My Year of Free Food
One man's quest to eat as much free sh*t as possible
Some shelter doggies to start us off….
🐶 🦴 🐾 🐶 🦴 🐾 🐶 🦴 🐾 🐶 🦴 🐾
Our friend Sheila Moeschen had a great idea after reading last week’s post. What do you think, are there any nicknames that should never be used again?
My Year of Free Food:
One man’s quest to eat as much free sh*t as possible
My one year anniversary publishing on Substack came and went last month with nary a high-five or virtual pat on the butt from any of you heathens. Even so, I’m going to share a hack with you that is life changing.
And yes, I just used the word hack, as in a simple, clever shortcut. But before you throw-up in your mouth reading the word hack (like I do), bear with me a second. Seriously though, is anyone else tired of all this incessant hacking talk? The only thing worse is biohacking. Every single biohacking bit comes down to three things:
Sleep well.
Eat real food.
Move every day.
But I digress. My hack is unlike any other hack you’ve read about. It’s free, it’s easy, and it is guaranteed to make you happy.
Are you ready? Here you go:
You have food/restaurant apps on your phone right?
Open your Chipotle app. If you don’t have the Chipotle app I can surmise one of two possibilities:
You are over 70 years of age.
or
You don’t like Mexican food.
One of those two answers means we probably won’t be hanging out anytime soon. I’ll let you ponder which is which.
Now, go into your account settings and find your birthdate. Change the month.
Do this in the rest of your restaurant apps, or anytime you add a new one. Picking a different month for each app.
Voila.
Free food every flippin’ month of the year.
I came upon this revolutionary technique several years ago when I got to the end of my birthday month and realized I hadn’t used a bunch of the free food email offers that I’d be sent. It was a damn shame letting those free chips, cups of coffee, donuts, hot dogs, and slices of pizza go to waste.
My one year Substack anniversary also coincides with the one year anniversary of me keeping track of all of my free food. I started at this time last year in hopes of sharing my findings for a piece with Maxim magazine. Alas, the Google-machine was the bearer of bad news (does it ever bring good news?) as I found out that Maxim magazine doesn’t exist anymore.
So, you people will have to do. But before we get started, one last thing…I realized in preparing to write this piece that I didn’t do as good of a job collecting these freebies as I thought. So, I went back through my old emails and searched using the word “birthday.”
And let me tell you, I really enjoy reading a lot of Substack author’s posts. But holy cow do those people like writing about their birthdays.
A lot.
Anyways, here is the list I was able to come up with. I will try to do better next year….
I am down with free wings, but unfortunately I have not dined in a Buffalo Wild Wings where the service wasn’t shite1 since pre-Covid.
Oh yeah, Chipotle all day baby. Although, I’d much rather have free chips. Their guac is kinda…..
For those of you who don’t currently have a teenager making a mess of their home, 6-7 basically translates in GenX terms to….
Or, you can also use 6-7 for any other stupid reason. Because the youth of our nation are mostly uncreative cyborgs devoid of all uniqueness. Don’t believe me? Check out the next 15-year old-boy’s hair that you see.
🦒 💀 🦒 🦒 💀 🦒 🦒 💀 🦒 🦒 💀 🦒
The graphic in this email is so big because the gift is so shitty. It’s free dessert2. And the only dessert at Naf Naf Grill is baklava. Don’t get me wrong, I’m down with shawarma and such. But baklava? I think I’d sooner eat scrapple3.
Five star reward right here from Nothing Bundt Cakes. This is the pièce de résistance in this entire article. These bundt cakes are like crack.
And its a Bundledt, not a Buntini…so they are not cheaping out. I got mine in October, months away from my actual birthday. Which is perfect, because typically I get all sweeted out by the time my birthday comes around4.
🧁 🧁 🧁 🧁 🧁 🧁 🧁 🧁 🧁 🧁 🧁 🧁
This was a little bit of a bait and switch by Portillo’s. The email screams HOT DOG, but the gift is actually a slice of cake. But whatever, free cake is free cake.
Have you ever had dirt cake? Yeah, that’s better than this cake. This is more like ass cake.
Next is a solid entry from Qdoba:
No notes on that one.
Here’s our local butcher….
We used to frequent Robert’s when we lived in another town. However, we will still drive the 30 minutes one way to get meat from there when we are going to grill.
Not only are the meats outstanding, Robert is a good dude too. So stop by if you’re ever in Waukesha, Wisconsin.
I feel like butcher shops are dying out…do you still have one?
🍔 🥓 🥩 🍔 🥓 🥩 🍔 🥓 🥩 🍔 🥓 🥩
I’m honestly shocked that a corporate giant like Starbucks actully does this, as they don’t really need to. Some of you are so addicted to Starbies I think you’d sooner spend money there than to clothe the baby Jesus.
And also, where you at Dunkin Donuts? No love for the bdays huh? Shoulda figured. Goddamn greedy Bostonians. No wonder Boston College and UMass are a combined 1-23 this year.
.🏈 ☕️ 🏈 .🏈 ☕️ 🏈 .🏈 ☕️ 🏈 .🏈 ☕️ 🏈
I’m only including this last one from Travis Mathew as a warning sign to you men out there. Because your wife is probably signed up for a ton of these from all types of stores.
These are not deals. They are invitations to spend more money. How often has your wife come home with four full bags of new clothing and told you, “OMG, you can’t believe how much money I saved!”
These emails are a trap. Delete them immediately.
Happy Thanksgiving.
🦃
Happy Black Friday.
⚫️
Happy Birfday…
Not a typo. Shite is fun to say. Try it.
I’m not really a dessert guy.
Check out this week’s SilentPunt podcast for a deep dive on Scrapple.
Yes, this is me talking about my birthday. Feel free to call me a hypocrite. I’ve got a teenager, I’m used to it.
This is GENIUS. Also: Chipotle forever!!!
I'm pretty sure I told you happy one year on substack...and I doubt I was the only one, but you're just baiting us, right? LOL