SkunkApe's Food for Free

This week I spent my day off running errands and having a look around town. I had a good day but after grabbing a coffee and a bite to eat there isn't much left (if anything) from ten pounds these days here in England. So over time I have discovered some hacks to get as much as I can for free or at a bargain price. My days of alternative urban foraging are now rather successful. So here is my quick guide on how you can also manage to get a 'free lunch'.

So to begin with I woke up craving something sweet and a couple of doughnuts for breakfast seemed a perfect treat. So I simply went online, filled in a form, printed my coupon, walked into my local Tesco supermarket, boxed up three beautiful doughnuts, scanned my coupons and walked out a happy man. You too can definitely get yourself at least one free doughnut, as I was a bit cheeky claiming three today.

How to claim your free Krispy Kreme....

Get online and go to Krispy Kreme's UK website
scroll to the bottom of the page and click on the ‘friends of Krispy Kreme’ button.
fill in the sign up form. Now at this point I think it is good to point out that creating an email address specifically for signing up to these online groups is best policy, in fact create several if you wish to repeat the process on a specific item or offer.
you should now be given the option to print out your doughnut voucher. I think for most people that the window which opens allows you to print the voucher out one time only, which is fair.
take your voucher to your chosen nearest Krispy Kreme retailer and pick up your doughnut.

Now I have slyly used my work PC to print out my vouchers before and I think that because of the restrictions that are in place that it forced the printer to give me the option to choose how many copies I print. It works in my favour though and I have printed out a whole dozen and redeemed them before. When getting my box of doughnuts one time the checkouts manager at Tesco was rather short with me and asked where I got all these vouchers. I claimed that they were a gift from a regular at the bar I work and played dumb on my real source of free doughnuts.

When choosing where to redeem your voucher I would always choose the supermarket option if attempting multiple doughnut purchases on one day or if using a new voucher each week for the simple reason that you can use the self service checkouts. People seem to remember the ‘guy’ who gets free stuff or ring through to their managers to ask permission to use multiple coupons, which is at the stores discretion. It would also probably be easier to use multiple vouchers in a bigger town or city where you’re just another face in the crowd and have several options on where to redeem your voucher, compared to market towns and smaller.

So after picking up my doughnuts I realised that it was Tuesday, so to me that means a free coffee (large latte with full fat milk) at cafe Nero thanks to my phone being on the O2 network. Basically O2 has its own special rewards club/App called O2 Priority and once a week on Tuesdays or Wednesdays after midday you can get a free hot or cold drink at cafe Nero.

So to redeem this offer, download the app and register your mobile number. Then simply click on the free coffee offer and redeem. Also you can still collect Nero reward stamps even when getting a free drink, so download the Cafe Nero App aswell and after getting 9 stamps your 10th drink is free. Right now if you enter the promo code GIVEME5 you’ll get 5 stamps free too.

But what if you’re not on O2 and still want a free coffee? Fear not as with a little bit of extra work and time you can still get your caffeine fix.

Order a pay as you go sim online or go to an O2 shop and ask the guys in store for a SIM card.
Put the SIM card into your phone or into that old Nokia tucked away in a draw somewhere.
Install the Priority Moments app on your actual smart phone.
Now you may need to top up your O2 sim with a minimum of £10 to activate it or possibly if you get it instore or online a nominal amount like a £1 may be possible.
In the app you will be asked for your O2 phone number for the usual verification process (email, name, shoe size et al) You should now have O2 priority available your mobile.

Now this may seem a bit expensive if you have to put in a tenner but when you do the math, if you are a daily coffee drinker after 4 weeks you’ll be drinking free coffee once a week. If a cheap cup of coffee is £2:50 and you get one free each week excluding holidays etc for let’s say 40 weeks out of a year, you’ve saved £100.

Also you now have access to a whole host of O2 offers and a spare/drop sim with £10 credit which could be extremely useful in an emergency situation. This tactic of buying a pay as you go sim can I also be applied to Veryme with Vodaphone or Wuntu with Three Mobile.

Also on the topic of coffee, if you’re like me and simply need caffeine and sugar in your system to stop you being a dickhead then the chilled lattes at Lidl for 59p really hit the spot and are the cheapest source of quick caffeine I’ve found. Though please be aware the Lidl store set up always puts them just past the bakery and you’re a far better and stronger person than me if you can resist a goats cheese focaccia or a maple and pecan twist first thing in the morning.

Anyway so after eating my policeman’s breakfast I spent some more time just enjoying the day. I looked around the local charity shops, spent some time in the library and just let the day pass me by.

After a while it became clear that I needed to refuel with something savoury. So I decided to I felt like a burger and luckily for me I had an offer for one saved for free on my phone.

All you’ll need to get yourself a free burger is again a smart phone. Download the McDonald’s app and when you use the app to order food for the first time you’ll be given the option of choosing a free hamburger or a cheeseburger. You don’t have to order anything else and can simply put through an order for £0.00. There is no need to enter any card details or verify your identity. The only thing you need to do is turn on your location services to enable you to place the order. Whilst at McDonald’s today I also noticed there was a special deal on the app for a 99p BigMac, so as I had saved a couple of quid already today I thought I’d treat myself.

So the McDonald’s app burger is a rather neat little hack and I’ve used it three times now, by simply reregistering with a different email address. Also if you’ve read this far you’ll be interested to know that on November 22nd you can get free fries if you use the app, so if you play it correctly that’s lunch sorted in two weeks time.

Now I didn’t use this hack today but I feel that it is definitely a good one and should be passed on. Again on your phone download the Greggs app and they’ll send you a reward for signing up and a sweet treat coupon on your birthday. So I just bent the truth and put my Birthday the next day after I signed up and when I was in town that week I popped into Greggs for a free coffee and a cake. The guys at Greggs also send you random rewards and freebies throughout the year. Unlike some other apps you do need to verify your account with your mobile number, so you can’t just re-register each week. The only loop hole I have found though is that you can edit your details in your profile and when I adjusted my birthday to a week in the future the birthday reward reappeared, though I have only done this the once.

So after my day of urban foraging I popped into my local Tesco express and checked out the reductions, where I bought myself some sandwich’s for my brunch tomorrow and lots of random fruit so I can pretend that I actually eat healthy. Which again is a lot cheaper and more substantial than buying a meal deal or even making the sandwich’s myself. On the topic of supermarket reductions, you can save quite a bit but the people who are waiting for the ‘bargains’ take it very seriously and I’ve seen old ladies come to blows over a side of salmon. My advice is if the people get angry, just take a step back and enjoy the show.

So there you have it, these are some of favourite ways of getting a free (or very much reduced) lunch right now on my days off. There are lots of other hacks out there though, I’ve found that the best ones seem to be Birthday or the very first introductory offers. Now I know that the reason the first one is free, is that the company hope to hook you with their product so you keep coming back. So don’t ever feel bad about taking something for nothing. These companies aren’t giving away stock out of the kindness of their hearts, it’s business and if you remain savvy and take what you can then you’re just using a legitimate loophole.

As a final point all I would ask if you do decide to use these tips is to be kind to your server. They will genuinely appreciate being treated with good manners and being treated like a person and not a servant. The person at the till probably is not bothered that you’ve got a coupon but they can decide to refuse you if you’re rude or being awkward. Also they may over time refuse to serve you if you are obviously taking the mickey; say by using multiple coupons at the same store weekly or coming in everyday to get your ‘birthday’ drink. It’s all down to common sense, and the same as with true foraging you don’t strip an area of all resources but leave some for others and the future.

If you've read this to the end, thank you for taking the time to read my post, I hope you enjoy the free food and if you have any hacks yourself please leave them below in the comments. Have a great weekend, kind regards SkunkApe.