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Totes free.  I can’t believe I just typed that.  Do people really say “totes” for” totally” now?  For real?  Like normal people other than Lindsay Lohan?  For real for real?  Well, no matter how you want to say it, today’s post is all about the free.  So let’s roll.

Albertsons had this great little promo that I don’t think I have ever paid attention to, and now I’m just kicking myself for missing out for so long.  When you buy $100 in gift cards, you get $20 in free store money.

My husband had $200 left in his backyard fund so I had him go buy $200 in Lowe’s gift cards – where he would have spent the cash anyway – and they gave him (2) free $20.  Oh yeah.  I’ll totally take advantage of this racket – LOL

I then took that $20 and bought things for which coupons are hard to come by.  Like sports drinks for our little year-round soccer player.  They were on sale, and they were part of Albertsons’ summer promotion where you get tickets and can win a million dollars.  I didn’t win a million dollars from all those tickets, but I won a bunch of free donuts, a few dollars, and some canned veggies.  We used the free donuts for Father’s Day breakfast.  That makes me laugh at how ghetto, cheap and lazy I am.  I reckon that’s not really anything to be proud of, so moving right along…

Gillette razors were on sale buy 1, get 1 free.  And I had coupons for buy 1, get 1 free.
Free + free = lotsa free razors.

22 packs of ’em.

A good week at Walgreens.  Suave Naturals buy 2 at $1 each and get $2 back.  Uh, that’s free.  And the toothpaste was $3, get $2.50 back, but I had a 75-cent coupon so these ended up being a 25-cent moneymaker.  I used the overage on the toothpaste to buy the mentholatum rub that was $5.99 get $5 back….

…and also to get some clearance socks ($1, not $2), 25-cent popcorn and 10-cent mac&cheese.

I found out about a deal at Fred Meyer:  Brut deodorant was on sale for $1 and I had $1 coupons.
This deal was so easy I sent my kids in alone to do it.

They were quite pleased with their success.
(Like my daughter’s bowl haircut?  I cut it on her birthday, and I kept cutting and cutting and it’s all kinds of jacked up and she’s all kinds of mad at me.  It’s summertime, and it’s hair – it’ll grow back ;))

Another Fred Meyer deal was this Kiss My Face bar soap.  The Kiss My Face people put out a coupon on Facebook for $3 off any of their products.  Holy crap – $2.79 for ONE bar of soap?  You best believe I’m only gettin’ this fancy-schmancy soap if it’s on the free.

And more free from Fred Meyer.  A new one opened up right near me so we went down there for the grand opening.  They handed out bags with all this stuff in it – red wine, olive oil, crackers, tea, olives, pecans and more.  Nice!

And then there’s my free food from Vitacost.  If there’s a cheap and easy way to score free food, I’mma find it.  I told you before how to get $10 free from this neat little online store.  Especially good for those of you looking for the organic and healthier kinda foods.   All you have to do is sign up HERE.  After going through the link, click “Click Here Now” and create a new account.  After creating your account, you should get a message thanking you and saying that your $10 code is on the way.

A little while later, you should receive an email from Vitacost with a $10-off exclusive coupon code.  The email will have the subject line “Here’s your $10 Coupon for Vitacost.com.”  This coupon code will need to be pasted in the “Promo Code” box under the payment info section during checkout.  You’ll have to pay $4.99 shipping for the $10 worth of food.  But then if you want to refer people to Vitacost – like I have here and in e-mail and on Twitter – you can score free food that way too.

And last but not least is the free food (and a puzzle) I’ve gotten from Amazon with my gift cards earned from Swagbucks.  Another thing I have mentioned to you before.  Swagbucks is just like Google and I do all my internet searches there racking up points all along the way that I then cash in for Amazon gift cards.  You can also print out coupons.com coupons at the Swagbucks site and you earn 10 Swagbucks for every redeemed coupon.  And I redeem me a lottt of coupons.  I’m tellin’ ya’, if you aren’t signed up for Swagbucks, you’re missing out on free food and stuff.  Totes. 😉