Addicted to Free

Yes, it's true. My name is Angela and I'm a free-aholic, in case you couldn't tell from my FREE Birthday Extravaganza post. As a stay-at-home mom, I don't find I have much expendable income, and even if I did, free beats cheap any day. Thus, I spend parts of my days signing up for free samples (that's free stuff, plus something in the mailbox other than bills, what could be better?), taking surveys for money (surveyspot.com, check it out if you have free time to take surveys), and generally signing up for free programs to earn, you got it, free stuff.

My new faves:
swagbucks.com (if you sign up following this link, you help me out, but don't feel obligated, please!) - a search engine powered by Google and Yahoo which gives you the opportunity to earn points (called swagbucks, hence the website) for free things, most excitingly, amazon.com gift cards (plus if you get friends to sign up, you get a buck for every buck they earn) - if you want to be even more swag savvy, you can download their swidget, which I check obsessively for codes to get more bucks. Also, you can download their toolbar, or if you use firefox, designate swagbucks as your search engine of choice in your upper right search bar, and you'll use it automatically any time you need to find something - free money, people, can't be beat!

mypoints.com - ok, so it's not new to me, really, but they send e-mails (about 2 or 3 a day) for junk I don't usually want, or offer points for buying things at their partner sites, which I don't usually do, BUT what I DO do is click on the links in the e-mails. Each clicked e-mail gives an automatic 5 points, and does NOT cause more spam to you or your computer. I simply click, close the tab that opens, because I honestly don't care about the site, usually, then delete the e-mail. Takes 3 seconds, 5 points. BAM! I've earned much money in free clothes (I think my total is up to $70 to date - now that's over two years, but $70 is $70). If you're interested and want to help me out, let me know and I'll e-mail you a referral link. Or if you're impatient you can sign up without my link, just don't tell me, or I'll cry.

Finally, Disney Movie Rewards, which gives you points with each code you enter from qualified titles on Disney DVD. Also, you can get 50 points right away by entering the code "GOOFY" and another 100 points by taking a one-time survey. From that and going through my own collection of Disney movies, which always had the codes and I always ignored them, I already have 850 points, which means I already do qualify for some rewards (most of them, to be sure, are pretty lame, unless you like mini-posters or High School Musical, but as can be imagined, there are some things worth saving up for).

So, yep, those are some of my recent free faves. Hope I was able to welcome at least a few into the wonderful world of free (since I referenced Disney earlier, you think they'd let me borrow their phrase just this once? I sure hope so - I can't afford a lawsuit - unless I can pay for it with my Movie Rewards).

And as my Wal-Mart cashier said last night when I bought Hairspray on DVD for $3.26 after tax, "You can't beat that with a stick!"