Saving Money Little by Little: #8 - Birthday Freebies

I'm not normally the type of person to tell the world when my birthday is but it pertains to the reason for this post so: it's my birthday.

There. Now that we got that out of the way, read on.

A couple years ago, I started dabbling a little bit in couponing. I don't devote tons of time to couponing but I can definitely say that it's worth the amount of time you do put into it. Speaking of time, when I have more, I'll probably write a post on couponing so I'll just get right to the point:

You can get a lot of free stuff on your birthday.

I learned that during my coupon dabbling.

Right now, I have coupons for a free hamburger from Fuddruckers, a free hamburger from Ruby Tuesday's, a free entree from Moe's, a free medium beverage from Dunkin' Donuts, a surprise treat on my Panera card, 50 free Swagbucks in my Swagbucks account (also for another post), a BOGO Blizzard coupon to Dairy Queen and a $5 check coming by snail mail from Magazines.com... and my birthday is only half over today.

It seems that there are many companies that really like you when it's your birthday and will send you coupons for free food and or stuff. Most coupons don't have to be used on your birthday and are good for a couple weeks. The restaurant coupons also aren't all dine-in only SO last August I definitely called in burger orders to Fuddruckers and Ruby Tuesdays on the same night and picked up an awesome (completely free) dinner for the hubs and I to eat at home (don't judge). Doesn't food always taste better when it's free?

Sadly, this year I can only use the Dunkin' Donuts coupon. Since the move, we don't live anywhere near a Fuddruckers, Ruby Tuesday's, Moe's, Panera, or Dairy Queen but we like it like that, so it's cool. I'd give them away but many times the restaurants will check your ID to make sure it's you and that would be crazy embarrassing so I'm just going to tell you how you can get your own birthday coupons. Yippee!

Collin over at Hip2Save has a great resource page with links to a ton of birthday freebies. Sign up for what you want and then wait patiently for your birthday to roll around (sorry July babies, it'll be a while).

Most companies require you to sign up for their rewards program or subscribe to their emails. Personally, it doesn't bother me to delete ad emails out of my inbox everyday. I keep up with it so it's never too much to handle. I do know, however, that that would drive some people crazy so if you want to take advantage of deals like these but don't want the inbox clutter, I would suggest creating a new email account simply for those subscriptions. Check said new email account the week of your birthday (most of the promotions come either on your birthday or during the week before) and then forget about it the rest of the year. Win - win... or should I say, "Happy Birthday"?

The only promotion I didn't see on Collin's birthday freebie list is one from Magazines.com. This one is my absolute favorite. Every year, Magazines.com sends me an email with a $5 Gift Card to use towards a magazine on their site. In the fine print, however, Magazines.com will allow you to redeem that Gift Card for cash(!) in the form of a check. Magazines.com has sent me a $5 check every year for the past 3 years... I've never purchased a single magazine from Magazines.com.

If you'd like your own $5 from Magazines.com, head over here to register for a Magazines.com account and make sure to include your birth date (it's optional) in the registration form. Then, when your big day rolls around, look for your $5 Gift Card in your inbox, copy your special promo code from the email and fill out the check request form at the bottom of the page here.

So awesome, right?!

I'm not gonna lie, birthday freebies make me just a little more giddy every time August 27th comes around. Here's to hoping it will for you too.

Happy Birthday everybody!