Free and Almost Free

The Internet is a fantastic resource for bargain hunters, but some are a little more obscure than others. Here are few that I stumbled across this week mostly thanks to other bloggers.

Dining Discounts: Local TV stations sometimes barter air time with restaurants in exchange for gift certificates. This is done through an advertising company called Incentrev. The business gets PR, then the station sells the gift certificates to consumers who get a bargain. Everybody is happy.

You'll find deals in nearly every city. So keep this in mind when you are travelling too. Just go online and use the call letters of the local new and add ".incentrev.com" to the end. So in for Denver's Fox news, for example, you would type http://kdvr.incentrev.com/ into the address line. I guess not all stations are connected with the program though since I couldn't find anything for other Denver channels.

Free Software: GiveawayOfTheDay.com offers free fully-licensed, no-trial, no-shareware professional software. You have to check the site frequently since the free download is only available for one day. And you must download and activate the software on you computer that same day. Oh, and it's only for PCs, no MAC software is featured.

In this case the developer of the software gets advertising and feedback on their product. What's in it for you is that this is usually high-quality and tested software. You're less likely to get junk or viruses--though I won't go as far as to personal guarantee that. You probably won’t find something useful every day, but it’s worth adding the feed to your RSS reader.