Free Food

There are multiple ways of getting free food. Whoever said there’s no such thing as a free lunch was way too close-minded. This page includes all the information available on AF.c related to food and it will be updated as other ways to get free food are discovered. Some of the strategies listed on this page are more substantial than others.

Your Birthday Is The Best Day Of The Year To Get Free Meals

You can get free meals on your birthday. In fact, your birthday is one of the best days of the year to get freebies. You can literally go from place to place for hours collecting freebies. You can also collect free desserts and meals for about a week leading up to your birthday and about a month afterward. Getting free meals on your birthday involves signing up for birthday email clubs online. Many of these clubs will give you a freebie on your birthday AND a freebie when you sign up. See Birthday Freebies, Birthday Freebies Directory, and Email Opt-In Freebies List.

AF.c Pages Related to Free Food

Free samples can include food. See the Free Samples & Gifts page for detailed info on how to get free samples. Some common retailers that give out free food samples include Costco, Trader Joe’s, Fudge Shops, Ice Cream Parlors, and other dessert shops. See also Local Freebie Scavenger Hunt.

Food is one of the most common items that you can get with Coupons. See Free With Coupons & Extreme Couponing. Those who practice extreme couponing build stockpiles of food that they got free or nearly free.

A year supply of food products can be offered as a prize for a sweepstakes or contest, and sweepstakes are commonly found on food product packaging. See Sweepstakes, Contests, Drawings & Prizes.

Free food is commonly given away on Black Friday. For example, a store might have doughnuts and coffee in the morning or offer hot dogs and soda for lunch. It’s common at furniture stores and other retailers. See Black Friday Freebies.

Free food is often given away at sports events, especially when the team does well and one of their sponsors is a fast food restaurant or mini-mart. For example, if the pitcher gets a certain number of strikeouts in the evening, Circle K will give everyone a free hot dog. See Sports Event Freebies.

You can potentially get free food while mystery shopping, if the assignment is for a restaurant or grocery store. See Mystery Shopping.

Product testing can include food products. See Product Testing for Free Stuff. See also House Party. These pages will explain how to get products mailed to you, but you can also go to food engineering laboratories to participate as a taste tester. Try finding them at local factories or local universities that do food research. See also Become A Research Test Subject for additional resources.

Food is often given away at Really, Really Free Markets. See Gift Economies.

Believe it or not, one of the best ways to get free food is by dumpster diving and urban foraging. Food might get thrown way if doesn’t sell by the “sell by” date. But the “sell by” date is not an expiration date. See Dumpster Diving. See also Local Retail Leftovers for ideas on how to get food before it ends up in the dumpster. For example, you could possibly get free pizza at night when the pizza place is closing because they won’t save it for the next day. The same goes with bagels or any product that is “baked fresh” daily.

If you volunteer at a non-profit that serves food, then you could potentially get a free meal for your service. See Volunteer For Freebies. There is more on Charities and Government Freebies below.

Free snacks and juice are often included when donating plasma. You also get paid for the donation. See Donating Plasma.

See also Free Water, which includes drinking water.

See also Free Gardening Resources.

Free Food Days At Restaurants

Many restaurants have offered free food promotions on a day or two out of the year. They’ve offered anything from a scoop of ice cream to an entire meal. While some free food days have even been advertised on the Super Bowl (Denny’s for Super Bowl XLIII and XLIV), others are simply advertised in the local newspaper or in-store displays. The restaurant may announce it as a press release. Sometimes the event is kept as a complete surprise. They may only have a sign up at a specific location only a week in advance or just the day of the promotion. If you look for special event calendars on restaurant websites you might get lucky. Here is a growing list of restaurants that have had free food days:

  • Ben & Jerry’s
  • Denny’s (advertised on Super Bowl XLIII and XLIV, free Grand Slam Breakfast)
  • Chick-Fil-A
  • Cinnabon
  • Haagen Daas
  • IHOP
  • Joe’s BBQ (Gilbert, AZ)
  • Joe’s Farm Grill (Gilbert, AZ)
  • Krispy Kreme (they give away donuts all the time)
  • Pretzel Time
  • Rita’s Italian Ice
  • Seven Eleven
  • Sonic
  • TCBY
  • Wendy’s (free frosty days)
  • Wienerschnitzel (free chili dogs and ice cream)

Whenever one of these promotions is discovered it will be posted on the Blog. Whenever they’re done consistently year after year they’ll be added to the Best Freebie Days Of The Year page. If you know of any events coming up, please submit it for review. See also special events below. Events to look for in the local paper and news websites are grand openings.

Free Food Challenges

There are two types of food challenges, one types offers a large volume of food, the other offers food that is too spicy. If you can eat it all, you don’t have to pay.

One example is the 72 oz steak meal at the Big Texan in Amarillo, TX. Read more about Free Food Challenges.

Special Events Where They Give Away Food

The following events commonly involve with free food.

  • Booths after marathons and races
  • Church gatherings
  • Community events
  • School socials.
  • Groups and club meetings
  • Parties
  • Dances
  • Weddings
  • Open houses
  • Conferences
  • Seminars
  • Car dealership promotions
  • Grand Openings

Try finding events with free food in the printed newspaper, local news websites, Meetup, Eventbrite, calendars & events pages on city websites, library event calendars, neighborhood events, and social media.

Free Food From The Community & Local Resources

Go to the library to check out a book on foraging. It will explain what you can safely collect to eat from nature. You can also learn to fish, hunt and garden.

The library may also have information on gardening AND tools that you can borrow for gardening.

Neighbors and local farmers might have excess crops from their gardens and fruit trees that they’d rather give away instead of letting it go to waste. If you know anyone with a garden, just compliment them on it and they may think of you the next harvest time.

Often, if a fruit tree branch hangs over the owner’s property line, then the fruit on that branch can be picked by anyone with access to the property on the other side. Check local laws and real estate rules to verify this where you live.

Often a home owner’s association (HOA) will maintain fruit trees as part of the neighborhood’s landscape. Sometimes the fruit will be edible, other times it will only be meant for show. Make friends with people in these neighborhoods to be advised of the when the HOA says it’s OK to pick the fruit or when they even encourage it.

You could also trade services or work for food. Befriend an elderly neighbor who might give you a meal in exchange for simple tasks like sweeping a room or changing a light bulb. Or you could babysit during meal time.

Free Food and Nutrition Assistance from The Government and Non-Profits

If you or your family is in need then you could look to non-profits or the government for nutrition assistance programs.

The government has programs such as WIC and EBT. See the Government Freebies Directory.

Non-profits might include food banks. Find a local Food Bank.

Free Restaurants

These eating places are essentially feed-forward Gift Economies for Food. They have also been termed “pay-what-you-want” kitchens or “pay-it-forward”. They are not listed here to be abused, simply to demonstrate that there are resources to eat if you need them. These are great organizations that were made to feed the hungry. In order to keep going they could use volunteers and donations.

If you know of other free restaurants, please let us know.

Actually Free