The Big List of Free Money and Other Worthwhile Freebies

As someone with a lot of debt and focused on paying down that debt I am always on the lookout for some freebies. And I really love finding out about free money. Of course, it can be hard to find out about free money sometimes, so here is a list of free money and other worthwhile freebies on the web.

Free Money - the best kind of free


Prosper.com offers $25 to new lenders. Why not sign up as a lender and get your free $25? Lend it out, maybe make a little and then withdraw it!

Revolution Money Exchange - a PayPal alternative that offers $25 just for signing up. I did this and I got my $25 with no problems at all! You can't be this kind of free! Plus anything that takes on PayPal makes me a fan.

ING Direct Savings and Electric Orange Checking - you can get $25 when opening an account, but the catch is that you need $250 to deposit and you need to have a referral link. I use both the savings and the checking and I love it.

Links:

• Open account here


• Open account here


• I have more of these - just ask if you need one!

If you click on a link and it says, We’re sorry, but the referral link within the email you received has expired and is no longer valid. We recommend that you contact the sender and ask them to re-send the referral email. Or click ‘Continue’ to proceed with the application process without the account opening bonus.” the link has been used. To receive the $25 bonus by using a link, you must be a new ING customer and you must open the account with at least $250.


Other worthwhile freebies on the web


Blockbuster Total Access - Free for one month! If you watch a lot of movies, then this a month of free entertainment. And if you are on a tight budget then this is pretty awesome.

Netflix - They offer up a free 2 week trial for their services. So, I think Blockbuster is a better option, but you could always go for both and get a month and a half of free movies!

Gamefly - Get a 10 day free trial! If you play a lot of video games, then this is for you. It is a great way to try out a game before dropping $50 on it. They also have memberships starting at $8.95 per month.

Real Player's SuperPass - Get exclusive entertainment and 10 free song downloads each month with SuperPass. Get a 14-day Free Trial to SuperPass AND keep the 10 songs that you download even if you cancel!

Rhapsody Music - Get a 14-Day Free Trial to Rhapsody.

Napster To Go - You can get a 7 day free trial of Napster To Go. The service is similar to that offered by Rhapsody Music, but I found more songs were available on Rhapsody.

MyFico - Stay on top of your credit score with this 30 day free trial. You also get 2 credit reports for free during this trial.

CoolSavings - I use a lot of online coupons and there coupons and other freebies at CoolSavings. Boost your grocery savings at CoolSavings.com!

MyPoints - my FAVE place for freebies. Just click on links in your email and you get points that you can redeem for gift cards for everywhere from Amazon.com to Red Lobster. Get Free Gift Cards, Airline Miles, Vacations & more at MyPoints.

Coupons.com - I always find coupons on Coupons.com that I can use. Sign up with MyPoints first though cause you get points for every coupon from Coupons.com that you redeem!

Vocal Point - This is a free site to join that sends out the occassional freebie and product sample. They are geared towards women though. My best freebie from them was a Kashi chocolate chip cookie, yum! Join here.

Eat Better America - Not only do they offer tips and articles on getting healthy, they also offer some great recipes and coupons. Best of all, you can print the coupons 10 times!

GoToMyPC - traveling and need to access your home computer? Then sign up for the free trial of GoToMyPC before you leave and then cancel when you get back! Access your PC from anywhere -try GoToMyPC® free now


BzzAgent - Like freebies and product samples? With BzzAgent you sign up to be an Agent and you can take campaigns for various items to sample. And you get to keep the items. I usually get coupons as well. Just recently I got a pack of Claritin RediTabs for free and a voucher for a free bottle of Canadian Club whiskey. I even got a free subscription to TV Guide a while back. It is free to sign up to be a BzzAgent and they do not spam your email inbox.

Mvelopes - it's an online budgeting system that is basically just an online version of the envelope system. You can try it for free for one month.

emusic - they offer 25 free mp3 downloads and work with all mp3 players. And best of all - No DRM! Yes, that is right, DRM-free music with emusic.

HotMat - Need a free mousepad? Click here for a FREE HotMat mouse pad with FREE international delivery!

Wal-Mart Free Samples - Be sure to check out the Wal-Mart Free Samples page often as the items change out. There are usually some pretty decent options on here.

Quality Health - get free samples with this company.

$5 Starbuck GC for BlackBerry Owners: http://na.blackberry.com/eng/ownerslounge/login.jsp?redirect=%2Feng%2Fownerslounge%2Fstarbuc kscard.jsp

Others

Ebates - sign up with them and get a $10 gift card if you are a new member! You do have to make a qualifying purchase though.

Upromise - It is free to sign up! All you do is link your credit/debit cards and grocery cards and you earn cash back for purchases. You can apply the money to student loans or cash it out!

Blingo - Use Blingo as your search engine. But first sign up for an account as you can win things just for doing searches! I know Trisha at Blogging Away Debt has blogged about winning things from Blingo. Refer your friends and if they win you also win!

DealTaker - This site is recommended by a reader. It looks like it is similar to SlickDeals and features info on deals and coupons.

Survey Sites
Here are some survey sites where you can get cash and prizes. You may want to not use your mail email address for these as you can sometimes get loads of emails.

• CVS Advisor Panel - Take surveys and earn free ExtraBucks!
• Join SurveyPrincess.com for FREE and make money doing online consumer surveys. It's so easy!
• A $1500 gift card from Target could be yours! Enter today
• Get Paid! with SearchCactus
  
• Get a free night at the movies with ECN Research
  
• The Net Panel is looking for qualified people to join their online panel. Enter now for a chance to win cash or prizes.
  
• Win a $1,500 Gas Card Enter Today with Survey Networks
  
• Win Cash and Prizes at OpinionSquare!
  
• Get a SONY VAIO Laptop! through Rewards Gateway (If I'm not mistaken another PF blogger out there did this promo and blogged about it)
  
• Get Paid To Take Free Online Surveys. with Survey4Profit
  
• PineCone Research - hard to get into this one so you have to watch for openings. They pay regularly and on time!
• E-Rewards - you have to be a member of one of their affilitiates (like HiltonHonors or AAdvantage) - if you are you can request an invitation.

In the past I have gotten sign up bonuses from E*Trade Complete Savings Account ($25) as well as Capital One's High Yield Money Market Account ($25). They are not currently offering any promotions, but you should keep a look out for those.


If you know of any other great free money offers or other freebie sites, drop me a comment and I will add them to the list!

Disclosure: some of the links above are affiliate links and I will get a modest referral bonus that will be applied to debt.

$2213.51

That is the amount of income earned in December 2007 that was not from a day job.

Yes, you did read that correctly. The grand total was $2213.51.

No new methods were employed to earn the money. And the total does not include AdSense income, which was $29.52 for the month, or CafePress sales. Booyah for those.

Money comes from selling digital items on ebay and other places as well as doing reviews on this and other blogs.

But don't get me wrong - it felt like a second full-time job some of the time!

Alternative income update for November

In November my earnings from various things online was $1404.63.

That is money that was actually put into the bank. I did actually earn a bit more than that for the month due to some online ventures that will not pay out for 30 days. So, that figure will climb again next month.

Sadly most of my other sites got hit by the Google page rank demons. My PR 2 sites all got docked to PR0 which lowers my money making ability. Sad news indeed.

ING Electric Orange Holiday Cash Back Program

I got an email from ING about an special holiday cash back promotion for electric orange account holders.

Here's the info in case you missed it:

Starting November 15, 2007 through December 31, 2007, when you use your Electric Orange MasterCard® Debit Card to make signature-based purchases, you'll get 1% Cash Back, up to $250 per month, on what you spend, anywhere.

Alternative income update for October

In October my earnings from various things online was $1336.67. I am thinking that the rest of the year will look a little different though thanks to the page rank update that happened in October. I have a few other sites that got a PR which means that I can make more money on PayPerPost.

If you have not signed up with PayPerPost you should really think seriously about it. Yesterday I made $90 in two hours all from PayPerPost. That was for doing reviews from PPP on a total of four sites.

The dollar giveaway

Head on over to How to Make a Million Dollars to check out the Free Dollar Giveaway. You just give your PayPal address or mailing address and wait for the dollar. But you have to hold on it to when you get it to await further instructions. I can't wait to see what those instructions are gonna be.

I can't wait to tally up my October numbers

I am actually looking forward to seeing where I stand financially here in the next day or two. From looking over things, there seems to be one thing standing out at me.

I made a crapload of money online this month. And that is awesome.

See, I own like 20 domain names or something. I have been developing them for a few months. And fortunately a lot of them got pageranks after the most recent pagerank updates. And that had helped up the online income.

Now I am dreaming of a time when I can make all my money online. Ahhh...

Hooray for eBay & WiseBread

A few months ago I was reading WiseBread and came across a post on not throwing away the little NorthWest Airlines discount coupons that come in the ValPaks. The article said that you can sell those on eBay!

Of course, I read that post about 2 days after tossing my NWA coupon with the rest of the ValPak.

When the next ValPak came I was super stoked thinking about how I was going to sell that NWA coupon. Only, there wasn't one in the ValPak that time around.

I decided that the coupon must come in every other mailing. And I hoped I was right and got one the next time.

Well, not that long ago was the next time and there was a NWA coupon in the ValPak! I pulled it out and it got buried on my desk until last week when I put it up on eBay.

I sold it for $11.27! Sure, that is not a fortune but it is $11.27 for doing nothing!

Alternative income for September

I made $1638 in alternative income this past month.

That beats last month's take of around $1400, but it is still not the $2400 that I would really like to make in one month.

There were days that I made almost $200 but there were more days where I only made around $40. So if I can get more of the $200 days I can get closer to reaching that $2400 in one month.

Maybe this month will be that month.

I also put up some auctions on eBay over the weekend to take advantage of the ending promotion they were having on insertion fees. Hopefully that will net me some cash by the end of the week.

35 minutes to riches?

Money magazine has a list of things that you can do in 35 minutes to be on track for riches.

1. Find out your credit score
2. Raise your credit score
3. Triple the return on savings
4. Stop junk mail
5. Freeze your credit
6. Haggle down your credit rate
7. Upgrade to a better card
8. Add to your 401(k)
9. Manage like a pro
10. Buy a forever portfolio
11. Find promising funds
12. Track your returns
13. Find out if you're paid enough
14. Run a retirement plan
15. Estimate your life insurance
16. Learn your tax bracket
17. Escape late fees
18. Write bounce-proof checks
19. Pay less in auto insurance
20. Double-check your taxes
21. Keep more of your paycheck
22. Get a tax break for day care
23. Pay less for your cell
24. Cut drug costs
25. No more waiting rooms
26. Burn more calories
27. Be like Buffett
28. Save for college
29. Automate your savings
30. Get credit, even in a crunch
31. Read your mortgage
32. Stop overpaying on your mortgage
33. Create an insurance record
34. Curb impulse buys
35. Spend consciously
36. Slash recurring charges
37. Boost your mileage
38. Find it cheaper online
39. Demand a lower cable bill
40. Save on drinking water
41. Say no to a new store credit card.
42. Check yes to reinvesting your dividends.
43. Say no to an extended warranty.
44. Fill your tank with regular.
45. Swipe your debit rather than credit card.
46. Delete any e-mail asking for account information or your social security number.

Top 100 make money online blogs

I came across a great post on 45n5 on the Top 100 Make Money Online Blogs. As someone trying to get outta debt this is a superb resource.

I have only looked at the first 50 links so far but have found some great resources that I have added to my reader. I also noticed that number #50 is a personal finance blog that I have been reading for about a month, My Debt Free Goal. Amy at My Debt Free Goal is making some awesome money each month! From the looks of things it is mostly affiliate income, but it is still impressive.

Alternative income update for August

I was hoping to make $2400 in alternative income in August. Unfortunately that is not so easy to do when you are having to work a day job. :)

I did however do a little better than last month. In August I ended up making a little over $1400. And I have some stuff on eBay right now that has bids on it, so I will be making that - provided the winning bidder pays. I also have some other things that I need to sell on eBay or Craigslist here soon. Hopefully that will help to drive up the amount of alternative income for next month. I am still shooting for that $2400 in one month. If I could get up to that it would be like having a second full time job. Except without having to work an extra 40 hours a week!

making my own windfall update

Some of my eBay auctions have ended already and, while it's not the amount I was hoping for, this batch of auctions brought in about $250. And that is nothing to be upset about. Especially since it was all things that were just in closets!

I'd like to be able to make another $250 before the month is up. That would be a nice bit of extra cash to throw at some debt.

If anyone else was trying to create their own windfall I hope you had some good luck too!

Wow - $4 million for a nagging website?

I am vaguely familiar with the FlyLady website. When I say vaguely I mean that I have heard of it and until today did not really know all that much about it.

I saw a story on AOL's front page today 'FlyLady Nags Her Way to Millions' and I was like what?!?

I read the story. Her site is such a simple idea, yet she's making millions off of it! That is insanity! I really wish I could come up with a simple idea that makes some mad cash like that. Who knew that people would pay to get nagged?

I must say though - $4 million is rather impressive for something that seems so simple.

creating your own windfall is hard work

I got a bunch of stuff listed on eBay but I still have loads more things I want to list. I may put some stuff up on Craigslist too since there is no listing fee like with eBay.

It seems like every time I try sell something on Craigslist the people show up and want to pay by personal check. Then they get mad when I won't take it even though I had told them cash only. A few months ago I sold a treadmill for $400 and the person wanted to write me a check. Um, no.

Hopefully by the end of next week I'll have everything up and selling on ebay!

making my own windfall

I keep saying that we need a windfall to wipe out some debt. If you knew me you'd get tired of hearing me talk about it.

I decided to create my own windfall.

See, ebay is having a listing special today only where any auction that you list has a free listing fee as long as you choose the gallery option, regardless of minimum bid amount. The cost for the gallery is option is $0.35 and the lowest regular cost for a listing fee is $0.40 if it's at least a buck.

So, when I get home I'm gonna go through the apartment and look for things that I can sell and make my own windfall. Hopefully. Provided that people want to buy my stuff.

Wish me luck. And go create your own windfall too!

Making extra cash feels good

This week, after working for 5 hours tomorrow, I will end up with $250 in overtime pay for the week. Of course, I won't see all of that thanks to taxes, but having a larger than usual paycheck next week will be exciting. Last week I had worked $150 in overtime pay, and that translated to an extra $100 on my paycheck.

I've also been working like a fiend on my Associated Content articles. And I just broke through the performance bonus payout level and got an extra $20 for that. When I logged into my PayPal account yesterday it was showing a $127 balance. That was nice too.

And this week I got my first PayPerPost payout. It was just $5.01, but it was still nice to see.

i forgot one

When I did my post earlier in the week on alternative income I forgot something.

It's small, but I make about $10 a month with Pinecone Research. And sometimes I'm lucky enough to get freebies in the mail from them. I recently got a full-size lovely bodywash to try out. And when you get freebies to try out for them you get another $5 for doing the follow-up survey.

And I do MyPoints, which isn't cash but it allows me to get gift cards at places where I would have spent money.

What I do to earn alternative income

Saving Diva left me a comment wondering what exactly I do to earn alternative income each month, so I thought would address that in a post in case anyone else is wondering.

The majority of my alternative income comes from Associated Content. (disclosure: I make $3 if you sign up via the referral link) The thing with AC though is that it takes a lot more work than most of the other things I do. Last month I didn't write a lot of articles, thus the drop in income. This month though I plan on being a writing fiend. And don't worry about needing to have uber perfect writing skills. One look around the site and you will see that they will pay for anything, complete with spelling errors. The pay rate per piece is supposed to be between $3 - $20, with exclusive pieces paying more. In my experience, non-exclusive and excluvise on almost identical articles have paid exactly the same, so I do non-exlcusive in case I want to do something else with them. The most I have gotten paid is around $11 (I think) and my average is $6.20 per article.

I do a little PayPerPost and ReviewMe. I haven't gotten paid for anything I've done on PayPerPost yet though. And I've made $20 two months in a row on ReviewMe. (referral links below)


Get Paid to Review At ReviewMe!

And I sell some dinky little travel ebooks on eBay every now and then. (edit: I average around $400/month with these)

That's it. I have no secret money-making mojo to offer up. Best of luck to anyone trying to earn some extra cash!

Another good alternative income month

For May, I met my alternative income goal and then some. I’m actually amazed by the dollar amount, until I realize that I spent all of my free time doing things to make money. It’s great because it is a lot of money. But it sucks because right now it’s just supplementing my income as I don’t get paid enough to cover all the bills. When I look at the total it kinda makes me sick because in a perfect world, it would all be extra money I could throw at debt. I’m *really* hoping to have something happen on the job front this month. I either need to get that promotion at work or find a higher paying job elsewhere so that this alternative income can be all for debt payments. If I could do that, I could have all the credit cards paid off in less than 2 years. That would be awesome.

Total alternative income for May was $1397.97

The breakdown for that is:

Associated Content at $629.19
Amazon marketplace at $30.45
Ebay/ e-junkie at $738.33

And, not included above, I made $22.50 with Review Me that is supposed to have a payout of today, I think...at least I hope so because it is marked for my phone bill. And I got $10 from Pinecone Research for a couple of surveys.