Free New York Times Digital Subscription

Free NY Times Digital for High School Teachers & Students

Both teachers and high school students are offered free New York Times digital access now through September 1, 2021.

Accounts includes unlimited access to articles, videos and more on nytimes.com and in the New York Times app. Accounts also include lessons from The Learning Network featuring articles, photos, podcasts and more.

In order to get this freebie, a high school administrator or teacher must register and set up the class account. Once accounts are confirmed, teachers can upload student email addresses and auto-generate student account invitation emails.

For a detailed guide on how to set this up, look at the Frequently Asked Questions on the bottom of the page.


Free Guitar Lessons

Free Guitar Lessons for 3 Months

Stuck at home with nothing to do and a guitar collecting dust in the closet? Then it's time to annoy your neighbors and sign up for 3 months of free guitar lessons online! They have free lessons for guitar, bass, and ukulele. No credit card is required, so there's no worry about getting charged at the end of this promo, but they're only offering this to the first 50,000 people to sign up!

I hope everybody is holding up well after another week of quarantine! As for me, I'm still going strong with learning how to spell quarantine.

https://twitter.com/goobisgoofy/status/1240695813803667458


Free Kaplan SAT Study Course Prep

Free Kaplan 6-Month SAT Test Prep Access ($149 Value)

If you've got somebody in your life stressing over their SATs, then be sure to forward this freebie to them! For a limited time, you can get a free 6-month access to Kaplan's SAT Prep On Demand course, which retails for $149. You don't need to add any credit card or payment info, but you'll still get this full freebie.

Here's how to trigger this great deal:

  1. Click the “Enroll” button and join Kaplan's SAT Prep On Demand.
  2. Enter promo code KAPFRIENDS.
  3. Make sure the total is $0.
  4. Create your free account and place the “order!”

Once you're signed up, you should be able to login and access your free SAT test prep course under “Access Resources.” It includes tons of SAT quizzes, dozens of instructional videos, and thousands of practice questions to help sharpen your mind and skills. Since this is a six month freebie, it should get your through the summer and help you nail your upcoming test!

Aside from Kaplan, I know Khan Academy has a great SAT prep course that's always free.


Free Nintendo Switch Online

Amazon Prime: Free 12-Months Nintendo Switch Online

If you have an Amazon Prime account, you may already know that you can link it to Twitch.tv and get tons of free perks. Over the past two years, they've given away exclusive skins, cosmetics, subscriptions, and even entire games!

Currently, you can get up to 12 free months of Nintendo Switch Online, a $20 value. This allows anybody with a Nintendo Switch to access online play, classic NES games, and other cool perks.

Those who already have a Nintendo Switch Online membership will have these additional months added to their existing Nintendo Switch Online membership. Twitch Prime members have until Sept. 24, 2019 to claim their three months of Nintendo Switch Online, and until January 22, 2020 to claim the additional nine months.


Free LEGO Building Instructions Guides

Thousands of Free LEGO Building Instructions!

In addition to the free LEGO magazine, which deserves a spot in the Freebie Hall of Fame at this point, did you know you can now access most LEGO instructions online? There are tons of digital building guides offered by the official LEGO company in pdf form, accessible in your browser on your computer or phone!

Free LEGO Instructions Database

The first place to start is this free LEGO instructions database where you can search and download thousands of free LEGO guides!

Their database has instructions going back to 1989 – back when I was first building LEGOs as a kid! There's all sorts of cool stuff in here and while many of the large sets have unique pieces, you can build a lot of stuff with just a random box of LEGO pieces. You can search by topic or, more easily IMHO, object. I found over 60 cool guides for “helicopter” and “boat.” There were over 250 instructions for “car” alone!

Jobs or tasks are other good searches to find new digital building manuals. “Police” returned 160 free guides for all sorts of cops & robbers toys. Meanwhile, “Fire” gave me 156 free fire-fighting builds to download. Trademarks are the last great search. “Star wars” has 503 free LEGO guides. “Potter” returned 67 wizarding toys. You get the idea.

This free database is a great option to both dig up old guides from your childhood and discover new instructions to build!

Free LEGO Creative Building Kits

If you're anything like me, you also have a box full of LEGO bricks mixed together from a variety of different sets. In that case, you might enjoy these free Creative Bundle Box instructions.

Starting in 2021, LEGO released a new website offering of LEGO® Classic Building Instructions. These are all free bundles with tons of building instructions per kit. Each kit usually has 4 to 26 guides that often have a similar themes. Click through on each of the following kits to see a full list of items and download the .pdfs or use the links below.

  • 11001 LEGO Bricks and Ideas – 4 free guides: Create a classic steam train, cozy house, cool music keyboard, cute red dinosaur or whatever toy you can imagine!
  • 11002 LEGO Basic Brick Set – 7 free guides: Meet a knight on horseback and a friendly dinosaur. Perform stunts in a cool monster truck or take to the skies in a classic propeller plane. Create a cute dog, bird in a birdhouse or whatever you can imagine with these bright and colorful LEGO bricks, wheels and eyes!
  • 11003 LEGO Bricks and Eyes – 9 free guides: Have fun creating all kinds of characters with all sorts of eyes, from a sleepy sheep with tightly closed eyes to a goggle-eyed pumpkin or a cute pink rabbit with spinnable eyes!
  • 11005 LEGO Creative Fun – 10 free guides: Create all kinds of fun toys, from a spin top to a cute dog or a friendly lion. Then get to work on an old-fashioned typewriter, skim over the waves aboard a bright pink water scooter or head for the skies in a vintage biplane—the choice is yours!
  • 10717 LEGO Bricks Bricks Bricks – 10 free guides: Set sail on a mighty galleon to an ancient castle where a frog prince resides. Create a beautiful country house, a gramophone with a spinning turntable, a classic red telephone or a cute elephant with its baby—the possibilities are endless!
  • 10713 LEGO Creative Suitcase – 10 free guides: Have fun creating cute creatures, cool cars, cozy houses and whatever else you can imagine.
  • 10712 LEGO Bricks and Gears – 10 free guides: Create a bright and colorful world of moving models and fun functions with these exciting guides. Build a helicopter with spinning rotor, a carousel, a swinging monkey, bright sunflowers that turn their heads or a funny owl with moving eyes.
  • 10696 LEGO Medium Creative Brick Box – 24 free guides: With a mad mix of bricks, windows, eyes and wheels, this LEGO Classic set is bursting with creative possibilities. From a space shuttle to a windmill, a toaster to a tiger, these awesome quick-build models are a great way to get started.
  • 10698 LEGO Large Creative Brick Box – 26 free guides: Download free building instructions and celebrate Christmas and other public holidays with buildable LEGO® toys! And that’s not all, there’s a camera, teddy bear, excavator, castle, locomotive… enough quick-build LEGO creativity to keep kids busy all year long!
  • 10692 LEGO Creative Bricks – 11 free guides: Dig into this selection of LEGO bricks and let your imagination run away with you! The building possibilities are endless, with classic bricks in 29 different colors and special pieces including doors, windows, wheels, eyes and propellers. And if you don’t know where to start, you can find instructions with some ideas to get you going. This is an ideal set to help budding builders of all ages get creative, and would complement any existing LEGO collection.
  • 10693 LEGO Creative Supplement – 10 free guides: Give budding LEGO builders a great start with these awesome quick-build LEGO toys. There’s a dinosaur toy, robot, shark, pirate ship, jet airplane, a rocket… Simply download the free building instructions and watch kids’ imaginations soar!
  • 10694 LEGO Creative Supplement Bright – 10 free guides: From butterflies and flowers to guitars and cakes, this set of build guides are designed for builders of all ages.
  • 10703 LEGO Creative Builder Box – 6 free guides: Create beautiful houses, exciting shops, cozy cafés, ornamental pagodas, magical castles and more.
  • 10704 LEGO Creative Box – 9 free guides: Build a world of cars, boats, buildings and creatures.
  • 10706 LEGO Blue Creativity Box – 3 free guides
  • 10707 LEGO Red Creativity Box – 3 free guides.
  • 10708 LEGO Green Creativity Box – 3 free guides.
  • 10709 LEGO Orange Creativity Box – 3 free guides.

I don't know how long these free guides will last, so I would download the .pdfs today! That way if they ever delete these digital manuals, you'll still have access to them again in your own personal library.

Free LEGO Mini Build Instructions

From 2008-2020, LEGO offered monthly free mini build instructions that are super easy to build with generic LEGO piece. Somebody collected over 12 years worth of these free guides and you can view & download them all here! With only a handful of generic pieces, you'll learn how to build a frog, truck, airplane, or something similar.

All of these instructions are trademarks of the LEGO® group.

Free LEGO Instructions App

Finally, LEGO has a new app called Brickit that scans your pile of LEGO pieces and tells you what to build! This is the future my 8 year old self always dreamed up.

Hopefully with these free resources, you can put your old collection of LEGOs back to good use and enjoy many more years of fun with them.

I'll admit, I still have a box or two of LEGOs still lying around! I can't wait to build some of these old school LEGO designs, even if the colors might be slightly off 😀 If this sounds fun to you or your kids, be sure to check out all the free LEGO guides.


Free Amazon FreeTime Unlimited Family Trial

Deal: Free Amazon Kids+ Family Month Trial

For a limited time, Amazon is offering a free month trial to their Kids+ Family Plan. Kids+ is their all-in-one subscription plan which gives kids access to thousands of kid-friendly books, movies, TV shows, educational apps, Audible books, and games. They also receive hundreds of hours of fun with ad-free radio stations and playlists, Audible books, and a growing list of premium kid’s skills available on compatible Echo devices.

On top of that, parents get access to easy-to-use parental controls letting them find the right balance between education and entertainment. Personalize screen time limits, set educational goals, filter age-appropriate content, and also manage web browsing and content usage based on their preferences.

Free Amazon Kids Programming Trial Deal

Starting at $2.99/month after the free one-month trial, Kids+ gives kids content from tons of companies, like Disney, Nickelodeon, Sesame Street, PBS Kids, and Cartoon Network. They also have different sections targeted to three main age groups:

  • Ages 3 to 5
  • Ages 6 to 8
  • Ages 9 to 12

I don't have kids of my own, but something tells me summer months are the perfect time to test this service out. 🙂 Make sure to have a compatible Fire, Android, iOS and Kindle device to use this, listed on the site.

Any Hiffers tried this out yet? What do you and your kids think of it?


2018 Black Friday & Cyber Monday Entrepreneur Deals

Black Friday & Cyber Monday Entrepreneur Deals

Being an entrepreneur and running a business online can be an expensive endeavor! On top of the double taxation and unsteady income, there are countless subscriptions and licenses you need to buy. I probably have two dozen services running HIF, any number of which I'd be rudderless without.

One tip I always give anybody starting or running a website is to take advantage of Black Friday and Cyber Monday. Throughout the year, I bookmark all sorts of services I want to try, then buy a cheap subscription this time of year. If it's worth it, I upgrade the next year for the same discount!

Below, you'll find some of the best Black Friday and Cyber Monday deals I could find for anybody running a website. I personally use each and every one of these for something!

Even if you've only been thinking about starting a site, now is the perfect and cheapest time to start!

NameDealEndCodeCategory
WP Engine35%Nov 26cyberwpe2018 (review)Hosting
SiteGround75%Nov 26none needed! (review)Hosting
HostGator65%Nov 232018BF (review)Hosting
PureVPN88%Nov 23none needed! (review)VPN, security
Namecheap$0.99 domainsNov 26none needed! (review)Domains
GoDaddy$0.99 domainsNov 26none needed! (review)Domains
WP Rocket35%Nov 27none needed! (review)Cache, Plugin
AAWP30%Nov 26BLACKWEEKEND2018 (review)Affiliate, Plugin
Pretty Links Pro60%Nov 30BFCODE (review)Affiliate, Plugin
Gravity Forms30%Nov 23none neededContact, Plugin
Advanced Custom Fields30%Nov 27BLACKFRIDAY2018Plugin
Jetpack30%Nov 30JPBLACKFRIDAY30Plugin
Soliloquy30%Nov 30BFSS30Slider, Plugin
Envira Gallery30%Nov 30BFSS30Gallery, Plugin
StudioPress20%Nov 30none needed! (review)Themes
ThemeIsle30%Nov 26none needed!Themes
GeneratePress25%Nov 26BLKFRI18Themes
WooCommerce30%Nov 30BLACKCYBER2018 (review)eCommerce, plugin
Easy Digital Download25%Nov 30BFCM2018eCommerce, plugin
Proven40%?BLACK18eCommerce, plugin

Save 75% off SiteGround

SiteGround Black Friday Deals

With SiteGround's Black Friday sale, there's no code need! You can instantly save a 75% discount on all of their shared hosting plans, which I use for some of my own sites, like this streaming gear review site!

SiteGrounds' deal is only valid on Black Friday (Nov 23) and Cyber Monday (Nov 26).

Save 55% off HostGator

HostGator Black Friday Deals

If you have a much smaller website that you doesn't receive tons of daily traffic, HostGator gives you the best bang for your buck. At 65% off, it's hard to find another hosting package that comes in under $3 a month! However not only that, but you also get a free domain with this, making it the perfect option for a new site!

HostGator is only offering 65% off their hosting on Black Friday and Cyber Monday, I believe. To get this deal, use code 2018BF.

Get $0.99 Domains at Name Cheap

Namecheap Black Friday Deals

While I love NameCheap as my domain registry of choice, their Black Friday and Cyber Monday deals take a tiny bit of work. You'll need to set an alarm for X:59 each day.

Why? Because a limited number of cheap domains and hosting packages become available at the start of every hour, 24 times a day!

I've already managed to score a $0.88 .com name and .org name!

These sales are only valid on Black Friday (Nov 23) and Cyber Monday (Nov 26).

Get $0.99 Domains at GoDaddy

GoDaddy Black Friday Deals

GoDaddy is offering $0.99 for certain top level domains. You can get multiple of these, which I find are great for joke sites or small niche sites that don't necessarily need a .com!

I picked up a $0.99 .info and .club just now! In addition to .99 domains, they have $1.99 and $2.99 for some other tlds.

I believe these prices are valid on Black Friday and Cyber Monday only!

Save 35% off WP Rocket

WP Rocket Black Friday Deal

WP Rocket is the best caching plugin for WordPress. It has all the features any other caching plugins has, but it's also super easy to use and well documented.

Google is placing a growing importance on website loading times, which is where WP Rocket comes in. It links with

If you're running a site with more than 10 visitors a day, you need a caching plugin!

Get 35% off on all plans before this expires November 27.

Save 30% Off AAWP

AAWP Black Friday Deals

AAWP is my personal pick for the best Amazon Associates plugin for WordPress. It's what I use for the table on our daily Amazon Deals roundups. You can also easily make comparison tables or individual product widgets, both of which are seen on this best fps monitors guide!

Amazon has become aggressively enforcing their TOS rules, many of which are … let's say arcane? Many Amazon plugins fail certain aspects, but AAWP is completely, 100% compliant Amazon's entire TOS. It uses Amazon's API to update prices in real time, which is one of Amazon's biggest demands.

I honestly can't imagine being in Amazon's affiliate program and not using AAWP!

For Black Friday, AAWP is 30% off with code BLACKWEEKEND2018

This deal expires November 26.

Save 60% off Pretty Links Pro

Pretty Links Pro Black Friday

Pretty Links Pro is my plugin of choice for managing links. Remember how many times I posted free Kellogg's codes over the years? I'd go insane updating each of those posts, individually, every time the link changed!

Pretty Links Pro lets you manage all of your links from one, central location.

They're offering 60% off all new purchases and upgrades! Use code BF2018 before this special ends November 30.

Save 30% off WooCommerce

WooCommerce Black Friday Deals

When it comes to selling physical goods, nothing beats WooCommerce.

Without WooCommerce, we'd have to use Shopify, which would inevitably cost more money.

This sales ends November 30.

Save 88% off PureVPN

PureVPN Black Friday

Working from home ultimately means working from an unsecured internet connection. During a given year, I travel for holidays, vacation, work conferences, and often work from a coffee shop or library.

All those open, public wifi connections are prime opportunity to have your passwords stolen, or even worse. The last thing I want is to check an affiliate account at my hotel, only to have the bellhop log-in later and switch my payout options to his bank account!

Plus, do you really know who owns that AirBnB? Heck, the previous guests could have installed spyware on the router!

Thus, a VPN is an absolute must! One of the best Black Friday VPN deals is with PureVPN. They're giving 88% off on a 5 year plan! At $1.32 a month, this is less than a pack of gum yet provides an incredible amount of security!


Instacart Coupon Codes

Get Groceries Delivered Straight to your Door with Instacart

Instacart is one of the biggest grocery delivery service in the country and are now offering free delivery on your first order! Simply go here, enter your zip code, create a free account, and shop for any and all groceries you need from your local store. Instacart will then deliver your groceries directly to your door sometimes in just one hour!

This allows you to shop for anything you need from either your computer or your phone. Using your browser or smartphone app, simply pick your produce, meat, dairy, and any other grocery items you need and checkout through Instacart. Then a personal shopper fulfills your order from the specific store you've chosen then delivers your food immediately.

You can look at a partial list of participating grocery stores by entering your zip code here, but you'll want to create an account to get a full list.

If you find you love Instacart, they also offer an Instacart Express with unlimited grocery deliveries for just one low monthly fee.

Either way, Instacart is a great way to help get fresh food and ingredients to the house without having to leave yourself!


Free Swagbucks

Free Swagbucks Code

Chances are you found this site looking for free Swagbucks code. When I initially wrote this post in 2010, Swagbucks used to toss out free codes left and right. Then they went and got super popular! Now their free codes literally expire in under an hour and many times within minutes. However, I've been keeping this post updated with any bigger promotions that Swagbucks runs, such as…

October 2018 Free Swagbucks Promotion

If you earn 300 SB by December (which is super easy), you'll get a free $3 bonus!

All throughout October and November, you can earn large bonuses when you join Swagbucks. They're a rewards site where you earn points (called SB) for things you're probably doing online already, like searching, watching videos, discovering deals, and taking surveys. Then you take those points and exchange them for gift cards to places like Amazon, Starbucks, or PayPal cash.

When you sign up through me this month, you can earn a 300 SB bonus! Here's how:

  1. Sign up using this link
  2. Earn 300 SB total before December 1st, 2018. You'll get a 300 SB bonus for it!
  3. That's it! It's super easy, and Swagbucks is for real. I personally redeem an Amazon gift card from them once a year based completely on the free points I've earned.

If you've got no idea what I'm talking about when I saw Swagbucks, check out this review I wrote of them a while back. Long story short, it's like Google, but with prizes. Every search you make has the potential to earn points, which can be redeemed for cool stuff like gift cards.


Cheaper Hearthstone Packs via Amazon

Hearthstone is one of Blizzards best video games and I don't say that because it's free. 😀 What starts out as a simple card game quickly evolves into so much more. It's part strategy, part planning, and a big part luck.

At the heart of Hearthstone is collecting cards and purchasing packs is the quickest way to do so. Each pack comes with 5 random cards for you to keep forever as you battle and build your decks.

Currently, Blizzard charges the following prices in-game.

  • 2 packs / $2.99 ($1.495 per pack)
  • 7 packs / $9.99 ($1.427 per pack)
  • 15 packs / $19.99 ($1.332 per pack)
  • 40 packs / $49.99 ($1.249 per pack)
  • 60 packs / $69.99 ($1.166 per pack)

Better Hearthstone Pack Prices

Meanwhile, Amazon sells Amazon Coins at a $1 to 100 ratio. These coins can ultimately be used to purchase Hearthstone packs in place of your credit card.

In fact, if you make your purchases through Amazon, you only pay the following.

  • 2 packs / $2.97 ($1.48 per pack)
  • 7 packs / $9.70 ($1.385 per pack)
  • 15 packs / $19.40 ($1.293 per pack)
  • 40 packs / $46.50 ($1.162 per pack)
  • 82 packs / $87 ($1.06 per pack) Best Deal!
The prices above only reflect the current 25% discount Amazon is offering on their coins. During many occasions (like when new expansions are released), Amazon increases the discount to 30%-40%!

As you can see, purchasing in bulk via Amazon Coin has significant advantages. In almost every case, you can get the same amount of packs for less money. Meanwhile, if you opt for the biggest stash, you not only get a much better rate but 22 additional packs!

How to Get Cheaper Hearthstone Packs

After purchasing your Amazon Coins, you have to install Hearthstone from the Amazon Appstore onto an Android device. If you don't have access to an Android device, you can use a free Android emulator on your PC. After downloading, install and launch the emulator, then proceed.

Whether on your Android or emulator, your next step is to launch Hearthstone and login to your Blizzard account. Now purchase the packs and you'll pay with your Amazon Coins.

Unfortunately, as of 2018, there isn't a way to pull this deal off on iOs or Macs.

I've been a Hearthstone addict for years and this was new to me, so I wanted to share!


Free Carfax Report

Free Carfax Report

If you're in the market for a free Carfax Report, then be sure to check out their helpful guide on obtaining one.

Normally a Carfax usually costs $39.99, so this is great if you're buying a car. I used my free report to look up my old truck and was told that the odometer had potentially been tampered. Yeah, it's my fault the makers only put five digits on the display so that after 99,999 it simply rolled over. As soon as the first 100,000 were put on it, I raced around the country to secretly put on another 100,000 without anybody being any the wiser!

You know, I probably shouldn't be telling this to tens of thousands of people. I'd make a horrible evil scientist.


Exclusive HIF Swagbucks Offer

We've written about Swagbucks quick a few times already (tons of forums posts plus this extensive Swagbucks review I made back in January). After two months of using them as my primary search engine, I'd say I'm even more in love with them than I initially was. I've already earned enough points for two $5 Amazon giftcards and I'm fairly close to a third. How can you not love free money just for searching?!

If you're still sitting on the fence about joining Swagbucks, maybe this will help nudge you in the right direction. Starting today, any new member who signs up can use the code HEYITSFREE to earn two free swag bucks, which will be added to the three swag bucks already offered to new members, thus giving you five swag bucks starting out! For reference, a $5 Amazon giftcard costs 45 swag bucks, so you'll already be 11% of the way to getting your first prize. But that's just one example, they have hundreds of prizes to choose from and dozens of different gift card options.

I usually average around 2-3 swag bucks a day though my normal search habits, which takes me about 15-20 days to earn a prize. Just think how many giftcards you'd have by now had you signed up when I first wrote about Swagbucks in January!

The code expires at midnight PST on Wednesday, so you've got almost two days to sign up and use the code. For people who are already members of Swagbucks, feel free to leave a comment with your opinions on the site. I'm interested in hearing what others think!