It's no secret that I enjoy the freebie things in life. Although I am on a freebie freeze at the moment due to some address changes coming up, and lord knows I don't want to miss out on anything because it was sent to my old address. People often ask me how I do it. What are my "secrets"? Well today I wanted to share with you my top 5 favorite places to scope out freebies to review.

Remember not everything that you get for free is "free". There is often a little work involved when you get some of the better freebies. These things include writing reviews, promoting on social media, hosting parties, and just all around letting people know about this product. If you are cool with that then you are already one step in the right direction. These are not in any particular order. They are all great sites!

One
Crowdtap - Crowdtap is a Social Influence Marketing platform. What that means is brands ask you questions both about their products and your every day lives to gain research for marketing their products. You have 2 actions: Quickhits and Missions/Challenges. The Quickhits are short questions you can click your answer to where the Missions/Challenges are asking you to do something. All free samples and parties come out of these. I have gotten some great products to sample and review through this site. Bonus to this site is getting entered into drawings every month for gift certificates. I paid for Christmas last year on Amazon gift cards alone last year from this site.

Two
Influenster - You all know how much I love Influenster. This is a site where you can go and review, ask, and answer questions about products. You connect all of your social media accounts to give you an influence "reach". The higher your reach the more chances you get at receiving VoxBoxes. These are boxes full of full size products. You have all kinds of badges you can unlock by doing tasks. Again the more involved you are the better chance you have at getting into another campaign. Check out my VoxBox reviews here,  here and here.

Three
BzzAgent - This is such a fun site. It is survey based so you need to keep them up to date to keep your "bzzscore" high. The higher your score the better chances you have of being invited into a campaign. I have gotten lots of food items as well as beauty items from this site. I am currently in a campaign for Cashew Milk and a new Electric Razor. Lots of great stuff to be had here! Stay on top of those surveys and you will be "bzzing" in no time!

Four
House Party -  If you like to host parties and you want to try out new products, this is the site for you. I have been on the site since January of 2013 and just wrapped up my 5th party with them. There is no real science to how you get picked for a party but I feel like if you do everything you are asked to do you have a better chance. When you are chosen to be a host you receive a party pack filled with goodies for you and your guests. Things I have received in these packs to help you plan your party are: decorations, recipes, games, T-shirts, and samples.

Five
Social media - Believe it or not, social media is one of the easiest ways to get free samples. Most of the time when you request a sample this way there is no obligation to do anything once you receive it. I have a separate Facebook page dedicated to just freebies. I have "liked" hundreds of brand pages because this is where the samples come from.  Here they will announce when they are giving away stuff and how you get get it.

So there you have it guys! Get yourself set up with these sites and you will be on your way to freebie heaven! Have a great Friday!

It wouldn't be the holidays around here on The Trish List without talking about freebies. What kind of friend would I be if I didn't tell you all that there are LOADS of freebies and giveaways around the holidays. Companies new and old want you to buy with THEM and them alone. They will offer up all kinds of goodies and shiny discounts to nab your attention. Now I'm here to show you how it's done.


First thing you want to do is "like" all of your favorite brands on Facebook and "follow" them on Twitter. This will let you be the first to know when they are giving away stuff or offering amazing discounts. You aren't anyone until you have tons of social media friends. #AmIRight? This is one of the main sources for those free holiday gifts. True story. I have won many of my presents over the years.

Next thing you want to do is Google "25 Days of Christmas". Yes I know I am little late on this post, but you still have plenty of time to get in on some pretty sweet giveaways. Many companies host these types of giveaways along with Advent Calender type offers. Every day they "open" a new gift for you. The good news is, is once you are registered for these events, all you need to do is enter your email each time you enter.

The last thing I highly recommend if becoming members of a couple of sites. These sites are always looking for people to review products and will offer up some pretty cool swag. The holidays seem to be a good time to come out with a bunch of neat things. On Monday alone I received 2 boxes full of goodies to try and review, all free.

Check out Influenster. They offer up "VoxBoxes" that come with an assortment of products and have been know to send out Keurigs!

Another favorite is BzzAgent! They have been giving out lots of toys for the holidays.

And FINALLY check out Smiley360. They have some pretty cool campaigns and I have certainly been included in a lot of great studies.

So what are you all waiting for? Get out there and get some freebies!

Blogging is fun. It not only allows you to connect with amazing new people and things. it allows you to influence others. Before I started blogging I loved to review products. As you heard many times if you read my blog daily, I love freebies. I love to enter contests and giveaways and am pretty fortunate to win every once in awhile. One day while I was online writing a review for one of my favorite products, someone asked me if I was an "Influenster". I had no idea what they were talking about, because I didn't think I influenced anyone and that word up there seemed like it was spelt wrong.

A few minutes later I received an email invite to a website called Influenster. I decided to sign up and see what this "Influenster" was all about. I quickly realized it was everything I was already doing. It was a community where you could write reviews, ask and respond to questions, and earn badges for doing so. Then I noticed they took this a step farther and offered some of their members what they like to call a VoxBox. Now you are probably sitting there thinking, "A what?!"

(Source)

A VoxBox is a themed box full of goodies. You get to try out all of the products in the box and then do little missions to earn more badges. All of the products are full size and they usually all have something to do with each other. I was lucky enough to participate in the Optic White VoxBox and the Go VoxBox. The Optic White VoxBox was full of all the Optic White dental products which was a lot of fun. I love to try new hygiene products. The Go VoxBox was all about fitness. I think this was my favorite box yet. I had all kinds of healthy goodies in it to try. You can check out my review on it {{ here }} to see all the goodies they sent me!

I have been an official Influenster since January of 2012. They have changed and evolved so much in the past almost 3 years and I love it. They are always working on making this better for all of us who want to help people and companies better understand products. For all you App fanatics they also now offer an Influenster App. You can download that in the App store that corresponds with your phones operating system. 

If you like to influence people in a positive way and have fun while doing it, this is the place to be. Run on over to the Influenster website and get yourself looking around and JOIN! You won't regret it!

I am so freaking excited to write this post. If you only learn one thing about me (But I sure hope you stay to learn more than just that) it's that I am a freebie addict. I love entering contests, signing up for things, taking surveys, and anything else that will get me something at no cost. I have started a page on this blog dedicated to the sites I use to score free stuff or pretty darn close to free. Check out my Thrifty page and get earning free things now!

Okay Now back to the point of this post. August is upon us. Ask any freebie nut and they will tell you August is the month you score big time. This is mostly because Allure magazine hosts a HUGE month long giveaway. Not familiar with Allure or their amazing giveaways? No worries. I am about to explain it all to you. If you follow these tips you are sure to score some great prizes.

First a little summary of what Allure is and what the giveaways are about. Allure is a fashion/beauty magazine. They also have a website where they host giveaways and such every month. On August 1st starting at 12pm eastern time they give away something every hour until 8pm. This goes on for the WHOLE entire month. This year they are giving away 40,057 items. There are 154 different items total and they give away multiples of each. These items range anywhere from fashion to beauty. Last year I won a lot of stuff. I won a curling iron, nail polish, face cleansers, lip balm, and makeup. It really was amazing. The best part is, most of these prizes are really surprises. Most of the stuff you won't be notified of if you win, so it just starts showing up at your door sometime in October. It really is like Christmas came early! If that doesn't make you want to join than I don't know what will!

Step 1: Head on over to Allure.com and sign up.
Step 2: Click on Free Stuff <---- Or click this link.
Step 3: Click on the Free Stuff Calendar  <---- Or again click here

Okay now that you are signed up and have the calendar in front of you, I recommend printing it out. Now a word of wisdom from my own experience, this will print out 154 pages. Make sure to click your properties and print 4 pages to a page back and front to cut down on all the paper. Once you have this printed out go through and circle all of the things you REALLY would like to win. This is important, especially if you do not have time every hour to be on your computer.

The way this works is most hours it is the first so many people who will win the prize. Most of them are 500. This is why it is important to only commit to hours you really want. You need to be quick and you need to press submit on the hour exactly.

This may sound a bit crazy but if you can commit to only what you REALLY want to win, you can win these things. Write everything down you want in a place you will see it as a reminder. Make sure you are signed into Allure prior to the hour so all you have to do it hit submit. Once you hit submit you should see a thank you screen. This means your entry went through. Do this for as many hours as you have time for.

I know this sounds like a lot of work, but if you want something bad enough you will follow these steps and once October rolls around you will see something! Now get yourself all signed up. August 1st is Friday! The fun will begin and continue all month! (They don't do any on the weekends.. This is strictly a Monday-Friday event).

Have fun with it! I hope to hear some of your stories! Have any of you won before? Is this your first time? Share below!