Awesome Things You Can Get for Free

Getting a good deal on something is awesome, but getting it for free is even better.

To help you score as much free stuff as possible, we’ve compiled an exhaustive list of great things you can get without paying a cent. Of course, you won’t find any useless junk here. We’re talking quality goods and services that you would have happily paid for – except you don’t have to. And, there’s something here for everyone.

Let’s start with free food. Your favorite snack shop or fast-food restaurant may have an annual freebie day, like Ben and Jerry’s free cone day in April or a free Slurpee from 7-11 on, when else, July 11th. Some places offer freebies on certain holidays such as Mother's Day and Veterans Day. There are even Tax Day freebies.

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And if you hate paying full price for an entrée for your picky 6-year-old, visit KidsMealDeals.com. You can plug in your location to find local restaurants where kids eat free.

Follow up your free meal with a free education. A handful of colleges including Alice Lloyd College in Kentucky and College of the Ozarks in Missouri waive tuition. Instead, students are required to work to offset their education costs. Plus, about 60% of accredited, degree-granting institutions in the U.S. offer tuition waivers for older adults.

If you just want to learn on your own, many colleges and universities post lectures on their Web sites, including Johns Hopkins, Notre Dame and MIT. You can also access more than 250,000 free lectures and course materials from 600 universities, including Oxford, Stanford and Yale, by visiting Apple’s iTunes U.

There are a number of Web sites that offer free financial-planning tools, no strings attached. Instead of paying an adviser to evaluate your investment portfolio, simply use Morningstar.com’s Instant X-Ray tool to see if your holdings are sufficiently diversified. At Fidelity.com, find a free tool that enables you to estimate future retirement expenses and income.

When it comes to free credit reports and credit scores, you have a few options. Go to AnnualCreditReport.com to get a free copy of your credit report from each of the three main credit bureaus once a year. Two other Web sites, CreditKarma.com and CreditSesame.com, will show you your credit scores at no charge, monitor your credit for free and notify you of any significant changes.

There are many more fabulous freebies where these came from. Check them out.

Before joining the Kiplinger team as Online Community Editor in 2013, Rebecca was associate travel editor at the Huffington Post, where she also handled the travel section's social media. She landed at AOL/HuffPost after earning an MS in journalism at Northwestern University's Medill School, with a concentration in health and science journalism. Prior to that, she covered lifestyle at Jacksonville Magazine, in Jacksonville, Fla., preceded by a stint at American Cheerleader magazine. She holds a BA from the College of William and Mary.