Today is my birthday – big shout outs to fellow Scorpios everywhere! Over the last few days, I have been so lucky to be spoiled by my family and friends. This year, gave myself a fun challenge: to get as much free stuff as possible.
So, I embarked on a research mission which turned up a bunch of websites that listed tons of “birthday freebies” such as RedFlagDeals and SavvyNewCanadians. While these sites promised “43 freebies”, or “best freebies 2019”, it turned out these deals were just pseudo free, meaning you had to buy something to get something for free. This was the case as with pretty much all the restaurant chains like Boston Pizza, Montana’s, or Red Lobster which required you to buy dinner to get a free appetizer or dessert. Similarly, there were BOGO deals, such as with Orange Julius or Dairy Queen. Such a scam!
And then there were the egregious “freebies” like Mandarin where you get a free meal only if you are accompanied by at least two paying adults. Or Behihana which gives you a $30 voucher, but upon inspection of their menu, reveals that pretty much all their mains are over $40, if not $50 or $60 (and it’s basically just a tourist trap anyway).
After more research, I came up with my short list of TRUE birthday freebies. You need look no further – this is the real deal of free stuff in Toronto (and probably applies to most of Canada).
Real Birthday Freebies
- Starbucks: free beverage (Starbucks Rewards member)
- DAVID’s Tea: free cup of tea (Frequent Steeper Club member)
- Baskin-Robbins: free 2.5 oz scoop of ice cream (Baskin-Robbins Club 31 member)
- Menchie’s Frozen Yoghurt: $5 treat (mySmileage member)
- Denny’s: free Original Grand Slam breakfast (just bring ID)
- Chatime: free regular handcrafted beverage of your choice (Chatime Rewards member)
- South Street Burger: free 4oz burger (South Street Burger birthday club)
- New York Fries: free regular fries (Fry Society member)
- Sephora: free birthday gift (Beauty Insider member)
Note: almost every retailer required that you sign up for a newsletter or become a loyalty points member. I consider this acceptable since most of my promotional e-mails get filtered by Gmail anyway, and I can always unsubscribe after getting my free stuff. 🙂
Redemption Time
So, after a cup of coffee at home, I started the morning with my TRUE birthday freebie list in hand (well, via an Evernote on my iPhone). Here’s what I redeemed today:
Final Verdict
These four freebies had a total retail value of $21.84! Pretty decent considering only a couple hours of planning yesterday. I am pretty sad I had to miss Denny’s free Grand Slam breakfast because there just isn’t one near my house. 🙁
Over the next week, I’ll also be grabbing my freebies from Baskin Robbins, Menchies, Chatime and Sephora. I figure I will probably save a total of over $40. A great bonus is that most of these freebies should automatically pop up in my e-mails or apps for next year, assuming I continue to subscribe to their programs.
Free stuff rocks. Hope you can use this list too! 🙂
