How to Eat for Free (Or Cheap) on Your Birthday

Tomorrow's (February 1) is my birthday. I'm pretty sure you already knew that because I mentioned it earlier this week; plus, I love my birthday and usually celebrate for about a week. Oddly enough I share my birthday with the daughter of my college roomie, Melissa. I think Melissa's daughter will be six this year, but I've probably lost track and she can let us know in the comments. I also share my birthday with a girl I go to church with and she also lives down the street from me and went to the same school as me (only about 13 years after me). So, February 1 is a good day indeed.

I may have mentioned it before but am not sure I have ever gone into great detail about it and so today, I wanted to let you know how you can eat free for about a week just for having a birthday. One of the web sites I frequent and follow on the Twitter is Hey It's Free. This site lists all sorts of freebies from soap to dog treats and you can often get a lot of good loot if you follow the site often enough. The key is to register for items as soon as you can because those of us who like freebies swarm to the freebies and then the freebie is no more.

At any rate, Hey It's Free has a great page on their site which lists a slew of restaurants and other such establishments that will send you a coupon for a free something-or-other around the time of your birthday. You have anywhere from one to two weeks to redeem your freebie and they are often really great deals. For example, Monday night I had a small Schlotzsky's sandwich for dinner and paid nothing for it. Wednesday night I ate a free entree from Moe's Southwest Grill. I have also received coupons for $5 off at Jason's Deli and McAlister's Deli as well as a free bagel and cream cheese (with purchase of a drink) from Breugger's and a free cookie cake slice (with drink purchase) from Great American Cookie. There are lots of others as well. I also have a Panera card which has been loaded with a surprise. For my birthday last year I received a Starbucks card from some friends and I registered it online with Starbucks and I reload it from time to time and continue using it. That card has been loaded with a free drink which I plan to redeem quite soon. So, you see, you can load up on all kinds of great treats just because you are having a birthday.

For those of you interested in eating free (or on the cheap) for your birthday, check out the Birthday Freebie List on the Hey It's Free Web Site. Please note that you must click on each individual link for the restaurant/store to receive your birthday surprise. I had told a co-worker about this a few weeks ago and she thought you could just sign up for the Hey It's Free newsletter and you would automatically receive a birthday freebie from every place on the list. Um, no, that's not how it works. So, go to each web site and register. I would suggest using a junk email account because most of the places will send you random promotional emails throughout the year.

So, get out there and register for those birthday freebies and you too can eat free (or on the cheap) for a week when your birthday rolls around.

Don't forget you have until 11:59 p.m. tonight to enter the Fourth Blogiversary Giveaway!