Hey, It's Free! » HIF News

I Swear I’m Not Really This Narcissistic

Goob — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 19:42:19 +0000

I try to take certain days off. Weekends aren’t a must, but I like taking them off so I have a semblance of balance between work and personal time, like most people. Christmas, Thanksgiving, and 4th of July are always nice free holidays. Then you’ve got Easter, New Years Day, Talk Like A Pirate Day, Wednesdays, National “Insert Dessert Food Here” Days – you know, the usual. But my birthday is one of those random days where I always say “no, no, I’m going to treat it like any other day” and then by mid-afternoon I’m like “screw it, I’m out of here.”

Today is that day. The freebies are especially weak today anyway.

In lieu of extravagant gifts hand sculpted from gold, I humbly ask that you follow my personal accounts on your social network(s) of choice.

Thanks in advance. My fans on these places are like a sounding board for little projects I do outside of HIF, some of which eventually develop into larger stuff. You guys rock!

Happy Birthday To HIF

Goob — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 05:12:48 +0000

I’m bad at remembering things. Dates, things to do, names!, the point of this post. TL;DR I think today was HIF’s anniversary.

I registered HeyItsFree.net in May 2005. I was a few months away from graduating with a degree in History and, as Gob Bluth would say, it was clear I’d made a huge mistake. One lazy afternoon while in an Australian computer cafe, I was chatting with a friend back home for ideas for new websites. He pitched the name Hey, It’s Free and I liked it. I didn’t even know what I wanted to write about, I just liked the name. The .com version was already registered, so I picked up the .net and promptly forgot all about it.

Fast forward to February 2006. My mom was trying to print some photos. I had seen an offer online where she could do it for free, but I didn’t have five hours free to walk her through it over the phone. Then I remembered I still had the rights to this domain, so I quickly set up a blog and wrote this:

Similar to Wal Mart, Walgreens has 1 hour photo. To get your 20 free prints, sign up for an account at http://www.walgreens.com.

Click on Photo, and upload your first photo. Once you do that, you will automatically be credited 20 free prints (glossy only for pick up in store). No shipping charges if you choose to pick up in store amd(sic) no credit card info required.

One more thing, you can create more than one user. Then you get print 20 prints for each user, and just pick them up all at the same time.

And thus HIF was born. I followed that up with four more posts that day and by March I was more or less working at the pace I do now. But the above post is the oldest I can find in the archives, which means SIX YEARS AGO TODAY I started this site. That’s longer than half my friendships. That’s way longer than any of my relationships.

I’ve been going through the archives a lot recently. Boy were there some crappy offers back then. It took me a month or two to figure out what freebies were legit. It was funny how fast I started getting readers. I remember plateauing around 500 daily readers for the longest time, but it was amazing to see how quickly those 500 found the site. I didn’t remember starting the forums (remember those?!) in November 2006. I figured it had been at least a year later. And the jokes! Oh, the jokes, when there were any, were awful. Worse than they are today! Though I have to admit, I hit my stride that summer.

That’s what honestly kept me going – the silly jokes. I used to create & flip sites all the time, but I found writing jokes about freebies refreshing in the strangest way. I’d always wanted to “be funny” for a living, but I could never make myself do it. Suddenly I was being forced to come up with something new every day without picking the topic myself. It was like a bizarro version of The Daily Show. Instead of waking up and making fun of the news, I’d be given toothpaste, a granola bar, and a magazine offer. And after the 40th toothpaste offer, it got really interesting to see if I could keep it original and fresh without ever rehashing the same joke. I loved it.

So yeah, it’s HIF’s birthday. I have no idea what the next six years will bring. More stuff like the Amazon Kindle giveaway from yesterday? Live chat or Q&A sessions? More writers to cover coupons or contests? Who knows but I hope you’ll be there to find out with me. Thanks for everything.

So About That Cancer…

Goob — Thu, 24 Nov 2011 16:36:03 +0000

Yep, that’s a month of hair and a week of beard growth. And the eyebrows are back! I’m thankful for two out of those three.

I’m a private guy by nature. Heck, my sense of humor is a textbook case of having developed as a shielding mechanism. But it feels silly now that I ever debated keeping quiet on my health situation.

I was already in the middle of treatment when I wrote that post. I remember hitting publish then flopping over onto the bed for a smooth 10 hour nap. The next time I loaded HIF, the comment count had skyrocketed into the hundreds and I was shocked. I actually didn’t read them. I didn’t even look at them. I was terrified there’d be a heavy dose of negatvity (I mean, we’re talking about anonymous Internet comments here!) and I was already having enough trouble smiling.

The worst period of all occurred a week later when a perfect storm of side effects culminated. For three straight days, my dog and I lied in bed staring at one another, trying to will the other into venturing out to find food. I finally mustered the energy to get out of bed, but the kitchen felt lightyears away, so I sat down in front of my computer and loaded the comments.

You punks had me crying within minutes.

And that was it. That was the lowest I ever got and everything from there was an improvement. It sounds corny, but knowing I had thousands of complete strangers out there rooting for me was encouraging in a way I’d never thought possible.

Suddenly I wasn’t fighting this damn thing alone! I knew my family and friends had my back, but I never expected in a million years that people I’d never met would care as well. Every corner of the globe seemed to have a vested interest in vanquishing my tumors. I got emails from Canada, India, Ireland, Australia, Japan, and countless others. HIF doesn’t even post freebies for those countries!

I wasn’t able to reply to everyone individually, but I read and appreciated each and every comment and email.

And I’m thrilled to say that I’m now officially in remission.

I’ve said it before and I’m sure I’ll say it again, but thank you. Y’all were phenomenal to me throughout this and knowing that I didn’t have to post freebies every day was a giant load off my back for a few months. So, again, thank you for the kind words and thoughts and prayers and love and every ounce of goodwill channeled in my direction! It made a huge difference and I’ll never forget it.

Now go find some turkey, enjoy the day with family and friends, and have a Happy Thanksgiving!

Thank You

Goob — Thu, 28 Jul 2011 18:16:46 +0000

I have a confession to make. I’m not 100% incompetent when it comes to freebies. I know I’ve missed a bit over the past few weeks and I HATE to make excuses, but long story short I’ve got cancer and am in the middle of chemotherapy.

I debated announcing this for a while. One of the few ways I’m oldschool is how I don’t like broadcasting my problems to the world. The goofy, semi-moronic character named Goob you see on HIF is the same persona I carry on in my daily life. Just ask any of my ex-girlfriends.

But the fact of the matter is there are days where the chemo kicks my ass. I’ve never been so tired in my life and this is coming from a guy who used to nap at least twice a day in college. Knock on wood, this will all pass soon, but in the mean time I’m going to keep missing the occasional freebie.

I ultimately decided to publish this because I wanted to say thank you. I wouldn’t be in a relatively rocking position if it weren’t for y’all. I don’t know how many people know this, but HIF is my job. It went from a joke site to paying for an occasional six-pack to a full time, get up and be at my desk by 8am every day job. Okay, 10am. And I love it! I’m my own boss, I can work from anywhere, all successes (or failures!) are mine and I get to fly by the seat of my pants in so many areas. Trust me, I knew nothing of server maintenance or business tax law or negotiating ad rates 24 months ago.

And with this newfound success, I bought health insurance.

So many of my friends and family are still out of work three years running. They don’t have a steady income, let alone health coverage. And the only reason I do is because of each and every one of you.

Had so many of you not emailed, tweeted, liked, shared, stumbled, telephoned, carrier pigeoned, and however else you spread the word about HIF, then this site wouldn’t still exist. I can’t even begin to fathom how harder that would have made my life now.

So thank you. Even if all you do is scan the page once of twice a week, that’s one or two more pageviews that ultimately led to me being able to take care of myself and put me in a position of optimism. Thank you, thank you, from the bottom of my fraking heart, thank you.

Are You Following HIF on Twitter or Facebook?

Goob — Tue, 22 Mar 2011 18:55:23 +0000

Occasionally people ask why they should follow HIF’s Twitter or Facebook page. Well, for starters, it’s how some Hiffers were able to get the large Tide sample from last week’s Freebies Received post.

Basically I sometimes find smaller offers or freebies that are about to expire. Neither are worth the time or effort it would take to write a proper post, either because they’re only available for certain people or will die before I can think of something funny. So instead I throw them up on Twitter and Facebook.

As a bonus, questions asked on Facebook are answered by other Hiffers ~~somewhat~~ lightyears faster than if they were emailed to me. Turns out they’re a pretty helpful and knowledgable bunch.

So if you’re not already following HIF on Twitter or Facebook, what the heck are you waiting for?

New Newsletter System & $50 Gift Card Contest

Goob — Tue, 11 Jan 2011 20:02:02 +0000

For some reason I really enjoy saying “new newsletter.” Life is all about the small pleasures.

As many of you probably inferred, I updated HIF’s newsletter service to the fine folks at Mailchimp. I’ve been working out the kinks over the past few months and now it should be good to go. If you want to join up then check out the box over to the right titled “Join the newsletter!” or use this handy dandy link. Either way gets the job done.

Additionally, if you want to make absolutely sure you get the daily updates, add newsletter@heyitsfree.net to your contacts list. Some email providers have been known to send newsletters straight to the spam folder. I promise I’m not a Nigerian Prince nor am I peddling cheap knockoff prescription drugs.

Why join the newsletter? Well besides being able to send me an “out of office” message every day (seriously, what’s the deal with those?) the newsletter is your one stop freebie dose each and every day. As a bonus, I’ll pick two subscribers at random to win a $50 American Express gift card! I’ll use Random.org to pick the winners on Wednesday, January 12, at 8:00pm est and email them!

If you’ve got any questions about the contest or newsletter, please leave a comment.

EDIT: If you were already a subscriber before today, then you’re already entered into the contest.

Merry Christmas!

Goob — Sat, 25 Dec 2010 13:00:43 +0000

Merry Christmas, Happy Kwanzaa, Rocking Boxer Day, Cheerful Festivus, or whatever other holiday you might celebrate. I’m heading off to bed with eager anticipations for Santa’s gifts (come on, Easy Bake Oven!), but I wanted to first say a giant Thank You to all the Hiffers out there. 2010 was an amazing year and even though I’ve said it many times before, it’s worth repeating: this place wouldn’t be anything without each and every one of y’all. I hope everyone reading this has/had a fantastic holiday and I’ll be back with more freebies on Monday.

Also, Stacey was the winner of the recent $50 gift card. Almost 1,500 people entered!

I love Panettone – a sweet bread with dried fruit. I always eat it at Christmas.

To everyone else, good luck during the next few contests!

My Painkillers Were Free!

Goob — Fri, 12 Nov 2010 17:44:41 +0000

Hey Hiffers. I had some major surgery yesterday and will be taking the next day or two off from posting, emails, and the sort. I might try getting a few posts up this afternoon if my laptop plays along (what a perfect time for my battery to die!), but I apologize in advance for any freebies we miss while I’m off in Never Never Land. Please do me a favor and play nice while I’m gone though. Taking the time to delete batches of inflammatory comments is even less fun than it sounds.

Goob’s Going Gcamping

Goob — Fri, 28 May 2010 12:01:39 +0000

Seeing as it’s almost Memorial Day weekend and I haven’t left my apartment since there was snow on the ground, I’m heading out early to go camping with some old friends. Don’t worry though, I’ve got a few Budget Busters queued to publish and have set it up so that they’ll also get pushed to the Facebook page as well.

In the mean time be safe, go have some fun, and I’ll see ya Monday or Tuesday barring I’m not abandoned in the woods for telling too many obnoxious puns!

Reminder: Clear Your Cache

Goob — Sat, 17 Oct 2009 16:16:45 +0000

I’m still getting a few daily e-mails from people who are stuck seeing the September 24th version of the site (remember back when I broke HIF? Yeah, those were the days…)

Anyway, if you’re reading this here on HIF and have been seeing new posts recently, then you’re clearly not suffering from the glitch. This is more for Hiffers reading this on Twitter, Facebook, the newsletter, etc.

In case you missed the first post I made, here is how you fix the problem and start getting the new freebies to show up on the site!

Clear your browser’s cache. It takes 15 seconds and instructions for most browsers can be found at that link.
Close your browser.
Finally, reopen your browser, go to HIF, and press CTRL+R (for Windows) or CMND+R (for Mac).

That should do it! Sorry again for the hassle.

Goob Broke HIF!

Goob — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 05:21:28 +0000

This is kind of important, so thanks for reading it.

The allusion to site updates wasn’t a farce, but I figured this piece of news deserved it’s own post to start with. Long story short, I broke the site last Friday and didn’t find out about it until yesterday. Apparently a ton of Hiffers haven’t been seeing any new posts since September 24. My bad!

To make matters worse, those of us who saw the new updates were still experiencing discrepancies across the site (comment counts were inaccurate, new posts would show up and then vanish, and I think my room’s haunted with a ghost…well, that last one really only applies to me).

I’ve fixed the code on my end, but it could take up to 72 hours to filter down to everyone. However, there are some quick and easy steps you can take to make sure you get the correct fix much sooner:

Clear your browser’s cache. It takes 15 seconds and instructions for most browsers can be found at that link.
Close your browser.
Finally, reopen your browser, go to HIF, and press CTRL+R (for Windows) or CMND+R (for Mac).

Those steps should take care of the problem. Again, apologizes for the trouble! I’m heading to bed, but feel free to leave any comments or questions and I’ll get to them in the morning.

EDIT: Just to be clear, this wasn’t a virus or anything malicious. I simply inadvertently put in code that told people’s browsers not to check for a new version of HIF until April 2010. For better or worse, I intend to make new posts between now and then, so I deleted that code!

Quick Poll on Links

Goob — Sat, 22 Aug 2009 17:12:30 +0000

I’ve gotten a few e-mails recently about links opening in a new window and so I thought I’d see what the general consensus was.

Currently, links to freebie sites open in the same window. They can be set to open in a new window / tab, but that setting would then take away the option from you.

As most webmasters see it, users should have almost total control over their own surfing habits. Site shouldn’t force a link to open in a new window, but instead let users have the option. For instance, I enjoy links opening in new tabs and I do this by using the scroll wheel on my mouse. Most people don’t realize that the scroll wheel is also a button and by using it to click a link in Firefox, it’ll automatically open the link in a new tab. I don’t know if this works with IE or Chrome, but I’d suspect that it does.

There is also another method, which is to right-click on any link and select “open link in a new tab/window.” This is clearly more ineffective, but research shows it’s the most popular. *insert picture of me scratching my head.*

However, the more I think about it, the more keen I am to opening freebie links in a new tab for HIF. Most sites don’t have nearly as many links as we do, thanks to the nature of posting freebies. Chime in by voting / commenting and letting me know how you feel about it!

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Welcome, New Readers!

Goob — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 03:00:38 +0000

Sometimes I’m lucky enough to get a headsup whenever HIF is going to be featured on a news broadcast, which is exactly why I’m writing this since HIF was featured on WTMJ in Milwaukee last night. With new viewers comes waves of people being introduced to the land of freebies (ed: sounds like a bad board game) and so I put together this quick “what the heck is going on here?” guide.

First off, freebies can be found below. Just start scrolling and you’ll see our latest posts. If you prefer, you can select a Category over on the sidebar and display only freebies pertaining to that subject.

In addition to the freebies, here are some of the most popular sections of the site:

Frequently Asked Questions – This short page might help answer some of your questions about freebies and how they work exactly.

Free Coupons – A roundup of all the websites where you can print out coupons for free.

Daily Newsletter – Every day at 3:00 EST, a newsletter goes out with every new post we made in the previous 24 hours.

Forums – Our community forums are a great place to hang out and learn about freebies from other people who are into free stuff.

Top Rated Freebies – Occasionally we put together massive lists of freebies that you can find. For instance, we have an ongoing list of stores and restaurants that give away free birthday food. Another good example is our wiki page of every museum in the country that offers free admission!

Stay In Touch – And last, but not least, we offer a gazillion different ways to follow our recent postings. Want to follow our RSS feed? Addicted to Twitter? Ignore basic hygiene by spending too much time to Facebook? We feel your pain.

Our RSS Feed
Follow us on Twitter
Chat with us on Facebook
Does anybody still use Myspace?

And that should do it! Of course, if you still have no idea what’s going on here, feel free to contact me and ask away with your questions.

On Why I Don’t Post All Freebies

Goob — Sat, 20 Jun 2009 22:02:03 +0000

Recently I’ve gotten an increase in the number of emails that more or less say “Hey, why didn’t you post X?” and thus I thought I’d take a moment to address this.

The freebie isn’t free. There’s shipping. Or a minimum purchase. Or an “identification check” via your credit card. Or any number of other strings that are attached to freebies which make them not worth our while. This doesn’t mean I won’t post something that isn’t 100% free, but it is the first bar that an offer generally has to cross in order for me to even consider it on the site.

The freebie stinks. Seriously, who wants a DVD for vacationing in Montana just because it’s free? Anybody even remotely interested in that would have already Googled for it instead of waiting for a freebie site to post it.

I can’t confirm the freebie isn’t spam. This tends to be the case when a bunch of other freebie sites post a freebie while I hold off on it. Sometimes the freebie ends up being legit and people send in “see, I told you so!” messages. But these situations are the exception to the norm and I’m willing to sacrifice posting them in order to make sure the spam is kept out too.

The freebie is only available locally. It’s great that your locally owned and operated batting cages or auditorium is giving away free tickets, but I can’t post the offers if it’ll only benefit 0.001% of Hiffers out there. If I posted each local offer I discovered, I’d never sleep. These are better suited for the forums, not the main page of the site. The added benefit of posting them there is that anybody can add a freebie, meaning far more local offers are bound to show up.

There are only a few samples available. I won’t even consider posting any freebie with a supply that’s under 1,000. Anything under 10,000 depends on outside factors, like when it first became available and how many other freebie sites I’ve seen it on. Companies are notorious for leaving up their submission forms well after they’ve run out of supplies. It’s not uncommon for me to find an offer that has, say, 25,000 samples, only for me to later dig up a press release that shows the offer was released in 2007. There’s no way that freebie is showing up and so why waste our collective time in posting it?

There are other uncommon reasons why I won’t post something, but you get the gist.

Free Birthday Food List Updated

Goob — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 16:51:44 +0000

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

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

Wanted: Your Questions

Goob — Fri, 08 May 2009 18:24:17 +0000

Adam and I have been kicking around the idea to do a freebie-related radio show at Blog Talk Radio for a while now, but we never could get a good time to do it regularly. So for now, I’m going to go at it alone and will host the first episode sometime next week.

Seeing as how I get dozens of the same e-mails every day with pretty much the same questions, I’ve decided to answer as many of them as possible during the first show. So if you have any particular questions you’d like answered, send them in and chances are I’ll probably cover them.

Site News: Update

Goob — Mon, 06 Apr 2009 16:22:03 +0000

And we’re back! … kinda. The forums and wiki are still being worked on, but they should be back up tonight. I was focused mainly on getting the blog up and running over the past 12ish hours, so thankfully it appears to be working. If you’re having trouble leaving a comment or clicking on a link, let me know and I’ll have a look into it.

We might go down intermittently throughout the rest of the day as I try and squash any new bugs that are found. If that happens, you can find all of today’s posts over on our backup blog that I created last night. Or was it technically this morning? Whatever, it’s nap time!

Site News

Goob — Sat, 04 Apr 2009 20:50:59 +0000

I bought a dedicated server for HIF this week and will be transferring the site / tweaking the settings on it all weekend long, so apologies in advance for any kinks you may experience. If you’re experiencing any significant problems, however, feel free to contact me so that I can look into it.

The good news is that with the new server, the site should experience fewer downtimes and load a bit faster. So…woohoo!

Site News & $400+ In Free Prizes

Goob — Tue, 27 Jan 2009 21:31:18 +0000

HIF is undergoing some super awesome changes this week, (new server! new writers! and more!) and so I thought I’d take a minute to explain them. Oh, and maybe you’d be interested in learning that I’m giving away over $400 in prizes as well? Yeah, that’s what I thought!

You may remember that a while back I put out a call for additional writers. Well what you may not know is that I’ve since found the writers I was looking for and they’ve joined the crew! I’ll let them introduce themselves as they start posting, but long story short we’ve got two people working on finding the best coupons available and two more hunting down deals and steals. Throw in the freebies and reviews that we already post and there’s not much we’re leaving out in the way of saving you money.

I’m also moving HIF to a new server as we’re pretty much causing our current box to melt. The only reason I bring this up is to say that our downtime should be significantly reduced during times of peak traffic. About time, right?

And finally, you’re probably sitting there wondering what’s up with the $400+ in prizes I alluded to earlier. Well starting tomorrow I’ll be giving away gift cards and cold hard cash for five days straight. Why? Because it’s been a while since I’ve done so, that’s why!

It’ll be super easy to enter into the contests as well. Each morning I’ll provide instructions on how to enter and then that evening I’ll pick a winner. Rinse, wash, and repeat until I’ve given everything away.

The first prize tomorrow will be a $50 Walmart giftcard, so be sure to check out the site in the morning and spread the word!

Whoops

Goob — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 23:43:38 +0000

Please ignore that Inauguration Day freebie post you may have seen here on the site or in your RSS reader earlier tonight. It’s clearly a work in progress and was accidentally published to the main site for a while. That’s what I get for trying to drink wine and eat dinner while I work! © [...]