20 Things You Can Get Free!

Just to note, the Pret card offer has changed- it changed some weeks ago, you now have to add on £5 to the card before they will add on the £2-ish for the free coffee (I was £2-ish because they will add on the actual cost of a regular coffee, vat deductions included).

Its one card per household and I think the offer is ongoing.

Its been mentioned on the MSE boards, some people got in early and got their card topped up for free, but I think Pret caught on and stopped this from happening without a top-up on the card first.

Once again for reasons of earning commission, The Motley Fool recommends a product which will involve members in going to a lot of trouble to apply for it, only to find that it can only be used occasionally - and I mean the American Express credit card. Serena describes it as "Fantastic Plastic". That it is not. Because in the past the UK Amex organisation charged higher commissions to shops, most shops dropped it and offered only Visa and Mastercard. Now that UK Amex wants more business it is trying to get more traders to offer its card, but with limited success, as most traders won't go to the expense of adding Amex, because offering only Visa & Mastercard works for them.

So Serena and other Fool contributors, PLEASE issue a warning each time you recommend Amex, or we Fools will get the message that you are primarily interested in YOUR earnings, rather than OUR welfare.

Re the section on Home Fire Safety Visit. I applied to my local Fire station last year. Within a week or so THREE sturdy and good looking firemen (my wife's description) knocked at the door and within minutes had fitted four smoke alarms with a ten year battery life, and brifed us about fire safety matters. They could not have been more efficient and helpful. So, if you don't succeed at first - try again ooshtotty.

And redimp98 - this WAS one of those rare free lunches!

And all you single girl Fools - you just might meet the fireman of your dreams!

One more point - Serena omitted to mention free AVG antivirus and spyware etc programs - look up AVG in Google - I have been using it for two years and it is very good.

as far as antivirus goes I never use the expensive pay for versions. I find that AVG or Avast work just as well and cause less general problems than for example Norton

Petrol:

Petrol vouchers are more scarce now since the cost of crude fell and government thankfully kept the tax increase to 2p per litre. Most of the cost of petrol in the UK is tax of course. No telling when prices may rise again and more 5p per litre vouchers from supermarkets come back. Don't forget the vouchers usually have a relatively short expiry date. With a 40 litre fill-up, you get about half a couple of litres free.

Plastic Bags:

In this economic climate, every little helps. Don't forget that most real supermarkets give free disposable plastic bags which can be reused as waste paper bin / small pedal bin liners and also for wrapping waste food to prevent flies (not so likely with this weather) and reduce vermin especially if you are reduced to fortnightly bin collections.

They are are also useful to avoid having to buy poop scoop bags for the dog and for convenience in packed lunches and moving small items as we all need to do at some time.

Note M&S, Aldi and Lidl charge for their plastic bags and that can be 30p or 40p on the bill for a reasonable shop. We once were given a free bag for life at Iceland and it proved very useful to store our disposable plastic bags for reuse. I have never seen the 'politically correct' box stackers Aldi or Lidl with a petrol station either and Lidl only take debit cards hence you lose out on credit card cash-back deals.

Banking:

Free current account banking is another useful saving. I even suffer the Co-op Bank despite their so called 'ethical' brainwashing. The telephone banking facility can be accessed free if you call their alternative landline number rather than their costly 0845 number.

Phone Calls:

If you have a free anytime call package with your service provider, the website 'say no to 0870' is a must. By using this site, you can find the geographic alternatives to the costly 0870 and 0845 numbers. I note that the the geographic alternatives for Mastercare Appliance Insurance packages are always oddly unavailable. However, Dyson give a freephone number. Overall the 'say no' website has saved me an average of £20 to £25 per month.

Energy:

Buying so called 'green energy' from any of the suppliers is a myth as all the generators feed the same grid, mainly from Gas, Coal and Nuclear plant and bulk supply electricity cannot differentiate between widmill production and coal production.

Unless one is a green disciple and needs to boost their green street cred, there is no advantage and you pay more which offsets the enormous capital costs to producers of generating a tiny bit of unreliable windpower. Hydro is of course a logical source of power and was used long before the 'climate change' myth was propagated.

cv1284. Hi I have Norton, have had no trouble from it in the last three years.

I use AVG for work - company choice - it works but the continual downloading and scanning neds to be throttled down by the user.

For home I use Norton 360, works well and behaves.

Prior to that I had McCaffee, this came with my PC and worked fine till it was up for renewal, at which point I found I couldn't download the update I'd paid for, and get this, as they admitted to me they'd been HACKED!!! You wonder if they use there own product for security.

A little off point so " you don't get something for nothing" ther is always a catch,always!

Oh and Happy New Year Fools

Regarding feebies of software. I find the very excellent Cnet.com a good site for such items, they even have a facility to notify you when a free program is updated.

Of course it is best to avoid 30 day trials, but I currently have AVG Anti-virus, PC Tools Firewall Plus and Advanced Windows Care V2 all free.

You can also sign up for the weekly e-mail which tells you of new additions to the programmes list.

If you got to www.airmiles.co.uk and register for the Airmiles Duo credit card you can earn 1500 miles right away enough for two free flights! Normally you'd expect some catch with extras to pay for but everything is in - taxes etc.... most are with BA too! A cracking deal

In Sainsburys yesterday I brought Youngs 4 salmon fillets for £4.99 it says on the packet: TRY ME FREE WITH THE YOUNG@S TASTE CHALLENGE.

You need to send the barcode from the pack,with the ringed till receipt.You will get a cheque for £4.99 within 28 days. The fish tastes really delicious. I think it's worth the effort for the price of a stamp. closing date 31.12.09

I've seen 'Slumdog Millionaire' this week through seefilmfirst.com for free.

Well worth the money!(cost to get there)

Has no one heard of Linux. All free (including one of the best anti-virus programs, ClamAV) and better than Microsoft. Perhaps needing a little more nous to install but none the worse for that.

The free 'Ghost' sample doesn't link through to anything.

Redndead. I think you confuse 'prudent energy' efficiency with the fairy story tax hike of so called 'man-made climate change.'

Of course saving fuel / energy and money as you may decide for your own lifestyle is sensible but it will make no difference to climate. There is a great deal of evidence both refuting the anthropogenic theory and supporting natural climate change theories. Colin 106 cites the new ice core studies which show temperature changed over the years before CO2 changed.

One other very cursory but readily verifiable consideration, without getting deep into the scientific arguments, is this:

You may recall that atmosphere is 79% nitrogen and 20% oxygen, leaving only 1% for all other gases including greenhouse gases.

Water Vapour is the most abundant Green House Gas and averages about 10,000 parts per million (ppm) in our atmosphere. Carbon Dioxide is 386 parts per million and most of that occurs naturally. Water vapour is variable and affected by radiation in the upper atmosphere which influences cloud formation. The IPCC scientists admit that the mechanism is poorly understood.

Water vapour holds heat just like carbon dioxide; clouds can cool by reflecting heat back into space. Average world cloud formations / cover change all the time so a 5% change in average cloud cover over a period of time will change climate by considerably more than either destroying or doubling the entire 386 ppm of carbon dioxide.

This kind of proportional fact is met by the IPCC with a 'circular' argument: this starts with assuming CO2 causes temperature changes (which is the very conclusion it seeks to prove) then asserting water vapour increases with temperature (which it does)and then attributing climate change to the minor changes mankind makes to Greenhouse with emissions. All in all man-made emissions have about a third of one percent effect on the greenhouse system.

By the by Redndead may be interested to know that an on-shore wind turbine farm costs 4 times an equivalent output gas fired power plant. Offshore wind is 8 times the cost. Power producers pass this on to us of course!!

Even if MMCC was not a myth, any savings we make in reducing our UK contribution (presently 2 percent) to total world emissions over 5 years, is wiped out by the accelerating growth in coal burn in China and India in just one month!!! Kyoto is a paper tiger!!

I agree with colin106. Same applies to your reference to FREE wall calendar from VISTA. Just see how much it costs to have that thing mailed to you. They offered me FREE labels before Christmas but I could have ordered them elsewhere for the postage charges they were applying. Also when you upload pictures for a calendar you cannot get them deleted from their website. his is a violation of my privacy. I think this should be a no-no. Haven't decided yet what I should do about that. Any words of wisdom?

Thanks

"climate change myth" Well it seems that the UK public are getting more switched on to this government and media led con, well done. Nulabour and it's "say something often enough and it will be believe as the truth" is just not washing with public. A think a new attack on the enquiring people of this country was launched this morning with the "google search" destroying the planet report on BBC. Apparently a two word google search uses the same power as boiling a kettle. If true it is a small price in the search for knowledge. Keep asking, keep questioning free minded people of the world.

Sorry to step off subject slightly but a free mind is the most valuable freebie of all to hang on to.

Thank you dotcombubble and thank you even more roderickeaton for your time and effort to expose, with intellectual rigour more factually than I could, this government's billions of pounds money making "CO2 causes climate change" scam.

Another point; we rarely see or hear in the media the truth - the opposing view - about climate change. This must be because of the control that governments have over the media through advertising revenue, contracts etcetera. You would expect our excellent Met Office, for whom I once worked, to tell the truth about climate change - but they don't. Their website contains an article on CC which might have been written by Al Gore! But then one remembers who pays the salaries at the Met Office! If the Met Office ever went off message and told the truth one can imagine a brief sinister phone call from "Mandy" Mandelson putting them back on the party line!

Because taxes from climate change issues are going to rocket and cost us all a great deal in road fund licences, "carbon permits" for power generators etc, and because this is an enormous con perpetrated not just on us in the UK but on world consumers, I think it is so important that those of us who care for the truth, like dotcombubble and roderickeaton, should more and more take the trouble to go a bit off subject and come out with these truths in as many Fool articles as possible, because many excellent Fools do not know about them.

For most respected redndead - we DO know what caused climate change years ago - THE SUN. And this climate change also included long periods of intense cold - would we welcome that?

I worked as a meteorologist and I know that the official stats on planetary surface temperatures which show that there has been NO global warming since 1998 are true. In that time there was a big increase in industrial activity and CO2 emissions - so why no temperature rise?

Those who see through the scam of CO2 causing climate change are not "deniers" - they are those whose eyes have been opened - perhaps by a study of ice cores - available to all - or by making the effort to understand what roderickeaton tells us about the proportions of water vapour and CO2 in our atmosphere in relation to the proportions of oxygen and nitrogen, or by watching the DVD by Viscount Monckton amusingly entitled "Apocalypse - NO! Get it from JunkScience.com - 19 dollars.

redndead - sorry - I meant to include the fact that waste of our precious resources is immoral. I respect your using LPG and low energy light bulbs. I too try and reduce energy useage, and also use recycleable plastic bags, and recycle all my waste - simply to reduce costs, to reduce landfill, and contribute to the husbandry of our ever scarcer natural resources. But I do not want to be conned and taxed heavily by government lies and distortions of the truth.

I actually agree that the Amex platinum IS fantastiuc plastic. So what if it's not accepted everywhere? There are lots of places that do take it. I've had mine since Nov and have just used it wherever I can to buy what I usually would and already I've earned £150 cashback. Not to be sniffed at.

There's a distinct flavour of conspiracy theory mania in all the "golobal warming is a lie" contributions - they all blame the UK government.

But it's just about every government in the world accepts this, save GW. It must be a comfort to you having him on your side. You're irrational guys.

And anyway, inproved efficiency, less reliance on oil and all the rest have got to be good things irrespective.

"Still think we’re in 2008? Nab yourself a free wall calendar from Vista Print, and customise each month with a different photo. You’ll have to pounce on this one quickly though, as the offer ends on Saturday (January 10th)"

Would have been handy to get the email link to the article before the 11th then, in retrospect...! ;-)

Rachaelamy - Amex is not accepted at Boots....

Re Vistaprint - I use them for all my business and personal stationery and their postage costs are minimal if you are prepared to wait a week or two for your items to arrive. Ordering just one item may appear a little costly on P&P but adding extra items to your basket hardly increases the cost and with a basket of up to 10 freebies then a postage cost of about a fiver is too good a deal to miss ! I've used them for years, love the professionalism of their products and have never had a single problem with them - so far anyway !

By the way guys - this was an article about freebies so please cool it on the global warming discussion as I'm sure there are plenty of other places you can spout off about that - I for one don't want it rammed down my throat when I'm looking for bargains ! Thanks :-)

Just a word of warning about Vistaprint..I got their free business cards - just pay postage. Then they highjacked my credit card details and i was charged for months for a subsctiption i had never signed up to, their customer care phone number never worked, and my credit card company did eventually shut down that monthly deduction, but only after I had been taken for £9.99 a month for 3 months..because the credit card company just could not believe I had not authorised the payments, and tried in vain to contact the customer service, just as I had done. Please, when dealing with Vistaprint, be very, very careful.

Roderickheaton (I think; apologies if I'm wrong) suggested that we should plant more forests and use wood as a fuel. Does he realise that woodsmoke is highly carcinogenic? It might be environmentally friendly in one way, but very unfriendly in another.

andyframe - I hope the following clarifies my position:

Heretic on Man-made Climate Change - Guilty as charged

Advocate of Forest Conservation - Guilty as charged

Advocate of biofuels e.g wood burning - Not Guilty M'Lud

I generally believe burning biofuels to be an expensive and detrimental move. They can and have even deprived people in the third world of food as edible crop fields are taken over for growing such lucrative bio-fuel crops as juliflora. The UK has misguidedly assisted that trend through Kyoto and so called IPCC Clean Develoment Mechanisms (Carbon Trading)and our tax-payers and electricity consumers pay for it.

However, I firmly believe in waste to enegy incineration of garbage (energy recycling). Sweden and Denmrak use these facilities to great effect. The Swedes boast less than 0.7 gram of dioxins pa emitted across their 29 Waste to Energy plants (less than a good size garden bonfire). 55% of garbage is burnt in Denmark. Such plants extract the non-combustibles such as metals for material recycling but burn cardboard, paper, plastics and food waste to generate electricity. This reduces the need for manual sorting of waste materials for recycling and minimises landfill (and its horrific European landfill tax implications).

In the UK all credit to Hampshire who have 3 WtE plants. Many more are now coming on stream in the UK producing truly sustainable and renewable electricity as there will always be garbage to burn. Many Greens don't like WtE and misguided Greens are a powerful and dangerous lobby with government nowadays. This explains why it has taken us so long in the UK to move to Waste-to-energy but we are getting there despite minimal encouragement from central government.

i'm gobsmacked. i just dont believe my eyes. i thought here of all places i'd read comments by informed people...

"global warming a myth"

aaaaaahhhhhhhh. How can anyone still claim this. Someone said 'do some research' - well i did, for a few years, and the evidence is clear as the newyork sky on 9-12/13/14.

Please, only add factual tips here, and not religous or misguided propaganda.

(the dates above refer to the no fly period, when the sky became the clearest/cleanest for many years)

FREE ANTI-VIRUS DOWNLOAD - DRIVESENTRY I have found this product is well worth using. The peace of mind it gives is most re-assuring. If my understanding of this product is correct it will intercept any new virus before the likes of Norton or McAfee know it exists. It does not slow down the system and will not delete important Windows features. Download at www.drivesentry.com

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Going back to Colin106's first comment, American Express is accepted almost everywhere in the UK these days; certainly all the main supermarkets, petrol stations, DIY, electrical and furnishing chains. I would estimate 90-95% of the 'high street' retailers and more than 50% of online retailers (including all the travel sites).

So if you want up to £200 'free' go for the Amex card...

Climate change is not a "myth" - whether humankind is the cause of it or not is a different story. Either way, if we can do something to minimise the damage - shouldn't we?

I have to agree with those who point out that the climate change debate HERE is off topic. Having said that, I can't resist putting in my oar! Personally I find the rate of ice melt data very convincing, but I do agree that where vested interests are involved, as they clearly are here, it's hard to find the real truth.

On free AV software, I've used AVG on my PC laptop for years, perfectly satisfactory. Desktop is a Mac so no problems there. But beware of 'free' McAfee or Norton: I had a friend sign up for free Norton and after a year was beleagured with payment requests and couldn't uninstall the software. Best not to start, in my view: uninstall at once, as I did on my new laptop, and put on AVG.

Dear ooshtotty,

Personally I can't comment on your own experience of an Home Fire Risk Assessment, but this is something that has to be promoted by each Fire Brigade, thanks to The home Office. We do our best to get to everyone who requests one, but there are sadly, only so many hours that the powers that be allocate for us to complete our 'targets' I wholeheartedly agree that they should be completed as close to our receipt of the request as possible, but the bureaucracy, involved in logging each form onto the system is ridiculous.

Oh, and sod's law normally guarantees a shout just as we roll up at the allotted time.

Best thing to do , is phone yr local station, (or go through the HQ switchbord, no. on their website) and whinge like hell.

Oh, and Happy New Year to you all

Regards

Tim

They don't seem to be the conditions I recall on my card. I started using it just to buy fuel and paying off each month and the cashback turns up. It does look like the clause is just for borrowing against the card. I don't look at those details closely as I never use them. It does seem odd though and out of place in the T&C's.

Maybe clarify the statement with Citicard by email if you have concerns.

If someone else would like to comment on the terms they can be found here:

http://www.citibank.co.uk/personal/cards/cards_plat_tc.htm?type=cards&offer=A154&merchant=shell

BigJon3000 Clearly your research on MMCC conflicts with many others. Clear skies in the absence of planes is hardly proof or otherwise of a global warming trend.

If you researche this as you say you do, please take a look at the figures on proportions of GHGs in atmosphere and the effects of radiation on water vapour and cloud formation.

You may also ask why the latest IPCC report omits the 'hockey stick' curve, the very foundation of the Man-made Global Warming Myth and why the past decade of no change in Global Average Temperature was not predicted by the IPCCs computer models 15 years ago.

You don't have to go far to see the clod winters and cool summers wea re experiencing. The IPCC are saying global warming may not recur for ten years yet. How can this be when world CO2 emissions have risen every year this decade and continue to increase. Chinese emissions exceed those of the USA, double their output ten years ago.

Green blinkered bandwagons persist. Has the Stern report been revised since the IPCC reduced their GAT predictions by 25%?....do they tell the people?

NO on both counts. Sadly, vested financial interests overide science and sense!! My guess is global dimming (cooling from man-made particulates) could well be the next bandwagon....ready to jump on, BigJon3000??

roderickeaton...you give something away...the Pope appealing for science to oppose dogma???...rejoice Richard Dawkins for the lost sheep returns...as it were

I was installing the Barclays offer of Kaspersky but had to cancel because a message came up to say it wanted to uninstall my AVG as they were not compatible. I have had AVG a very long time and am quite happy with that.

Two very hunky firemen appeared in a big red fire engine, knocked on the door and asked to fit the smoke alarms which they did in 5 minutes. The wife is still starry -eyed!

This is a good source of freebies:

http://www.smartfreestuff.co.uk/

debtwagon - I agree that we should be working for improved fuel efficiency and cost-efective new technologies. My objection is to basing the need for such research on the very weak MMCC theory.

If poor (pathological) science is used, it leads to costly false objectives. Carbon Dioxide is not a pollutant, carbon monoxide is. CO2 is in fact the product of the complete and efficient combustion of fossil fuels. Hence research on catalytic reduction of CO2 or its capture is unhelpful and extremely expensive.

Windmills will always be as unreliable as MMCC theory itself as the wind, like the rest of climate, is unpredicatble. Exceeding 20% windpower on a grid system is a recipe for instability. This can be dealt with by costly and inefficient quick start open cycle gas turbines or carrying running spare capacity on other fossil fuel plant at great cost. Windmills, especially off sore are exceedingly expensive to construct and run.

Solar energy has been going for years and the raw materials have simply increased in price by some 20 fold. Still solar panels are unlikely to payback on the heavy outlay in 50 years by which time they will need replacing. Germany has recently moved away from solar to other so called renewables.

I have no doubt that concentrating on real science and technological advancement is the way forward but not clouded by tenuous preudo-scientific bandwagons on humankind's effect on climate.

Anyone who has their Internet supplied by BT can get free security software including the latest Norton and various security stuff on their browser (if you use their browser).

the best thing with this one is that you can put it on any PC or laptop in your home. And it works for anyone bringing their laptop to use on your home network and connecting through your BT home hub.

Eg. My friend came round, connected to the web via my home hub and installed it. its valid for 12 months then you just update it. However i had to create him a sub account but you can have 10 for free and its quick and easy to do.

I am not sure if this is only open to customers on option 3 though. And i know not all folk like Norton but i have never had problems.

debtwagon, there is, just not so many....

In the light of the positive comments about Amex cards, and not having used one for about a year, I had better revise my comments about their useability. Best way to treat Amex perhaps is to make use of the initial 4-5% cashback (which may have an upper limit of £200 - do check) and then revert to a simple 1% on everything card, as after the first 3 months honeymoon period, Amex reduce the cashback to 0.5% for the next I think £20,000 spend.

So treat them in the same way as they use us!

To TimtheHouse and Debtwagon. wey hey, the Fire Brigade called me out of the blue yesterday evening so the message must have got across at last! So I believe there is a fire god out there! By the way, I live in Tooting Bec, south west London, and I made the request by telephone to HQ who said they would pass it on to the local station who would ring me! I was beginning to lose hope after three months of waiting, but my faith has been slightly restored now. Let's hope I don't catch fire before Monday's visit! Ooshtotty!

Hi - I would like to add that the two firemen who came to my house were brilliant. Talked me through a few things, gave advice and fitted two smoke alarms for free. Wish everyone could benefit from this service.

It did take a while for an appointment to be arranged and then they failed to arrive. They rang me to apologise and arranged another appointment. The guys who come to the house are 'working crews' so if there is a fire, obviously that gets priority! This was explained to me when the first appointment was arranged so I was prepared for a non-show. Cannot praise this service to highly!

Free landline phone calls to geographic numbers ( 01,02 but not 0845, 0870)in UK and 10 foreign countries. Qualify by buying your utilites from Utility Warehouse Discount Club. Visit my website http://www.telecomplus.org.uk/cash for full details.

i asked for a home visit from the fire brigade.i enquired on the saunday and by the friday i had a visit arranged for 1 day later and 3 firemen called and fitted me 2 free smoke detecters. they couldnt have been more efficient and helpful.

"climate change myth" give government Free reign to impose tax.

That is what is contentious regarding MMGW. Climate change has and is occurring as the climate is in permanent flux. It is just the Major drive for the solution presented is more TAX. Pay more tax as it is tax that will prevent sea levels rising and flooding everywhere.

You guys should check out http://www.magicfreebiesuk.co.uk

Its updated everyday with 8 new freebies