Homer Simpson, popular culture icon that he is, once asked, "Is there a
sweeter four-letter word in the English language than free?"
Conversely, Young MC, a relatively obscure rapper who peaked in success in
the late 1980s, remarked, "Honest day's work for an honest day's pay …
until Uncle Sam takes a portion away."
Indeed, it can often seem like money truly makes the world go round. From
morning coffee to afternoon commute home, you're always spending money in some
fashion. As a result, isn't it so tremendous when you come across something for
free — no strings attached, no money paid, completely yours just for the effort
of picking it up and taking it along?
It seems these situations don't occur often enough. How then, can you
acquire more free stuff?
Craig's List
The Online Posting
Community
A regional, peacenik answer to eBay but with just
as many viewers per month (if not more)—has a "free stuff" section on
each of its city pages. Presently on the Houston
site, there are two free couches; in Denver,
there's free kittens, screen doors, and a full bed with boxspring; if you're a
resident of Raleigh, you could
track down a totally free executive desk or Direct TV satellite dish. Every
city has different postings, but they are updated several times a day.
Late Appearances at Yard
Sales
Wherever you find out information about yard
sales—local newspaper, flyers, Internet—check the hours of operation. If a yard
sale runs from 9am until 3pm, show up at 2:30pm.
The basic concept behind a yard sale is that a family has a lot of extra junk
and wants to get rid of it to clear some space. While they figure it'd be cool
to make some spending cash selling off their old junk, the true value for them
is getting rid of stuff (ironically enabling them to buy new objects which will
be sold in a yard in 8-10 years). If you go to a yard sale near the end of it,
it's very easy to grab some of the items at no cost by speaking to the person
running it. "Oh, these golf clubs look nice. It's too bad I don't have 22
dollars on me right now… I guess I could go home and get it…"
Be in the Right
Place at the Right Time
While you can't plan for it, nabbing things for
free tends to have some luck involved. A co-worker with tickets to a hot new
play suddenly becomes sick, or has an evening business meeting. A friend with
season tickets to the local sports team has a weekend out of town for work.
People are likely to give things away for free if you're reputable and also if
you're right there—if you're the person around when they realize they need to
abandon a previous commitment. The morale here: hover around a decent variety
of people, and eventually you're bound to score something for free.
Libraries
Local public libraries often give away older, used
books and accumulated magazines at periodic weekend events. While US Weekly
from 1999 might not be that helpful for you (unless you're wondering about
whatever happened to Jennifer Aniston and Adam Duritz), used books can
typically be easily fixed or at least made readable.
Sporting Events
This one is trickier—the tickets to sporting events
tend to cost a lot of money, so in the end, it may negate the free stuff you
receive. However, if you sit in the lower portion of an arena, especially at a
professional basketball game, the chances are that at least 12 out of 15 times
during the course of the game, cheerleaders or other personnel will throw stuff
into the crowd. These items range from t-shirts, to hats, to koozies, to other
team apparel, but it can still bolster your closet and your kitchen.
Internet
This one is listed last for a reason. There's tons
of free stuff out there via cyberspace, but you have to be careful—a good deal
of it is also scams. While www.freeipods.com was featured on CNN recently, the
site seems to start out legitimately pushing you towards a free I-Pod, and then
directs you to a series of side pages offering you other "free"
merchandise that you didn't necessarily log on for. Also, many of these sites
ask for information, such as address and phone number, which you should be
reluctant to often put into the wireless world.
If you begin with a search engine and type
"free stuff," you'll get thousands of hits—start with some of the
advertising links, such as www.fatwallet.com and www.coolsavings.com, where you
can sometimes find reputable free giveaways. If you're willing to spend an
afternoon going through some of the other sites—and have a patience for pop
ups—you might find some other gems in the rough.