Avoiding the Costly

 

 

If you still think that all online freebies will help you to stretch your budget you have not been listening. Sometimes they will and others will not. The fact is that you have to learn to avoid the following costly freebies:

Unhealthy foods - If you really think that the free bag of chips that you got after redeeming a coupon or that package of cookies that you got as part of a buy one get one free deal sounded like a great way to save money you may have to think again. What about the hidden cost? Often times the foods that are easiest to obtain for free but they can also be the worst for your health.

Before you start stocking up on any food freebie, you really need to think about that. Being offered free food online doesn’t even make sense. You have to ask yourself some key questions here, such as:

  1. How far does this food have to travel to get to me?
  2. Why is this food being offered for free?
  3. Is this from a viable local restaurant near me, or is this to be delivered to me at my home?
  4. Is this food past its expiration date?
  5. What type of offer am I getting in order for the food to be free?
  6. Is this food perishable?

 

These are just common sense questions that everyone should ask before accepting free potentially perishables. You should also consider the cost of losing weight before you decide to accept a food freebie. Gym memberships and diet programs are far from free and your health could be at risk in eating something for free that you got on the internet.
       
Items that require additional purchases

That coupon for a free usually expensive watch can be a real eye catcher when it appears on your favorite search engine, but is it really a good deal? Maybe not if it means you’ll have to buy  expensive batteries so that you can use it.

 

The point here is that before you decide to participate in a freebie offer that will require an added purchase (such as a watch that will need batteries or a bottle of shampoo that will require the purchase of conditioner) stop to consider what your out-of-pocket expenses are going to be. You may just find that you come out better by purchasing your normal brands, and skipping the high cost freebies all together.

Free trials

A free 30-day trial to an online movie rental service like Netflix or even a cheap online service can sound pretty worth it when you aren’t able to afford the luxury of a full-time subscription for that magazine. However, this type of freebie can get expensive extremely quickly. Since many trial offers have the tendency to automatically turn into paid subscriptions when you don’t call or write the company to cancel, you could find yourself with an unexpected bill down the road.

Before you decide to accept any trial offers that you might come across you really have to look over the agreement to be sure you find the terms agreeable. Of course, if you decide to go forward with any deal that requires a cancellation to be rid of it, be sure to mark your calendar; and call before the trial period is up otherwise you will be getting that bill or debit from your credit card or bank. Being even a day late in canceling could result in a monthly or even a yearly membership fee. So BEWARE!

High end stuff that are free with purchase

these are my favorite potential dangers because they are easy to get sucked into. These are things that “Buy a computer, get a free monitor or printer and camera”; spend $60, get a $15 gift card; buy a cell phone at full price get another for free!

 

All of these sound like great deals at first, but they may cost you more than you think. Before you get sucked into this type of freebie offer, you need to stop and calculate how much you’ll have to spend in order for you to receive your free item.

 

If you do this you may just find that you could get a computer and monitor someplace else for less than what you’ll have to pay for a computer at the freebie spot.

You should also check to see whether or not the purchase item and the incentive item are things that you truly need and will get a lot of use out of. Too often people allow free with purchase incentives to persuade them to buy items that they would probably never buy otherwise and that is just silly.

The bottom line with this is that a freebie offer shouldn’t cost you money because that completely negates the fact of it being free in the first place. Consider each deal that you are offered carefully before you bother. Otherwise, you will end up with a lot of free stuff that actually cost you an arm and a leg.

Table of Contents

Next Chapter

www.lifetosuccess.com