“The best things in life are free. The second best things are very, very expensive.”
― Coco Chanel
This brief post will be about freebies but more generally grabbing the things in front of us when the opportunity presents itself. Why do I have such a fascination about freebies? Probably because I'm slightly insane, but I think just having something for free is very tempting to me. I get to enjoy something that normally costs money - for free, thereby saving my own money for other stuff like investments or presents. Also because I did something small like signing up to a membership, it doesn't feel shameful or "bad" to collect free things!
If you work in the city, you will know about those freebies that people are constantly handing out. I've received so many free things such as red bull, ice coffee drinks, packets of chips, fruit, stress balls, and so on. These all pale in comparison to the freebies that you can collect during your special day of the year - your birthday!!
Here is a list of all the freebies I collected on or around my birthday time this year:
- Free original size Boost Juice
- Premium 6 inch sub with bottle of coke from Subway
- Large pearl milk tea from Chatime
- Regular burger meal from Nando's
All of the above are easily obtained by anyone on their birthday if you sign up to their membership program before your birthday. They are also all free to sign up - the exception being Chatime which costs 50 cents to join their membership.
The other thing I do and recommend other people to do during their birthday, is to run a free credit report on themselves. VEDA and Dun and Bradstreet - 2 of the major credit reporting agencies in Australia offer once a year free credit report for anyone as long as you are willing to wait about 10 days to receive your report.
To get the VEDA one, simply go to http://www.mycreditfile.com.au/home/free-credit-file.dot and send in the required information to VEDA and they will send you your report in 10 days. I schedule it so that I request the report 10 days before my birthday so that it is ready for my birthday as a birthday present. Also keeps it easy to remember - almost like clockwork!
Why bother having a credit file report run?
Well any time you apply for a credit card or other type of loan, the telco, utility company or financier will list the request on the various credit reporting agencies' database. Too many enquries in a short space of time will be inferred by these lenders as if you took each and every one, even if you were declined - making it harder to obtain more lending in the short term.
Any defaults, specific late payments and bankruptcies will all be shown on your report for them to view and make a decision on whether to lend you money or services. If you know your credit file is "clean" and you haven't been applying to too many places in a short space of time, and assuming you will be able to comfortably service the loan you are requesting - there should be no reason why you would be denied credit.
Knowing what is on your file is also important to ensure your identity hasn't been compromised and that someone hasn't used your identity to obtain loans through fraud.
You don't have to wait until your birthday to request a report - you can request it any time and get it within 10 days. I just time it close to it so that it triggers my memory to run one!
All the best
