a UPC code.”

Piggly Wiggly – Repeated emails went unanswered, however I was able to get in touch with their Carolina division, which operates many of the PW stores in the Southeast.

Yes, Piggly Wiggly accepts printed coupons from reputable websites, such as Coupons.com, Upromise and SmartSource.com. No “FREE item” or “CASH back” internet coupons are accepted. Limit one coupon per item per visit.

Publix – Their customer service department sent me this statement:

“Because the stipulations by manufacturers can be different, it is difficult to have a policy that covers all situations. Our basic policy is to adhere to the stipulations printed on all coupons.

We do accept coupons printed from the Internet. Our goal is to accept coupons unless there is a legal compliance issue. If you have a question about a particular coupon, I would suggest checking with the Store Manager or Customer Service Manager at the store where you will be shopping.”

Ralphs – See Kroger

Rite Aid – There are a ton of different opinions across the Internet as to whether Rite Aid accepts Internet coupons or not. However, according to their customer service department…

One internet coupon can be used per item; however, there is a $5.00 limit on each internet coupon. Similar to manufacturer’s coupons, only one internet coupon is accepted for each item, unless coupled with a manufacturer’s or valuable coupon found in a Rite Aid circular.

Safeway – “We can only accept Printable Coupons if they scan properly at the register.” It’s worth pointing out that while they accept BOGO coupons, they do not accept straight up “free” coupons.

Save-A-Lot – See SuperValu

Schnucks – I love companies that send swift email replies within minutes, like Schnucks did.

We will accept internet/home-printed coupons according to the guidelines below:
* As with all manufacturer’s coupons, only one coupon per item can be applied.
* Internet/home-printed coupons for FREE products will not be accepted.
* Internet/home-printed coupons with a value greater than $5.00 will not be accepted.
* We reserve the right to decline acceptance of any coupon that does not appear to be an original and/or any coupon that does not scan properly.

ShopRite – Here’s the response I received, which includes a link to an amazingly helpful site in identifying counterfeit coupons:

Periodically, we receive notification from the Coupon Information Corporation, a not-for-profit organization dedicated to enhancing the integrity of the coupon redemption process, that fraudulent coupons are being circulated via the Internet. This process is currently under investigation as coupon fraud is a Federal offense. As a result, front-end personnel have been instructed to pay closer attention to information on the coupons. If there is a question, the store does have the right to reject the use of the coupon however, our stores should accept all valid coupons. For more information on fraudulent coupons, please visit www.cents-off.com and click on the coupon information link on the left side of the page.

Stop & Shop – “We happily accept Internet coupons except in situations where manufacturers have alerted us to specific fraudulent coupons.”

SuperValu – Repeated emails went unanswered, so I have them a call at 877-932-7948. Their customer care center managed to track down a copy of their policy, which I transcribed below.

General SuperValu policy is that coupons must be printed from authorized Internet retailer. It must say Internet Coupon or Manufacturer Coupon at the top. A qualifying purchase needs to be made, of course, and the coupon can not exceed $5.00 or be for a free product offer. A bar code must be printed on the coupon and the coupon must have an expiration date that has not passed.

Target – Well, Target did a great job of not answering my question. First, let’s start with the standard coupon policy I received from them: Target finally put their coupon policy online!

When accepting coupons, we use the following guidelines:

- We accept two kinds of coupons: Target-issued and manufacturer-issued.
- We’ll accept one Target coupon and one manufacturer coupon for the same item, unless either coupon prohibits it.
- We can’t give cash back if the face value of a coupon is greater than the purchase value of the item; in this case, we’re able to adjust the value of the coupon to equal the price of the item.
- We can’t accept coupons from other retailers, or coupons for products not carried in our stores.
- All valid coupons should be presented to the cashier while you’re checking out.

Notice how nowhere did it mention specifically Internet coupons? Yeah, me too. However, this little part stood out to me. “We accept two kinds of coupons: Target-issued and manufacturer-issued.” Why is this important? Well, every Coupons.com coupon has “MANUFACTURER COUPON” printed in a large black box at the top. Couple that with the fact that their official policy doesn’t prohibit Internet coupons and you should be in business.

Trader Joe’s – Looks like Trader Joe’s is a no-go. Or are they?

At this time we do not offer any sort of coupons or discounts for products purchased in our stores. Our reasoning for this is that we, unlike many other larger grocery stores, already work really, really hard to keep our prices as low as possible without artificially high profit margins.

Okay, sounds clear enough. However, about two weeks later, I received this message:

Thank you for your inquiry. Trader Joe’s can only accept coupons from manufacturer’s only. We are unable to accept any coupons from 3rd party distributors.

So…wait, what? Internet coupons ARE manufacturer coupons. But since the manufacturers aren’t the ones distributing them, Internet coupons don’t count? That’s kind of lame, but okay, good to know.

Walgreens – Repeated emails went unanswered, however my local store manager contacted me and offered to track down a hardcopy of their official policy. A week later he called back to say that he couldn’t find one and instead, his superiors told him that it was pretty much up to each manager’s discretion. He went on to say that it is Walgreen’s policy to accept Manufacturer coupons, however, and since most reputable Internet coupon sites print “Manufacturer Coupon” onto each coupon, he accepts them.

Through a Google search, I was able to find a scanned copy of what appears to be Walgreens Coupon Practice Guidelines. It’s dated January 2009 and looks to be what my local manager was referring to, but I can’t confirm that it’s 100% legit.

Walmart – Ah, the store that started this all!

Internet coupons should be legible and say “Manufacturer Coupon.” There should be a valid remit address for the manufacturer and a scannable bar code.

So there we have it! As I pointed out above, all Coupons.com coupons have these three requirements, so your local Walmart better darn well accept printed coupons!

Wegmans – I’ve officially run out of ways to segue into a blockquote:

We take internet coupons with only two restrictions. FREE coupons are out, and the fine print, to minimize checker uncertainty, is that the word FREE can’t appear on the coupon. This includes Buy One Get One Free offers. The other restriction is that the electronic coupon value (or the double value) may not exceed the value of the item being purchased; the same as for other coupons.

Whole Foods – I hope you like unhelpful corporate policies, because here we go!

We are a decentralized company divided into regions that function fairly autonomously. Coupon acceptance policies vary from region to region and in the case of internet coupons, from store to store. I would direct shoppers to contact their local Whole Foods Market store directly to inquire about the coupon policy of that location.

Winn-Dixie – All aboard the train to Confusedville!

Thank you for contacting us. Winn Dixie does accept online coupons except from the following marketing site: VYRL Marketing – Online Coupons.

Small problem though: Who the bloody bleep is VYRL Marketing? I vaguely remember them from back in 2008 when they botched a coupon campaign on Facebook and other social media sites and according to Google, that’s what pretty much everybody else remembers them for.

Repeated emails for a clarification went unanswered, however their official website directly links to SmartSouce, so it’s a safe assumption that they at least accept Internet coupons from them.

Letter to Retailers – And finally, SmartSource, one of the main sources of on-line coupons, has a Letter to Retailers that you might want to print out if you use their coupons. It explains where the coupon came from, why it’s legit, and how to ring it up. I think this is a phenomenal move in the right direction towards retailers and coupon sources finally recognizing the importance of each other in terms of mutual survival.

Please raise your hand if you’ve never heard of Swagbucks. Holy moly, why are so many of you holding your hands up?

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 when you win swagbucks, which can be redeemed for gift cards, books, sports memorabilia, video games, school supplies – you name it, they’ve got it. Unless you just named pet turtles. I don’t think they have those.

Well the bigwigs at Swagbucks are releasing some new features and as a result, have offered new users from HIF a free swag code that gives them 2 free points. Couple that with the automatic 3 free points you’ll get for signing up and that’s…uh…hold on, let me find my calculator.

The code is freeswagcode (in all lower caps) and expires on 9/10/09.

Like I said, Swagbucks has some new features, for new and old users alike. One is a toolbar that is compatible with Internet Explorer, Firefox, and Safari. The cool thing about the bar is that, for the entire month of September, Swagbucks will release an exclusive free swagcode each day on it! That’s 30 free swagbucks by the end of the month! An Amazon giftcard costs only 45 points, so toss in whatever points you’ve already earned and you’ll most likely have enough to get it!

They’ve also got a version of Bingo coming out called SWAGO where you can play and win points. It hasn’t been released yet, but you can check out their blog this week and get all the details there. And as always, their Twitter and Facebook accounts are pretty good sources for unique codes as well.

So there ya go! Put all those hands down now and enjoy the free swagcodes.

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

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.

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!

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.

Cleveland Indians High Achievers Kids Club

• Exclusive members-only experiences at Progressive Field
• Membership and redemption card with lanyard
• Indians notebook and pencil
• 2009 Cleveland Indians Community Calendar
• Half hour of private playtime on the Gateway Plaza Kids Land during Sunday Kids Fun Days, starting two and a half hours before game time
• Exclusive access to “Signature Sunday” to the first 200 High Achievers Kids Club members to check in at the High Achievers Kids Club Tent on Gateway Plaza each Sunday starting at 10:30AM (must have day- of- game tickets to participate in Signature Sunday)
• FREE ticket for you and one friend when you purchase a Slider Birthday Party at Progressive Field
• A birthday card from Slider

Florida Marlins Billy’s Bunch

If you live in the state of Florida, this fan pack is free. Otherwise you have to pay $9.95.

• A Welcome Letter from Billy The Marlin
• 2 FREE Vouchers to attend a 2009 Marlins Home Game
• Billy’s Bunch Cap
• Billy’s Bunch Wristband
• Drawstring Backpack
• Josh Johnson Poster
• Official Membership Card
• A pack of Topps Baseball Cards

Los Angeles Jr. Dodgers Club

• Membership Card
• First access to the all new Jr. Dodgers Training Days
• Newsletters
• Special Offers from our Sponsors
• Exclusive access to Jr. Dodgers Experiences including
• VIP access to select Kids Run the Bases events
• The chance to take the field with your favorite Dodgers
• The chance to announce “It’s Time for Dodgers Baseball”
• The chance to be a guest reporter for the Jr. Dodgers Newsletter

St. Louis Cardinals Kids Crew

They charge money for their club, however they have a promotion where you can get select tickets to their August 29th home game for half the normal price. Use code KIDSCREW (somebody really needs to look over these codes before making them official).

Washington Nationals Junior Club

Yet another club that isn’t accepting 2009 applications, however I know their 2008 club was free, so I’d expect a similar offer later this year.

White Sox Kids Club

• Official Membership Certificate
• Official Welcome Post Card from Manager Ozzie Guillen
• A set of six baseball cards featuring current White Sox Players
• White Sox Temporary Tattoos
• White Sox Kids Club Poster
• Two ticket coupons redeemable for Upper Reserved seat tickets to Regular-priced games (this excludes Prime, Premier and Sox/Cubs games during the 2009 season)

Anybody know of one I missed? Let us know about it in the comments!

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.

RedPlum – Professor Red Plum has all sorts of coupons, but I find that their best area is in toiletries and body products. They always seem to have coupons for contact solution, shampoo, etc. On top of that, they’ve got some unique grocery coupons that you won’t find elsewhere, so definitely add this site to your weekly coupon digest.

Eat Better America – While easily having the smallest selection of any of the sites on this list, they tend to be unique and worth just a little bit more than other coupons, so it’s worth taking a peek at Eat Better America every week. Plus, they have an offer for a free $10 Coupon Booklet!

Valpak – I actually discovered this site while doing research for this post. I’d always loved getting Valpak coupons in the mail, but I had no idea you could print them from your computer! Just like their mailed counterparts, most of these coupons are for local stores and services instead of for food and groceries. The great part about their site is that no printing software is needed. Just select the coupon, hit print, and it’ll send straight to your printer.

SmartSource – I love Smart Source because it’s so clean and easy to use (once you’ve installed their printing program, which you only have to do the very first time.) They were cool enough to partner with me a while back and help put together a clean page of coupons that refresh bi-monthly.

Cool Savings – I’ll be straight with you here, signing up for Cool Savings for the first time is a pain in the butt. There’s at least 7 or 8 pages full of junk “offers” that you have to scroll to the bottom and hit “skip” before you finally get to the coupons. I honestly wouldn’t have put it on this list but for the simple fact that they do have a ton of coupons. They run off the same software as the Smart Source link above, however in my experience they have about twice as many coupons to choose from.

Shortcuts – And last but not least, a site that doesn’t let you print coupons! Haha, I’m not sure what’s up with Shortcuts, but about two weeks ago they stopped allowing their coupons to be printed. I haven’t the slightest if they’re going to bring the feature back or not, but it’s worth keeping an eye on just in case they do.

So do you have any success stories with using printable coupons? Let us know in the comments!

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!

Free Connecticut State Map – Or not. Their tourism site is a bit gilded. Not only do they not offer a travel guide, but I couldn’t find any official state maps. The best I could come up with was this printable highway map.

Free Delaware State Map – Looks like you might have to call in order for a copy to be sent to you. Their DOT version has three different bicycle maps as well as the official tourism map, so I might just go with that instead. (dot map)

Free Florida State Map – I like the random experts they have on the sidebar. My favorite is the Authentic Florida Expert, who pretty much looks like everyone’s grandma.

Free Georgia State Map – I think the travel guide has one, but I know their DOT will send up to two free state maps. If I know Georgia, they’ll also send you a peach. (dot map)

Free Hawaii State Map – Doesn’t exist. Hiffer Kenny sent in the link for their state tourism guide, which should have a map in it.

Free Idaho State Map – Judging by their governors name alone (C.L. “Butch” Otter), he could probably beat up any other governor out there. You just know he wears a cowboy hat…and checking their website…yep!

Free Illinois State Map – You can request up to 25 free state maps at the DOT site, which is 24 more than I need. I only include that link because the DOT maps come in large print. (dot map)

Free Indiana State Map – They have a ton of different maps and guides available, one being a state museum map that would go deliciously well with our free museum admission list!

Free Iowa State Map – Does anyone get excited about seeing a bunch of corn?

Free Kansas State Map – Quick, can you name three cities in Kansas?! Neither could I.

Free Kentucky State Map – Their state logo is by far the best I’ve seen yet.

Free Louisiana State Map – Their DOT page redirects to this page for a free map, so I assume the travel guide comes with one.

Free Maine State Map – Unfortunately they only have a bunch of printable maps. Come on Maine, get with the program here.

Free Maryland State Map – I can’t tell you the number of times the state of Maryland has screwed me over, so visit with caution.

Free Massachusetts State Map – I’ve still yet to ever correctly spell this state’s name. It’s the only item on my Bucket List I doubt I’ll ever accomplish.

Free Michigan State Map – Who needs the Big 3 when you can get a free state map?

Free Minnesota State Map – Minnesota is the only state that let’s you pre-order future travel guides and maps. Talk about pimp.

Free Mississippi State Map – Mississippi decided to make a page where you can only submit your e-mail. I assume an order form will be mailed to you, but I couldn’t be bothered.

Free Missouri State Map – The “M” states are really starting to tick me off. Missouri only allows you to download and print their free state maps. (dot map)

Free Montana State Map – They offer a free winter guide in addition to the state map, but I can give you said guide right here. Step 1: stay inside. Step 2: come outside once spring arrives. (dot map)

Free Nebraska State Map – We’ll see if their visitor’s guide has a free map in it or not. (dot map)

Free Nevada State Map – Fill out the form then print out this form and you’ll get two free state maps for the price of none!

Free New Hampshire State Map – I must admit, new Hampshire has a pimped out website travel website.

Free New Jersey State Map – My buddy lives in New York and is always ragging on Jersey, so I almost feel like I need to visit here to try and even things out.

Free New Mexico State Map – It’s barely mid-January and they’ve already got their 2009 travel guide up while other states are advertising their 2007 version. Good on ya, NM.

Free New York State Map – I always thought the “I Heart NY” campaign was for the city, not the state. Shows what I know.

Free North Carolina State Map – I like the cleanliness of North Carolina’s site. You can never have too much whitespace.

Free North Dakota State Map – This domain name…confuses me at best. Whatever, a free state map is a free state map.

Free Ohio State Map – I had a look through their travel guide and it was sans maps, so here’s a recent map being given away by their state DOT.

Free Oklahoma State Map – I’m kind of interested in their additional “Agritourism Map.” Is this a tourist industry that Oklahoma just made up?

Free Oregon State Map – I love that they also offer an official kid’s guide to Oregon. Like it’s that complicated.

Free Pennsylvania State Map – Wow. At the bottom of this page, you’ll find a link to PA’s official Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, and YouTube accounts. I didn’t check them all, but their Twitter account is pretty darn active.

Free Rhode Island State Map – For a state with such a small map, they’re kind of stingy about giving them away for free. I wasn’t sure if the travel guide came with a map, but their DOT doesn’t give any maps away, so fingers crossed.

Free South Carolina State Map – Home state, represent! Don’t be fooled by the domain name, it’s legit. We’re a sneaky bunch, just ask Major Robert Anderson.

Free South Dakota State Map – Ok, wait a minute here. South Carolina’s slogan: Smiling Faces, Beautiful Places. South Dakota’s slogan: Great Faces, Great Places. It’s like South Dakota wasn’t even trying!

Free Tennessee State Map – I got some weird error every time I tried to load one of their pages, but the order form went through, so who knows.

Free Texas State Map – Their travel guide is 272 freaking pages long! That’s not a guide, it’s a book!

Free Utah State Map – Why does Utah have a separate checkbox for German visitors? Is Utah really a vacation mecca for Germans?

Free Vermont State Map – I’m not sure how all the seasonal maps differ from each other, but it’s nice knowing that I have so many options with them.

Free Virginia State Map – I have to admit, I’m getting pretty tired with trying to find something to say with each state. I live in Virginia and there’s honestly not that much going on here. (dot map)

Free Washington State Map – As a Mariners fan and frequent traveler to the Pacific Northwest, I must say I absolutely love this section of the world.

Free West Virginia State Map – Hopefully this tourism guide comes with a free map, because WV is one of the few states that lets their DOT charge for highway maps.

Free Wisconsin State Map – And we have a winner for most available maps! They have tons of outdoorsy maps with trails and whatnot in addition to the typical road maps.

Free Wyoming State Map – And wouldn’t you know it that on the very last state, I had trouble getting their contact form to load. 49 for 49 and then Wyoming had to go mess things up! Let me know if you get it to work though.

Wow, that took a lot longer than I thought it would. I need a vacation.

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!

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!

Some of the best freebies this year were the ones you could drink. Fannie Farkle was the first to say how much she enjoyed the Seattle’s Best Henry’s Blend coffee. As she put it, “Henry’s Blend is a bold, strong-bodied coffee. It could pass for coffee shop, frou-frou coffee. (I can’t stand coffee-flavored hot water, like you sometimes get with home-brewed coffee.) This is the kind of coffee that you might pay a couple of dollars for a cup out somewhere. I’m picky about my coffee. Henry’s Blend has become the coffee I buy at the store, even without a coupon!” In competition with Seattle’s Best was the free Dunkin Donuts coffee (ed: still available!), a coffee I’m a huge fan of. Kendra and Omegafemale also agree that Dunkin was the choice of drink.  She says “Dunkin’s Dark Roast boasts a bold yet satisfying flavor. It’s just good coffee. And yes, I think it’s better than Starbuck’s” I must agree I think it’s better then Starbucks too!

Both are sold at most grocery stores and will set you back 5 to 7 dollars. 

Food wise this year there were lots of YUMMY snacks to choose from. Kashi kept us supplied with the never ending bars and cookies, while Orville Redenbacher’s kept us popping with pop corn and popcorn cakes. Kashi’s best freebie snack was by far the Chocolate Chunk Cookie, while The Lime and Salt popcorn blew away our microwaves. Omeagafemale’s comments on the popcorn were simple “it’s to die for, light on the salt and mellow lime flavor”. She compared it with margarita shooters and I can’t say I blame her that is what it reminds me of too. The Orville’s popcorn also came in flavors such as Cracked Black Pepper and Salt and Buttery Garlic.  You can find both products on their sites or in stores. The Kashi cookies run about 3 dollars a box and the popcorn is around 2 or 3 dollars.

Pet food was big this year also. We had cat and dog food coupons galore! I know I was getting a cat food coupon for a free bag every other month. Friskies, Pedigree, and Purina (ed: still available) were a few big names that gave out some freebies this year, but there were also smaller companies like Blue Diamond. (ed: still available?) I can’t say my kitty liked it much though; however Fannie Farkle’s and RLWL’s cats loved it. The free sample came with a few coupons as well! This one is a hard find as some people have pointed out, but I found it at Pet Supplies Plus and Tractor Supply. The price was approximately 14 dollars per bag. (Goob: This free White’s Premium pet food offer seems to still be running as well!)

Late in the freebie year RLWL posted that she had received Muir Glen reserve tomatoes and that they were amazing. 3 cans of tomatoes in a crate with recipe cards! Now that is what I call a sample! I had not even seen the site until she’d posted about receiving her freebie. The link is still up to join the club so go and get your free tomatoes! (ed: looks like all they have left are coupons.)

As much as we love our food freebies, there were plenty of other non-edible freebies that were amazing this year as well!

Dentek (ed: still available?) gave away a 20 dollar gift pack. Fanniefarkle says she will never go back to regular dental floss again! Cara is loving her new Heineken beer froth remover, but she’s also discovered a new use for it – how about a tool for icing a cake? Cougar2 was totally into the Best In Brow Pencil set from Anastasia Beverly Hills. Froggie and I both love the Jar Opener from Shared Solutions and agree that it come in very handy. Froggie priced it at around $5 at Wal-Mart. Kendra got a spa kit from Mirena that she said was really nice and Divil even received a pair of pearl earrings!

Almost everyone said one of the best freebies they received this year was the Schick Quattro Titanium Trimmer. (ed: Yeah, that was a pretty sweet freebie.) Froggie, Kendra and Divil all agreed this freebie deserved some props while RLWL liked it so much, she put it in her husband’s stocking! The trimmers and razors retail at Wal-Mart from 8 to 12 dollars, but once you try it out, you won’t mind paying for it at all. The razors are the same way; all you need to buy are refills.

T-shirts were a favorite freebie this year as well. Kendra liked the Alphageek Nation shirt (ed: I so don’t remember this, but I just signed up for it now!) , Cougar2 and I both loved our Swedish Fish Tee (ed: I’m glad I wasn’t the only person to get that!), and Divil wears her Obama and Molson tees all the time.

Our popular free magazine section gave freebies to all who browsed it while RewardsGold handed out dozens of fantastic free subscriptions as well! RLWL got a free subscription to Plenty, while Goob found his choices in the pages of Maxim, TV Guide, US News & World Report, and Inc. I also have TV Guide to thank for some entertaining reads over the year.

Out of all the freebies I signed up for this year, I received about 100. I have signed up for more but that’s not a bad number at all. I enjoyed all the freebies this year, so here’s to a 2009 filled with even more freebies! Have a safe and wonderful freebie filled New Year!

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.

Free Text Send – I really like the look of this US-only free texting site. In fact, it’s probably one of the best out of all the sites on this list. The site isn’t really that big, but it looks like they’ve certainly sped up delivery time since last year. One small downfall is that you have to know what service provider your friend uses, which means there’s no way I can use this site since I can’t even remember my friend’s phone number, let alone their carrier.

(edit: I just discovered Fone Finder, which allows you to enter the first part of any cell number and it’ll tell you what carrier it’s associated with. Sweet!)

Gizmo SMS – While this site offers free texts to pretty much every major country in Europe, Asia, South America, Africa, and the South Pacific, you only get 80 characters and the texts are a bit slow to arrive.

Google – They’ve since retired their free texts from browsers, however they’ve now integrated it with their chat feature. If you have a gmail or gtalk account (both are quite free), then log in and go to your Google Labs page to activate the free SMS feature. To send the text, just type a phone number into the search box at the top of the chat window and hit “Send SMS.” Your friend can then respond and it’ll show up on your computer. This is only for US phones right now, but Google plans on expanding it to more countries soon.

(edit: One bonus this has over the AIM version below is that Google gives you a free SMS number that you can give out to your friends and family. Thus, they can initiate the conversation if they so choose.)

AIM – After discovering the Google service above, I did a little digging and found that AIM and Yahoo have been offering this service for years. Simply message the entire number with area and country code (ex, +12225554444) and then type your message in the box. Your friend will get the text and they can then respond to ya. I just showed this to my little sister and she practically screeched with joy. Only downside is that it’s US only and they don’t plan on expanding like Google does.

Group 2 Call – Sign up for a free account and then you can import your contacts directly from your phone. Once you’ve done that, you can then either send individual free texts or mass text them all at once! You’re limited to 50 free texts per day, but that’s plenty for most of us. Another really cool feature is the ability to send a free voice message to a contact, thus helping you save those precious minutes when you have something long to say.

Joopz – Just like before, you have to create a free account, but after you do so, it’s nothing but awesome features from there. Sure, they have free texts, but they also allow you to set up text delivery in the future. So if you don’t want to forget to pick up your laundry tomorrow, have Joopz text you right before you leave work! They also keep a log of your texts if you so choose, so you never have to delete anything important. This makes it easy to prove to your friend that he most certainly did text you at 3 AM the other night! I’m looking at you, Fellner! The only downside is that their free service is limited to 50 free texts a month.

Oh, Don’t Forget – By far the easiest site of the bunch for sending texts in the future. You can pinpoint them down to the exact minute you want them sent. It was named one of TIME magazine’s 50 best websites back in 2007, so props for this site seem to be coming from just about everywhere.

Send SMS Now – You still have to sign up for a free account with this site and the interface isn’t that enjoyable to look at, but they offer a few off-the-wall countries that most other sites don’t work with. So if you have friends in Pakistan, Kazakhstan, or Ukraine just to name a few, then you’ll probably find this site helpful!

Text 4 Free – While the interface leaves something to desire, this site offers a whole slew of countries and providers you can text for free.

Text ‘em – Another basic free text service that doesn’t require registration. However, you can sign up for a free account and this allows your friends to text you back. It’s not the best site on this list, but certainly one of the better on the Internet.

The Txt – I wish the font on this site was a bit larger, but overall it’s a basic US-only site that delivers texts extremely fast.

Txt Drop – The sweet thing with this site is that your friends can reply to the text you send them and it’ll come to your e-mail account. There are other sites out there that let you do the same thing, but this is the only one I know of that doesn’t require you to register beforehand in order to access that little feature. The text message came within minutes as well.

Yahoo Messenger India – India is a booming market and Yahoo is doing its best to try and snag as much of it as possible. Therefore, their Indian version of Yahoo Messenger offers an awesome array of countries that you can text for absolutely free. For no cost whatsoever, you can message people in Argentina, Australia, Bolivia), Canada, Hong Kong, Indonasia, Kuwait, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and the United States. The program itself is in English and it’s no different than the one you’d download from the English version of Yahoo, other than the fact that with this one you can send a ton of free text messages around the globe!

So there you have it! Now no matter where you or your friends are in the world, hopefully you’ll be able to stay in touch with nothing more than a couple of cell phones and a few of the websites from this list.

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!

This list comes from Pizza Today’s Top 100 pizza chains in America. I’ve taken the top 25ish and listed them below, alphabetically.

Bertucci’s Brick Oven Pizzeria – From the looks of it, they’ve got an e-mail club that promises to send special coupons to you periodically.

California Pizza Maker – This site’s kind of a let down. All they have is an e-mail club that you can join, where kids 10 and under will get a coupon for a free pizza during the month of their birthday. Too bad I already had this listed on our massive free birthday food list!

Chuck E. Cheese’s – I selected my state and nearest location and they gave me four printable coupons, so this looks like a pretty slick. You can also sign up for their “Chuck E-club” to get special offers via e-mail. Kudos on the totally unique newsletter name, too. No way I saw that one coming

Cici’s Pizza – No offense Cici’s, but your site stinks. No e-mail group, no free printable coupons, a poorly designed page. Okay, you’re right, I’m just angry that I can’t have a discounted pizza from them!

Domino’s Pizza – Now this is what I’m talking about! Click the “coupons” link at the top of the site, enter in your info, and then click the “see all” tab to view all available coupons in your area. They also have e-mail and text alerts for any new coupon that becomes available.

Donatos Pizza – Again, they’ve not only got a coupon section, but a newsletter subscription page that promises to send unique offers to you. Now if only they had a location near me!

Fox’s Pizza Den – Okay, this site is a bit weird and I say this without taking into consideration the creepy dude on the front page. If you look at a list of their locations accepting on-line orders, you’ll find that each local join has a specific website (foxspizzaKY.com for Kentucky, etc.) Now no matter which one you go to, they all link to this Fox’s Pizza coupon website that looks spammy, but from what I can tell is actually legit. At the bottom of the page is a list of locations that accept the coupons, but they aren’t exclusively the only ones that accept them.

Long story short, if you’re local joint isn’t on the list, I’d call ahead and make sure they’ll accept the coupons.

Giordano’s – Oh man, by far one of my FAVORITE pizza chains. Unfortunately, I not only have zero locations near me, but they don’t offer any on-line coupons. Let’s overwhelm them with “pretty please” e-mails until they cave.

Godfather’s Pizza – Heck yes, this is what I need after that bizarro Fox’s Pizza website I just experienced. Here are some no-nonsense coupons, ready for printing and using. Their eClub also vaguely hints at some special offers.

Hungry Howie’s Pizza – They have a Deals section that’s basically an e-mail club. They also have a coupon section, but it appears to be under construction.

Jet’s Pizza – Join me in booing Jet’s Pizza for not offering any coupons or e-deals!

LaRosa’s Pizzeria – I was about to give up on this one, especially since there isn’t a location near me, but at the last second I saw this “Print coupons online – go to check out and click the blue “Deals & Coupons” button. Turn on your printer and select “I Need to Print the Coupon”. In the next window, click “Print.” It really is that easy!” So, if you order on-line instead of via the phone, you should see a special coupon page before checking out. You can even click the “on-line order” link and then select the “deals” star to see what they’re offering.

Ledo Pizza – There’s no fewer than three different locations on their site that promise coupons and then lead to this e-mail subscription page. I’m expecting massive coupons from you, Ledo, or so help me!

Little Caesars – I wasn’t too thrilled with their coupons. You have to input your location and then click on the nearest location’s website. Once there, click “coupons” near the top left and finally you’ll get a coupon you can use. I looked at multiple locations around the country and wasn’t too impressed with the selection though. But hey, every penny counts, right?

Marco’s Pizza – (Beware a stupid ad that plays when you load their page. I had my speakers at full volume and about jumped out of my skin…) You can search for promos in your location or join their e-mail club.

Mazzio’s Italian Eatery – They’ve got a “Click for Coupons” box on the left side of the screen that opens a new window with the coupons inside.

Monical’s Pizza – Click the “today’s special” link at the top and then pick your nearest location. You’ll then be prompted to print out a few different coupons you can use.

Old Chicago – I can’t tell if their O. C. Connection newsletter will send you coupons or not, but there’s only one way to find out, right?

Papa Gino’s – They have a promos and coupons page, but it seems a little dead to me. Maybe they update it more frequently than I’m giving them credit for? Actually, now I feel bad, let me look at their site again. Ah-ha! Turns out you can sign up for a newsletter of sorts that promises coupons. There, I don’t feel so guilty now.

Papa John’s – You can enter in your address and zip code here instead of the hassle of making a free account and still see all of your local offers. I wasn’t sure if these were different from the national offers, but then I noticed a “Redskin” special since I live near D.C. So chances are these are geographically specific.

Papa Murphy’s International – These eClubs are pretty darn popular, no? Don’t get me wrong, I love that these companies offer coupons in some sort of fashion, but I wish I could just see the coupon and click print right now!

Peter Piper Pizza – They’ve got a .pdf file that you can download and print. The current one has three coupons and of course, they also have an eClub!

Pizza Hut – After entering in your location, make sure you click the “show all coupons” tab to see every available coupon in your area.

Pizza Inn – I grew up on this stuff as a little kid, so it certainly brings back some fond memories. As luck would have it, they also have one of the easiest coupon pages around – just scroll down and you’ll find a ton of coupons that you can print out.

Pizza Ranch – They’ve got three coupons here, as well as an eClub and a Birthday Club for kids 11 and under. Not too shabby!

Round Table Pizza – If you select your city, then register with the site, you’ll then be allowed to see some coupon offers in your area. I don’t have one of these near me, so I didn’t bother registering. Of course, you can let us know what you found in the comments!

Sbarro – I couldn’t find anything official on their site. Punks.

Snappy Tomato Pizza – Really? Snappy Tomato? Okay, whatever, who am I to judge? Especially when their site has 6 printable coupons.

Uno Chicago Grill – The only thing I could find was a link to their free Insider’s Club, which will e-mail you a coupon for a free appetizer with the purchase of any two entree. I also know that they offer holiday Christmas specials that via the Insider club and while I haven’t been able to get confirmation that they’re doing it this year as well, I found this page with a 2008 copyright date. The form isn’t working yet, but I’ll be sure to update everybody when it becomes active.

Valentino’s of America – Okay, I am getting far too hungry after reading about nothing but pizzas for the past few hours. Here are a few coupons you can print out and then use to buy me some food.

Valpak and MoneyMailer- While not actual pizza joints, I’ve found that if you go and type in your zipcode, they’ll have at least two or three coupons for various local locations that you can print out!

And by all means, if you know of a large chain that I’ve accidentally left off this list, please share in the comments. Now I think I’ve earned a freaking pizza, so that’s all for today, folks!

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)

Free Pampering

Athletes spend so much time training that they sometimes run out of time to take care of all those superficial needs. Then they suddenly arrive to the games and remember that a few billion people are about to watch them compete. Luckily, they can get a free hair cut, eye examination, manicure, and pedicure⁷ to spic and span themselves up for all of those cameras. I mean, if you’re going to smash a few world records, why not look your best while doing so?

Of course, what if an athlete gets seriously ill? No worries as there are 200 physicians on staff at the free village clinic.⁸ I wonder if there are any veterinarians on staff for the equestrian horses. If I was a betting man, I’d put my life savings on yes.

Free Decked Out Rooms

When I travel abroad, I’m lucky if I stay in a place with running water. When Olympians travel to the games, they stay in rooms equipped with a wideband line (what the heck is that?), a telephone, network and closed-circuit TV (so they can watch every event live), an infrared burglar-proof warning device and a fingerprint lock.⁹ You know, on second thought, that sounds better than the places I live here in the states! Well at least they won’t be able to drink the tap water…what? Oh, they can drink the tap water. Doh.

Each country tends to have their own cluster of apartments as well, which are identifiable by the giant national flags they tend to unfurl out of the windows. So there’s the German complex, the Polish complex, etc. As the games start to wind down and everybody has finished competing, it’s pretty easy to image most of them morphing into giant party complexes.

After the games end, the rooms will be cleaned and then sold for upwards of $1 million dollars each.¹⁰ I can count the number of times I’ve stayed for free in a place worth a million bucks on one hand – never! (Photo from LA Times¹¹)

Free Entertainment

Library? Oh yeah. Internet cafe? Check. Amphitheater, shopping centers, coffee shops, gardens and gyms?¹² Ok, this isn’t fair. My own home town isn’t even this fun. How do the athletes even find time to go to their events? I’m pretty sure if I was staying over there, I’d miss every one of my events. In fact, I’d still be hanging out after everybody had long returned home. It’s like a freaking freebies paradise over there.

Upon hearing about the Internet cafes, I started to wonder if HIF was available in China. Long story short, the Chinese government built a system dubbed The Great Firewall of China that blocks anybody in China from visiting a site deemed to have “inappropriate” content. Billions of sites are blocked but after checking around, it turns out HIF is working in China! So does that mean Kobe Bryant and the rest of the American Olympic delegation are sitting around ordering freebies from HIF? My imagination says heck yes.

Free Language Lessons

There’s nothing quite like knowing the language that can make or break a meeting with a local. Carry on a simple conversation in their native tongue and chances are they’ll be impressed. Ask them why their cheese house is depressed and they’ll probably think you’re an idiot. Fingers crossed Michael Phelps took a few free Chinese lessons¹³ and used them to impress even more people.

Free Condoms

Let’s see, there are a little more than 16,000 athletes and coaches staying in the Village and the Beijing Olympic Committee expects to go through 100,000 free condoms.¹⁴ You do the very sexy math.

In Conclusion…

I’m so finding a way into the 2012 Olympic Village. Anybody want to start training with me to get on the water polo team?

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
7. http://sports.espn.go.com/espnmag/story?id=3542949
8. http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/wire?section=oly&id=3520204
9. http://en.beijing2008.cn/news/dynamics/headlines/n214112833.shtml
10. http://www.wtop.com/?nid=105&sid=1447507
11. http://www.latimes.com/travel/la-fg-village-pg,0,2747776.photogallery?index=3
12. http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/wire?section=oly&id=3520204
13. http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/olympics/2008-08/20/content_6952028.htm
14. http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSSP13655720080812

Step 1: Head to the forums and this thread and pick out a design you like.
Step 2: Print out one you like, or add one to the thread if you find another one yourself. Cut the shape down appropriately.
Step 3: Get some packing tape and lay it out flat. Then lay the printed out bookmark on the packing tape and “laminate” the book mark on both sides.
Step 4: Print out this post and tell them that I said that this will make up for all of the gifts that they never got you, even when they asked for a Pretty Pretty Pirate Pony for your 5th birthday and they gave you those packs of socks.
Step 5: Hope that they don’t ground you for life for my sass.

And step 6: Have a happy last night of Hanukkah and will be back with much cooler freebees that don’t require much work tomorrow sometime.

[via the forums]

Friend: Hey Goob, what’s up?
Goob: Hey mate, got a quick question. You know what time we need to show up at Bob’s tomorrow night?
Friend: Yeah, be there around 6.
Goob: Great, thanks, take it easy.
Friend: Peace.

I don’t care how fast you type on a phone, you can’t beat that in terms of time spent! But whatever, I digress. I’ve got friends all over the country and world at this point. And while I might want to call them from time to time, the nitty gritty is that I end up texting them thanks to the prices of phone calls. But seeing as how text messages cost money too, I figured there had to be a way around paying. I mean, if e-mail is free, why shouldn’t 150 character messages be?! And thankfully, many other websites out there agree with me!

Below I’ve put together some of the best sites on the net that allow you to sent 100% free text messages. I tried most of them out by texting my own phone to see if they worked, how fast it went, etc. Many of these offer world-wide messaging, or at least texts to certain countries abroad. So chances are though that no matter where your friends or families are in the world, you’ll be able to text them using one of the sites below. Many times you’ll need to know the country code of the number you’re trying to message, but for some reason most of these sites don’t provide a list of the freaking codes! Luckily, this is when Wikipedia really comes in handy. Even more annoyingly, sometimes you’ll need to know the cell phone service provider of your friend. If you have no idea what it is, then have a look at Fone Finder and thank me later!

And as always, if you know of a good site I missed, please leave a comment and let us know about it!

Anon Txt – A simple and easy interface to use is provided by AnonTxt.net, which is for US and Canadian numbers only. I noticed this is one of the few free sms sites out there that allow for a “name” field, which is helpful since you don’t have to use any of your limited characters in your message telling your friend who you are. The downsides? It takes about 10-15 minutes for the message to be delivered and the text comes with an ad.

Call Wave – This site lets you download widgets to be used on your Google or Yahoo Homepage, Apple, or Windows Vista machine. It lets you IM anybody in the US and it should work with all major and more minor cellular carriers in the country.

Cardboard Fish SMS – For UK users only, so I haven’t been able to try it out myself, but I’ve read nothing but glowing reviews about it. Looks like there isn’t a user signup or login required, which is nice.

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. Works in the Philippines, US, Japan, India, and Thailand. Here in the US, the site claims to be compatible with AT&T, Alltel, Cingular, Sprint, and Verizon.

Crickee – This fairly new service based out of France allows you to message your friends via the Internet and your cell phone for free. Unfortunately, they send the messages via the Internet. So in order for you or your friends to get them, you must have Internet access on your phone, which can be pricey for some people. Granted, this kind of defeats the entire purpose, but if you happen to have cheap or free Internet access on your phone and are out of monthly text messages, this might be a service for you.

Free Text Send – I really like the look of this US-only free texting site. In fact, it’s probably one of the best out of all the sites on this list. The site isn’t really that big, as it’s being run off a smallish server, so the messages take a few minutes to send.

Fun Text Flirts – This site is more of a novelty free sms service, as you can only send a “flirty” message to somebody. Basically, what this does is allow you to anonymously send a message to whoever you have a crush on and then they can reply to your e-mail if they want to. It’s cool, but only if you have a crush and want to send them a sleazy message

Gizmo – Yet another great worldwide free SMS service. I’ve used it extensively to send text messages to my friends here in the states, but I’ve never tried it out in other countries. Pretty much every major country in Europe, Asia, South America, as well as Australia are listed as being available. I highly recommend this one!

Joopz – Ok, this site is awesome. In fact, I think it’s my favorite on this list! You have to create a free account, but after you do so, it’s nothing but awesome features from there. To start with, the website is actually nice to look at and doesn’t blind you with flashy ads, which is much appreciated by people like myself. But beyond that, here are some of the great features. For starters, you can text message anybody in the world (and I’ve tried it out!) BUT, it doesn’t just stop there. Your friend can reply to the text message and you will be able to read it via your Joopz.com account. Then you can reply again, etc. Also, Joopz keeps a log for you to read through of all the messages you’ve sent out. Pretty dang nifty, huh? The only downside is that after a month, you’re downgraded to the “basic” package, which limits you to 50 free text messages a month.

Kill Some Time – Finally, a website dedicated to just US numbers! The good thing is that you don’t have to sign up for any accounts. In fact, the only downside to Kill Some Time’s free text message service is that you have to know what cell company your friends are using. But since I just linked you to a site that should help you out with that, you shouldn’t have any problems!

Send SMS Now – Even though you have to sign up for a free account for this one, this is actually a pretty good service as well. Not only can you send free text messages worldwide, but since you have a free account, your friends can text back to your message and you’ll get it on the computer. The only downside is what countries this works in. They have a large list, which is good, but most of the countries are of the likes of Pakistan, Kazakhstan, and Ukraine. Yet no Britain, Australia, or France? Eh, whatever, I’m just happy I can now prank text message people in rural Kenya!

SMS Everywhere – Another great US-only site that will send free text messages without any registration. One thing I noticed about this site is that the texts go through SUPER fast, usually within seconds.

Text 4 Free – While this site requests that you know the cell service provider of the number you’re texting, I can overlook that small annoyance. Why? Because not only can you text people in the states for free, but there are literally dozens of places worldwide you can text AND you don’t have to sign up for a free account. Not too shabby if you ask me!

Text For Free – Not to be confused with the site above, Text For Free.net offers almost the exact same features as Text4Free.net with only a few small exceptions. The range of places you can send free text messages is a bit smaller with this site, but the tradeoff comes in the form of a small widget that you can place on your Myspace profile or website which lets your friends text you for free!

Text Me Later – You have to create a free account with this site, which can take up to 5 minutes since you have to wait on two text messages to come in, but it’s more than worth it. With Text Me Later, you can schedule free text messages for yourself or any of your friends in the future. eThis is perfect for making sure you remind yourself to do something or maybe reminding your friends to meet you at the bar. In fact, I used this a few months ago to remind my buddy to pick me up from the airport. When I got into the car, he mentioned that had I not sent that message, I would have been standing around waiting on him for a few hours

Text Pet – Yet another fantastic site that lets you send worldwide free sms as long as you know the cell provider. What makes this site even better, IMHO, is the clean and nice layout. No flashing ads or annoying messages all over the place. Just a box for you to send your free text message from and that’s it.

Text Your Buddy – Like the text4free site above, Text Your Buddy.com can message your friends worldwide as long as you know the service provider. I did notice that the messages were a bit slow in coming through, but you can’t really complain since it’s free.

The Txt – Again, another simple user interface site that let’s you send free text messages anywhere in the US. Texts come pretty fast and no registration is required.

Txt Drop – Txtdrop.com is awesome, in that not only can you send free text messages to anybody in the US, but you can also download widgets for Windows and Mac computers which enable you to send free text messages straight from your desktop!

Yahoo Messenger India – India is a booming market and Yahoo is doing its best to try and snag as much of it as possible. Therefore, their Indian version of Yahoo Messenger offers an awesome array of countries that you can text for absolutely free. For no cost whatsoever, you can message people in Argentina (Telecom Personal), Australia (Vodafone, Telstra, Orange), Bolivia (Entel Movil), Canada (Rogers), Hong Kong (Hutchison), Indonasia (Telkomsel, Excelcom), Kuwait (Wataniya), Malaysia (Tmtouch, Maxis), Philippines (Smart, Globe Telecom), Singapore (M1, Starhub), Thailand (Dtac, AIS Thailand), and the United States (AT&T, Cingular, Verizon, T-Mobile). The program itself is in English and it’s no different than the one you’d download from the English version of Yahoo, other than the fact that with this one you can send a ton of free text messages around the globe!

So there you have it! Those are some of the best free text messaging websites I found on the net. No matter where you or your friends are in the world, hopefully you’ll be able to stay in touch with nothing more than a couple of cell phones and a few of the websites from this list.

Friend: Hey Goob, what’s up?
Goob: Hey mate, got a quick question. You know what time we need to show up at Bob’s tomorrow night?
Friend: Yeah, be there around 6.
Goob: Great, thanks, take it easy.
Friend: Peace.

I don’t care how fast you type on a phone, you can’t beat that in terms of time spent! But whatever, I digress. I’ve got friends all over the country and world at this point. And while I might want to call them from time to time, the nitty gritty is that I end up texting them thanks to the prices of phone calls. But seeing as how text messages cost money too, I figured there had to be a way around paying. I mean, if e-mail is free, why shouldn’t 150 character messages be?! And thankfully, many other websites out there agree with me!

Below I’ve put together some of the best sites on the net that allow you to sent 100% free text messages. I tried most of them out by texting my own phone to see if they worked, how fast it went, etc. Many of these offer world-wide messaging, or at least texts to certain countries abroad. So chances are though that no matter where your friends or families are in the world, you’ll be able to text them using one of the sites below. Many times you’ll need to know the country code of the number you’re trying to message, but for some reason most of these sites don’t provide a list of the freaking codes! Luckily, this is when Wikipedia really comes in handy. Even more annoyingly, sometimes you’ll need to know the cell phone service provider of your friend. If you have no idea what it is, then have a look at Fone Finder and thank me later!

And as always, if you know of a good site I missed, please leave a comment and let us know about it!

Anon Txt – A simple and easy interface to use is provided by AnonTxt.net, which is for US and Canadian numbers only. I noticed this is one of the few free sms sites out there that allow for a “name” field, which is helpful since you don’t have to use any of your limited characters in your message telling your friend who you are. The downsides? It takes about 10-15 minutes for the message to be delivered and the text comes with an ad.

Call Wave – This site lets you download widgets to be used on your Google or Yahoo Homepage, Apple, or Windows Vista machine. It lets you IM anybody in the US and it should work with all major and more minor cellular carriers in the country.

Cardboard Fish SMS – For UK users only, so I haven’t been able to try it out myself, but I’ve read nothing but glowing reviews about it. Looks like there isn’t a user signup or login required, which is nice.

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. Works in the Philippines, US, Japan, India, and Thailand. Here in the US, the site claims to be compatible with AT&T, Alltel, Cingular, Sprint, and Verizon.

Crickee – This fairly new service based out of France allows you to message your friends via the Internet and your cell phone for free. Unfortunately, they send the messages via the Internet. So in order for you or your friends to get them, you must have Internet access on your phone, which can be pricey for some people. Granted, this kind of defeats the entire purpose, but if you happen to have cheap or free Internet access on your phone and are out of monthly text messages, this might be a service for you.

Free Text Send – I really like the look of this US-only free texting site. In fact, it’s probably one of the best out of all the sites on this list. The site isn’t really that big, as it’s being run off a smallish server, so the messages take a few minutes to send.

Fun Text Flirts – This site is more of a novelty free sms service, as you can only send a “flirty” message to somebody. Basically, what this does is allow you to anonymously send a message to whoever you have a crush on and then they can reply to your e-mail if they want to. It’s cool, but only if you have a crush and want to send them a sleazy message

Gizmo – Yet another great worldwide free SMS service. I’ve used it extensively to send text messages to my friends here in the states, but I’ve never tried it out in other countries. Pretty much every major country in Europe, Asia, South America, as well as Australia are listed as being available. I highly recommend this one!

Joopz – Ok, this site is awesome. In fact, I think it’s my favorite on this list! You have to create a free account, but after you do so, it’s nothing but awesome features from there. To start with, the website is actually nice to look at and doesn’t blind you with flashy ads, which is much appreciated by people like myself. But beyond that, here are some of the great features. For starters, you can text message anybody in the world (and I’ve tried it out!) BUT, it doesn’t just stop there. Your friend can reply to the text message and you will be able to read it via your Joopz.com account. Then you can reply again, etc. Also, Joopz keeps a log for you to read through of all the messages you’ve sent out. Pretty dang nifty, huh? The only downside is that after a month, you’re downgraded to the “basic” package, which limits you to 50 free text messages a month.

Kill Some Time – Finally, a website dedicated to just US numbers! The good thing is that you don’t have to sign up for any accounts. In fact, the only downside to Kill Some Time’s free text message service is that you have to know what cell company your friends are using. But since I just linked you to a site that should help you out with that, you shouldn’t have any problems!

Send SMS Now – Even though you have to sign up for a free account for this one, this is actually a pretty good service as well. Not only can you send free text messages worldwide, but since you have a free account, your friends can text back to your message and you’ll get it on the computer. The only downside is what countries this works in. They have a large list, which is good, but most of the countries are of the likes of Pakistan, Kazakhstan, and Ukraine. Yet no Britain, Australia, or France? Eh, whatever, I’m just happy I can now prank text message people in rural Kenya!

SMS Everywhere – Another great US-only site that will send free text messages without any registration. One thing I noticed about this site is that the texts go through SUPER fast, usually within seconds.

Text 4 Free – While this site requests that you know the cell service provider of the number you’re texting, I can overlook that small annoyance. Why? Because not only can you text people in the states for free, but there are literally dozens of places worldwide you can text AND you don’t have to sign up for a free account. Not too shabby if you ask me!

Text For Free – Not to be confused with the site above, Text For Free.net offers almost the exact same features as Text4Free.net with only a few small exceptions. The range of places you can send free text messages is a bit smaller with this site, but the tradeoff comes in the form of a small widget that you can place on your Myspace profile or website which lets your friends text you for free!

Text Me Later – You have to create a free account with this site, which can take up to 5 minutes since you have to wait on two text messages to come in, but it’s more than worth it. With Text Me Later, you can schedule free text messages for yourself or any of your friends in the future. eThis is perfect for making sure you remind yourself to do something or maybe reminding your friends to meet you at the bar. In fact, I used this a few months ago to remind my buddy to pick me up from the airport. When I got into the car, he mentioned that had I not sent that message, I would have been standing around waiting on him for a few hours

Text Pet – Yet another fantastic site that lets you send worldwide free sms as long as you know the cell provider. What makes this site even better, IMHO, is the clean and nice layout. No flashing ads or annoying messages all over the place. Just a box for you to send your free text message from and that’s it.

Text Your Buddy – Like the text4free site above, Text Your Buddy.com can message your friends worldwide as long as you know the service provider. I did notice that the messages were a bit slow in coming through, but you can’t really complain since it’s free.

The Txt – Again, another simple user interface site that let’s you send free text messages anywhere in the US. Texts come pretty fast and no registration is required.

Txt Drop – Txtdrop.com is awesome, in that not only can you send free text messages to anybody in the US, but you can also download widgets for Windows and Mac computers which enable you to send free text messages straight from your desktop!

Yahoo Messenger India – India is a booming market and Yahoo is doing its best to try and snag as much of it as possible. Therefore, their Indian version of Yahoo Messenger offers an awesome array of countries that you can text for absolutely free. For no cost whatsoever, you can message people in Argentina (Telecom Personal), Australia (Vodafone, Telstra, Orange), Bolivia (Entel Movil), Canada (Rogers), Hong Kong (Hutchison), Indonasia (Telkomsel, Excelcom), Kuwait (Wataniya), Malaysia (Tmtouch, Maxis), Philippines (Smart, Globe Telecom), Singapore (M1, Starhub), Thailand (Dtac, AIS Thailand), and the United States (AT&T, Cingular, Verizon, T-Mobile). The program itself is in English and it’s no different than the one you’d download from the English version of Yahoo, other than the fact that with this one you can send a ton of free text messages around the globe!

So there you have it! Those are some of the best free text messaging websites I found on the net. No matter where you or your friends are in the world, hopefully you’ll be able to stay in touch with nothing more than a couple of cell phones and a few of the websites from this list.