Exceptional Deal: Degustabox Monthly Food Surprises! (How Else Was I Supposed to Be Goaded into Eating Crickets?)

I don't know about you, but I like surprises.

It's one thing to order a free sample and wait for what you are expecting... but it's a whole other thing to let go of that illusion of control and let yourself be surprised, even though you are paying for it!

It's a nice change of pace to let someone order food for you, trusting that for the most part you are going to be pleased with what you receive. Just do it to experience something different for a change - both that feeling of loosening that grip of control over your life and the willingness to be surprised.

You might discover something you enjoy and even love, something that you never would have thought to try - I NEVER would have tried to eat crickets if I stuck with the same old "what I want." I'm not kidding. I ate crickets. It was in the form of a crunchy snack made from cricket flour, but I ate it just the same - and it was delicious!  Apparently bugs are the foods of the future. In case you're curious - crickets have a slightly nutty flavor and are full of protein - more than beef. As far as food production goes, crickets use the least amount of water in comparison to meat products. Eating bugs is about food security and the ecological health of our planet.

So getting back to being surprised by Degustabox. Being from the Mid-Atlantic, I was sooo happy to find a full size box of Entenmann's. The all natural coconut ginger soda was surprisingly good. That was from New York, but I had never heard of it before. Oh and those lemon waffle cookie things? Get you some. Seriously. This "surprise food delivery service" is only $20 after the first box and shipping is always free. I also looked into how to cancel - very easy to find and complete, but they also allow you to put your account on hold for as long as you would like.

The first box was only going to set me back ten bucks and I thought "why not?" That will take care of some of my shopping for at least a few meals, and I don't have to take the time out to track down deals on Amazon. (Prime Pantry is awesome if you haven't tried it, especially if you don't mind hunting down the good deals. I buy more than half my food this way.)  I  believe Degustabox is really on to something good. Hopefully they will keep up the good work with their selection process and keep adding high quality products.

Just do it. You know you want it! Being surprised is fun! And if you don't like something? Use it as an excuse to talk to your neighbor - maybe it's something they absolutely love! And if you want it to be free - share some of your food treasure with your friends and family. When they ask where you got such yummy stuff or how do they to sign up - give them your link - and for every two people that sign up with your link- you get credit for a free box!

When you get your first Degustabox, come back and let me know what you think.

My Freebie Story

What I Have Committed to Bring to the Table of Freebieism

First off I just want to disclose that any “we” and “us” or “our” is, for the time being, just me, your friendly freebie freak.  I’m thinking positive and forward to the day when I absolutely need at least one other person to keep this website hopping.  It is no way, meant to misrepresent the size of this operation.

How I Got into Freebies

I’ve been at the freebie game off and on for a long time.  With it came coupons… then sweepstakes, then giveaways… and then the search for the best survey and pay-per-activity sites.  Exposed to so many tempting deals, I even became “that person”, not caring what friends thought, I gave the wait staff a coupon during a sit down meal.  

At the dawn of the internet I found a free sample site whose name escapes me.  There was no fuss.  They would just send me a box of samples from a variety of companies once a month.  If I remember correctly, once in a blue moon they’d ask me to fill out a survey, but it wasn’t often.  No one believed me, even when they saw the box.  They just figured it was some kind of scam.  Not sure what happened with them.  It may have been I just moved or abandoned my email.

Before that, I was the teenager that discovered requesting a catalogue from Pueblo Colorado was for real. I could get free things from all kinds of government agencies, mostly newsletters and magazine-like informational publications.  There was no public internet, so information was not as cheap as it is now.  Soon I was awash in information.  The “internet” was in my room - under my bed, overflowing off of my bookshelves, hiding in my closet… filling up the back seat of my car.  No one understood.

Soon there was internet 1.0 and I was hunting under every rock just to see what I could find.  I would think up urls and type them in just to see what I could see.  (To date my all time favorite website is http://www.purple.com.)  If only I knew the importance of buying internet real estate back then.

Within a few years the fact that the internet was evolving exponentially became apparent and then bang! IT happened - I was introduced to high speed internet.  I could open 50 tabs in my browser.  I thought I had invented multi-tasking. I was in love all over again!  

What could the internet do for me? That was the eternal question.  For awhile I took up an online auction store.  I kept lists of up and coming websites that were all about this new thing called social media.  I even categorized them into bookmarking sites, photo storage sites, video sharing sites.  I started keeping lists of everything I got for free.  I would delve into and dissect websites that promised me prizes and rewards and paychecks.  I kept tabs, even at times tracking the time I invested on each website doing various things, including the old fashioned survey, to see if it panned out.  

I was eyeballs deep.  No one understood how and why I spent so much time in front of “that screen”.  They still thought all there was to do was play games and chat, but mostly chat.  Chatting was a diversion, a distraction.  It was what I did when my brain was fried from surveys and making lists.  

The Impetus to Making it Happen

So here I am.  Sometimes I feel as if I wasted my life.  But as I grow in age and wisdom, situations pop up more and more where I can take all this trivia and the oh so many jobs I tried my hand at, and actually make it something useful.  A few months back a friend asked me if I was secretly a genius.  I laughed it off, but they said, “no, seriously. How else can you know so many random things on so many different topics?" I continued to laugh, but how could I say I wasted my life away, not wanting to miss a second of the internet? The best I could label myself was “jack of some trades.”

After spending thousands of frustrating hours digging through crappy scammy freebie sites, I admitted to myself that I absolutely knew what it took to make a good freebie site - one that can be honest, forthright, organized and useful - and still, in time, build up to something that might actually earn me a few dollars in advertising.  I fooled around with the idea, got brainstorms, bought websites, stopped and started, vacillated on whether the idea was worth sinking my time into.  Got sucked into other ideas, bought other websites, helped people out with their ideas, watched missed opportunities come and go, watched websites rise and fall.  

It always came back to freebies, my not so secret lover I just can’t quit. Really I was just tired of the idea that no one seemed to get it right, and when they did… they’d up and disappear! It angered me to know that there were thousands upon thousands of people in just the United States, probably wasting thousands of collective hours each month sifting through things that were not what they wanted, things that were old, things that were scammy, just to get to that precious little nugget of truly free.  Of course one man’s trash is another man’s treasure, by why why why don’t people care enough to just be honest about what they are offering and for goodness sake, keep it up to date AND organized?

 

Even those popular “honest” websites that aren’t bogged down in advertisements that look like posts, definitely have their issues.  They say free free free all over their website, they repeat that word in their posts and come to find out you have to pay shipping.  Obviously they just assumed or didn’t care enough to take the time to check out what they were advertising.  Let’s face it, when you are looking for truly free, there’s nothing more frustrating than the hidden shipping cost or obligation that fails to be mentioned until you’ve already given up your personal information!

And then there is the website that says free free free and over half their posts are things you have to go out and get or aren’t free at all.  I don’t know about you, but if I wanted to go spend 10 dollars in gas to get something, I’d probably not have an issue paying for it.  I’m going to risk a big assumption here, but I do think there are many, MANY of you out there just like me, who want truly free and only want to go as far as the mailbox.  

Don’t get me wrong, there are times when you might want to go on a little in-store freebie adventure with friends, or pick up a few free goodies while out shopping, but when I’m looking for free - I want free!  I don’t want to sort between in-store free and sit on my butt free.

What Makes This Website Different

We find and go through the ordering process and soon after will post those freebies that meet our requirements, saving you lots of time and getting you many freebies with little effort.  If you’re reading this, you probably feel at least a little bit like I do do, a trip to the mailbox is like Christmas, Easter and your birthday all rolled into one.

                   Requirements

1.  They are family friendly, meaning they are not related to alcohol, drugs, tobacco or inappropriate adult subjects.  (You may sometimes find condoms and other similar products, but we consider these "family friendly" for reasons I'm sure you can figure out.)

2.  They are absolutely free! There is no obligation beyond providing commonly requested information and perhaps liking a Facebook page.  There are no shipping charges.  And it takes no more than a few minutes AT MOST to fill out their form.

3.  We actually order the free product.  Very rarely will we post items that we have not actually ordered. 

Those that we post that we don’t order might include products that we are not eligible for, such as ones that require you have a certain medical condition or require you are a parent of a baby or small child.  In this case we will proceed as far as we can into the ordering process. 

We order products for several reasons - to ensure that the sample is still available (sometimes they will collect your information before telling you they've run out) and to make sure their form is not broken or that there aren't any other problems or issues like waiting until they've collected your information before telling you there are requirements, such as shipping.

4.  If we originally ordered the freebie more than 24 hours ago, they will be rechecked for all requirements before they are posted.  (Short of attempting to order them again.  Companies don’t like that!)

5.  Except in rare cases, filling out a form has to mean a fairly good chance of receiving a physical product delivered to your mailbox.  There are no guarantees in life of course!  In general this means no free trial memberships, no online videos, no apps, no digital music, no coupon books.  Very rarely will you see magazines (as they usually require you to cancel something or end up owing money.)

Wrapping it Up

In the end it my passion, not just for freebies, but for quality, coupled with my eye for detail that will ensure a pleasant experience while not just visiting, but UTILIZING this website as a tool to get what you want with ease.   I’m just starting out, so things aren’t at 100% right now, and it’s just me for the time being, but I hope you will join this freebie freak on her adventure and watch this website grow into something unique and USEFUL in hopes that it will provide exceptional value – for free!

Be well,

Vicky