How to get things free!!!

I am recently a single dad and I have been looking into many ways to pinch penny's while maintaining quality.

I found a few blogs for saving money, one of which was asking companies for coupons... Okay, I know I said "How to get things free" in the title, and I did using this strategy, but I also received a whole bunch of coupons. It started with going around my house and looking at all of the name brands in my pantry. I created a template saying that I use their products and asked for freebies.

As you will see in the picture above, the majority of these brands are actually owned by 10 major companies. I'll refer to them as "tbt" for "The BIG 10". Most if not all of these companies will either give you coupons, or tell you where to get them. I was getting kind of annoyed because I am not a "save $.50 when you buy 2" kind of guy. It is still discounts, but not quite the response I was looking for. Here is the generic response most of tbt will send.

I am not bashing any of you extreme coupon folks, I just don't have the knowledge or spare time to get grocery stores to pay me to take their products "though I wish I did".

Anyway, while trying to think of a remedy to my mini coupon ordeal, I was working while watching CNBC. Then the muse stepped in. I saw an interview with an up and coming independent food company that strictly deals in gourmet prime cut jerky. I thought to myself that tbt companies already have a huge market base and could care less if Joe Schmoe wanted free things to keep him happy. However, companies that are independently owned and operated count on every customer they get to be loyal and they want to keep them.

So, I changed the email to be more personal to me and gave them a "compliment sandwich". Basically I made a flatter ask flatter formula that I sent as a test to the jerky people. The response went from "yeah, you can find coupons here - www.gof***urself.com" to "We love you and the kiddos so we're shipping you free things to your front door!". Here is a template for the email/contact that I sent.

I am not going to include the name of the companies or reps that assisted in hopes people will have the full experience of this on their own. Anywho, below is the first response to the email/contact I created "it was from the jerky people".

With this little victory I changed gears and started targeting more companies that are not owned by tbt. Here is another response I got from a yummy dessert snack company I used to eat as a kid.

There are many others and the responses keep on coming! I chose to stay away from the tbt so I could get a bigger payout with minimum effort, but I want you guys to have fun with it! Next, I am going to try products that are not food. (maybe toiletries or cleaning products). Either way I am going to continue to "ball on a budget".

I hope you guys enjoyed the read! Send me some love by upvoting and resteeming! If you have experience with a similar project, tell me in the comments!

Later!