Birthday Treats in My InBox

Birthdays are always fun, especially if you have signed up to get newsletters and special deals from various restaurants you frequent.

I have a birthday coming up next week, and already the special deals are starting to arrive by e-mail.

So far I really like the one from Perkins that offers me a fabulous breakfast of two eggs, any way I like them, a stack of  three pancakes, and my choice of two strips of bacon or two sausage. The best part is that it says to come in anytime, and it doesn't seem to require an additional  purchase of any kind.  I'll be going for this deal for sure.

East Side Mario's sent along a coupon worth $10 off if the bill comes to $30.  Since we usually choose from the $12 pasta dishes, with the all you can eat bread and salad, I'm pretty sure, even with a beverage, that we would be a few cents short to take advantage of that offer. But it might be a good opportunity to try something different without the bill actually adding up to more.


Buds on the Bay, a restaurant in Brockville that is not part of a chain, offers me a free entree, up to $19.99 in value, and will even supply the cake.  I am, however, required to make a reservation and bring three friends with me in order to take advantage of that.

Montana's, on the other hand, offers me a free dessert, as long as I get it within the week before or after my birthday.  It doesn't actually say I need to buy anything else, but I do like their food, and have not been there recently.

Boston Pizza used to treat me to a gourmet pasta each year, but now they just offer free dessert. That's rather disappointing as I never missed a chance to pig out and save $16 in the process.

Swiss Chalet also offers me a free dessert.  I could gain weight just collecting on all the sweets, but I'll likely just choose one or two of the offers over the next couple of weeks.

Kelsey's gets a little more specific and offers me a Brownie Pop.  I think I'll pass.

No birthday would be complete without ice cream, so Dairy Queen has sent a buy one get one free offer for a Blizzard as long as the one you buy is a medium.  My favorites are Chocolate Cherry Love and Salted Carmel Truffle, or perhaps I'll try the new Royal Rocky Road Brownie Blizzard.  I do intend to collect on this freebie.  Dairy Queen actually sends me a few such BoGo deals throughout the year, just for agreeing to receive their e-mails.

That's just today's offers, so there may be more to come.  If you know of any other good birthday deals that I might be missing out on, I'd love to hear about them.

One year I had a very special birthday offer from Lone Star, and really enjoyed it.  I have not seen anything since, however. I just looked at the site, and found that if you sign up to be a "Lone Star VIP" now they will give you $10 in Texas Bucks for your next visit.  This year they seem more interested in celebrating their own 30th birthday, or anniversary, than helping me celebrate mine.  There are deals to be had, but you have to go during the week, and I like to eat out on weekends.

So, if you have never signed up for any of the available deals that can come your way, not just on your birthday, but sometimes throughout the year, I'm wondering what's stopping you.  Some people tell me they don't like all that "junk mail".  My answer to that is to create a junk mail account someplace like Yahoo, Hotmail, G-mail or Mail.com.  Then you can enter contests, ask for newsletters, and sign up for your birthday deals, and other specials, or coupons, without ever having any of that stuff land in your personal e-mail box.  You can just go look for the bargains when you feel like it.

I'll not only be older next time I talk to you, I'll likely weigh more, but hey, birthdays only come around once a year, and at my age, they are definitely meant to be celebrated.

Free Stuff is No Bother

Some days, going to the post office is really worth the walk.  Today I got three pieces of mail with free things in them.  One was a box from Proctor & Gamble.  They send out boxes full of samples at least a couple of times a year. A lady at the post office noticed my parcel and said, "Oh, P&G" and I immediately asked if she get this too.  Her answer was, "I can't be bothered with that." 

That box had samples of Pantene shampoo and conditioner, Bounty paper towels, Tide Pods, Dawn Ultra Concentrated dish detergent and what looks to me like a full size Febreze room freshener.  It's good for 30 days anyway, and came in a lovely Mediterranean Lavender scent.

There were other things available too, but Proctor and Gamble lets you choose the things that would be useful to you. It would be no good, for instance, if I were sent something for a dishwasher, since I don't have one.

The Garnier Intensive 7 Days Body lotion was sent as a consolation as everyone who had entered a contest on Facebook was sent an e-mail to tell us we had won a full bottle, 2 full weeks before the contest was even over.  I still have a chance of winning that, as they sent the samples and a coupon for a dollar off as soon as they realized the here had been an error. 

And yes, you do see a $50 Bon Appetit gift card.   I won $25 worth of credit at Card Swap through a blog I read, and the rest of the money spent to buy this card arrived in my Pay Pal account from having done some surveys.  Card Swap has all kinds of cards available and I picked this one as my hubby is often trying to feed me, so I figured it was my turn and he won't object if it's done card I didn't actually spend my own money on.  Bon Appetit is good for all our favorites....Montana's, Swiss Chalet, Kelsey's, Harvey's, and somewhere else I'm not acquainted with. 

The very notion of someone not wanting to be bothered, when it comes to free stuff, just boggles my mind!

Sept 22 
Correction:  Apparently that little Garnier sample was something I sent for myself, on Sept. 5, not what they are sending because of the contest error. For that I will get a coupon for a free full sized bottle of Intensive 7 Days Body Lotion. I tried my sample this morning and I already know I will enjoy the full sized bottle.

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas everybody!

While the rest of you are celebrating this fine Christmas morning, I'm actually relaxing and enjoying a peaceful weekend. My Christmas has been postponed for two weeks this year.  That's the soonest I can gather my entire family under one roof, so I'm quite willing to wait. 

Actually, once all the rest of you get to relax, I will probably start running around like a chicken with my head cut off.  While I do have my tree up, most of my gifts aren't even wrapped yet. In fact, I just bought some needed wrapping paper yesterday. We took my oldest on out for lunch at Swiss Chalet, just so he would feel like some special event happened at Christmas. He's being so gracious about the delay, it only seemed fair.

I also finally picked up a turkey yesterday, since I saw a nice sized one at a very good price. We won't be eating that today.  We'll have a special treat of Cornish hen though, and we have some other goodies to make things a bit festivel. 

So, next week, while all of you are basking in the after Christmas glow, I'll still be wrapping, and baking and making my meat pies and getting ready.

Christmas isn't a date on the calendar, it's more of a state of mind and a feeling in your heart.  May yours be everything you wanted it to be.