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.