First, let me apologize for not having posted anything for a month. I do plan to do a debt update for Feb. (soon...) and start posting again soon. Now, on to my rant.

Over the last two days I've tried two times, at different places, to redeem a coupon at a fast food joint for a free sandwich. Both times I failed because a local franchise did not honor the coupon. I am incensed.

Until Jan. 15, Suze Orman's book 2009 Action Plan is available for free as a PDF e-book from Oprah's website. I've skimmed through it and have provided some thoughts below.

Got a $20 rebate check from a FRAM air filter for which I only paid $7.54. I love making money on deals like that, especially when it's something that I can use. (And yes, I have bought things that I could not use because I got more cash back from rebates than I used to purchase the item – don't blame me; blame the system.)

I also received today a $20 Visa prepaid debit card from a Chase Credit Card Protector offer. Nice little Christmas bonus for me.

As a follow-up to my post the other day about free stuff you can get on election day, I am reminded today that some people get a day off work on election day, which could be considered another freebie.

While browsing the Slickdeals.net forums today, I found people giving everything from Starbucks coffee to beer to free laser tattoo removal service to anyone who votes on Tuesday.

But my question is: Does this really entice people to vote? Or does it just entice people to say they voted?

I've been making use of a 30-day free trial of TransUnion's TrueCredit 3-credit-report monitoring service. Each day (almost) I've been pulling a new report and see updated FAKO credit scores. I even used it to help get two baddies removed from all three of my reports.

During the month of October, Zecco is offering unlimited free trades with no minimum balance requirement. This is a great deal, since normally they require $2,500 minimum account balance for only 10 free trades each month.

This post in FatWallet.com's freebie forum made me chuckle out loud:

FREE 3M Novec Fluorosurfactants

Whatever that is... go Here

I just got an e-mail this morning from Zecco stating that they are making two big changes to their free equity trade offer. These changes are effective immediately for accounts opened on or after Oct. 1; for accounts opened before Oct. 1, the changes will be in effect on Jan. 1, 2008.

There's a mediocre article today at Yahoo that purports to tell you where to find the best freebies. The first section tells you that you can get some free music at a few sites. *Yawn* The rest of it doesn't get much better.