The broke blogger

Tired of being a poor college student, senior Lia Saunders started searching for freebies and product samples.  Three years, thousands of dollars, and a bottle of free BBQ sauce later, Saunders created a blog, The Broke Student’s Guide to Stretching Your Dollar, to share her freebie-gathering tips with fellow students.

How do you learn about all these free deals?

I kind of pick it up everywhere. I absorb it from classes, like marketing and economics, and learn how the market works. I started researching how to get free products from companies. You can find a lot of stuff online by just Googling and clicking around. And every time I hear about an opportunity on campus for free, I go check it out. I mean, we pay tuition, but people don’t seem to realize how much they can get for free.

What’s the best thing you’ve ever gotten for free?

I really love the $50 from MyPoints.com where I can spend the money wherever I want. It’s a paid-to site where they basically pay you to do nothing. You just click e-mails and advertisements and you get like 5 cents for each click. I fill out surveys and play games online and I get points that I can redeem for gift cards. Usually I get a Macy’s gift card. And Restaurant.com had a promotion where a $25 gift card cost $2. I bought them for everybody’s Christmas presents.

Have you used other promotional things for gifts?

For a friend’s birthday, I signed up for 50 offers and wrote 50 companies for free coupons. He basically got a present for each day of his birthday month. I took him out to dinner with the gift cards and would hand him an item, like a bottle of BBQ sauce. Random, I know, but it was nice because he wasn’t expecting anything because he knows I’m broke.

What’s the most random thing you’ve ever gotten for free?

Lots of random grocery coupons. I wrote every company that was on a list of companies that respond to letters and got products I had never tried — like microwaveable pretzels. They were pretty good!

What do you estimate is the total amount of money you’ve made and saved in the last few years?

Money from paid-to sites, about $500. As far as free products, about a value of $1,100 since I started college. And savings wise, I’d say at least $4,000 a year. I’ve been consciously saving for only about two years though, so that’s a total of $8,000. Adding everything together, I’ve saved roughly $9,600 or so since I began college.

That’s a lot!

Well, since I have to pay for my own stuff and I don’t have a real job, everything is more or less up to me. And it’s always nice to know there’s a check coming.

Will you keep doing this after college?

Oh yeah, I think so. I think I will always enjoy getting free money.