Many free services are available on the Web, too many to cover on one page.  These services are often quite useful, especially for people who use the Internet very heavily.  Obtaining free Internet access is especially worthwhile; that alone can save you about $250 per year, while still giving you an Internet connection of reasonable quality.  If you use a paid internet service, and you rarely use their customer service line, I highly recommend switching to a free Internet service.

There are an incredible number of free offers available on the Internet.  Sometimes Web sites will offer freebies in order to rapidly increase membership.  Sometimes they want you to fill out a survey to get the freebie, so they can know their customers better and market more products to them.  In some cases the Internet is such an efficient and inexpensive channel for distribution, companies can use it to give out freebies at almost no cost.  Whatever the reason for the free gifts, they're there for taking!  This page lists some of the best "free stuff" offers we've discovered.  Surfing the Web for freebies is like a treasure hunt, there's no telling what you'll find...

A Web-based Email account is better than the Email account that an internet service provider gives you.  You can access your permanent Web-based Email from anywhere, using any Internet service.  If you ever change your Internet provider, you won't have to change your Web-based Email address.  Web-based Email is especially useful if:

• You have family members who would like an Email address of their own.
• You have an Email account through your company, and would like a private address too.
• You travel a lot, and you'd like Web-based Email that you can access on the road.

Yahoo.com gives you Email, an event calendar, address book and 15 Megabytes of file storage.  It's the "freemail" service that I always use.  Yahoo is:

• Free, it's paid for by advertisers who show you a few ad banners
• Easy to use, you can get started with Email in minutes.  If you want to learn how to use the rest of Yahoo, you can do that in about half an hour.
• Fast and reliable, unlike many other mail providers who are often jammed up.
• Spam-filtered, to sharply reduce the amount of spam you receive

	What To Do Now:   Time to complete:   3 minutes to sign up, plus time to email your new address to friends. Money you'll spend:   $0 What you'll get:   A permanent Email account with spam filters and many extra features, that you can access from anywhere. Step-by-step instructions:  Click here:   Yahoo.com.  A new window will open with this page. Follow the instructions to sign up for Yahoo email service. Send an Email to all your friends, telling them about your new Email address.  You can send one Email to all your friends at Yahoo.com: just put all their Email addresses in the text-box labeled "To:". Keep your old Email account open for at least a month.  Check it at least once per week.  Whenever you get Email in it, consider telling the sender about your new Email address. When you receive a newsletter in your old Email account, you may wish to receive it in your Yahoo.com account instead.  At the bottom of each newsletter, there should be instructions for how to do this.  With some newsletters, you may need to cancel the subscription, then sign up to receive the newsletter again at your new Email address. Further Reading: Here are some other places to get an Email account: Mail.com can customize your address, for example "you@lawyers.com", "you@doctor.com" and so forth.  If you sign up now, Mail.com will give you a $10 certificate, good at online movie store Bigstar.com. NetIdentity.com has over 12,000 ways to customize your Email address, for example "donald@trump.com".  A NetIdentity.com address costs $9.95 per year, but it does come without the advertising that supports almost all FreeMail sites. EmailAddresses.com is the Godfather of all FreeMail sites, with descriptions of almost every FreeMail site on the Internet.  It also explains free Email forwarding, fax, pager and foreign-language Email services. A fax service such as eFax.com allows you to add fax-receiving and voice-mail to any Email address.  This cuts down on the "paper chase", avoids bulky and expensive fax machines, and increases the privacy of your fax messaging. Here are some other resources for freebies: The Free Site, where you can find all kinds of useful freeware and other Internet freebies. Lucky Magazine, get a 90-day risk-free trial of this magazine with lots of freebies in each issue. Free And Low Cost Software For The PC, a top-rated book about freeware available at Amazon.com. Free Stuff For Everyone, a top-rated book showing how to get hundreds of all kinds of freebies by mail or on the Internet, available at Amazon.com.

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Everyone should have a free Internet connection, if only as a backup.  Most free Internet plans let you connect for ten hours per month before you have to start paying.  To get more free Internet time, you can sign up for multiple free accounts with different providers, or surf the web at your local library.  If you already have a for-pay account, you should at least try a free Internet account to see if it gives you good features at no cost.  These free-ISP deals give you free 56K Internet access with a national scope, so you can call in from almost anywhere.

The main drawback to switching over to a free service is that you may need to change your Email address.  You should tell all your friends about your new Email address.  Keep your old paid-service account open for a month or two, to answer Emails from people you forgot to tell about your switch.

When you switch your Internet Service Provider, you should also switch to a Web-based Email account.  You can access your Web-based Email from anywhere, using any Internet service.  If you ever change ISPs again, you won't have to change your Web-based Email address.

You can get free Internet access from NetZero (they also have inexpensive plans starting at $9.95.)  It makes sense to get free Internet access from such a well-established site; this is a company that's likely to stick around and be able to support its customers.  You'll get fast 56k connections and unlimited/unrestricted Internet access, compatible with any browser software.  Service is available to most areas of the U.S.A. and Canada.

Stuck with AOL?  Fortunately, you can wean yourself off of AOL slowly and painlessly.  Just sign up with a free internet service provider, then take advantage of AOL's service plan that charges you $9.95 per month when you connect through a non-AOL ISP.  If you must keep your AOL email address, you can tell AOL you want to cancel: then they will ask if you want to access your email by web access only.  They will charge you $2.95 per month to keep your email address.  You can then get your email from Aol Web Mail, without having to use AOL's software.

	Get Free Internet Access And Save $$$   Time to complete:   17 minutes to download (28.8k modem) 10 minutes to set up. Money you'll spend:   $0 What you'll get:   $250 per year savings, with free Internet access Notes:  The minimum age is 18. Step-by-step instructions:  Click here: NetZero Free Internet Access.  A new window will open with this page. Look for a link that offers free internet access, click it and follow the online instructions. Send email to all your friends, telling them about your new email address. Over the next month, try the free Internet service.  If it gives you the service quality you want, and you're not getting any useful email at your old email address, cancel your old Internet service. Further Reading: Lucky Magazine, get a 90-day risk-free trial of this magazine with lots of freebies in each issue. Free And Low Cost Software For The PC, a top-rated book about freeware available at Amazon.com. Free Stuff For Everyone, a top-rated book showing how to get hundreds of all kinds of freebies by mail or on the Internet, available at Amazon.com.

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Download.com has tons of free software.  Some of them you pay nothing for, others are "free to try" trial versions.  The trial versions come in two kinds:  either the software can only be used for a limited time, or it has some features that can only be used after you buy it.  There are a great many titles for both Windows and Mac computers.

	Get Free Software   Time to complete:   Varies,programs can take minutes to hours to download, using a dial-up modem. Money you'll spend:   $0 What you'll get:   Free quality software worth hundreds of dollars Step-by-step instructions:  Click here:  Download.com.  A new window will open with this page. On the next page, find the link that says "Advanced Search".  It's near the search box, but it's very small and hard to see.  Click on that link. On the Advanced Search page, you can click on the box labeled "License" to specify that you want free softwar. Further Reading: PC World has a list of the 94 best free software programs.  To find more such lists, search Google for "best free software". Lucky Magazine, get a 90-day risk-free trial of this magazine with lots of freebies in each issue. Free And Low Cost Software For The PC, a top-rated book about freeware available at Amazon.com.

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10Money.com doesn't keep watch over the free offers that come and go, but other sites do.  You can visit them periodically, and/or subscribe to their newsletters to see what's available.  Freebies.About.com serves up reviews of the latest and hottest freebies on the Web.  Another great family-friendly freebies site is FreeBitz (a sister site of DealOfDay.com and WorldVillage.)  FreeBitz offers a voting option, so members like you can decide what the best freebies are.  A first-class site!

	Surf Free-Stuff Sites, And Get Their Newsletters   Time to complete:   A few minutes Money you'll spend:   $0 What you'll get:   "Free Stuff" newsletters with various offers. Step-by-step instructions:  Click:  Freebies.About.com and/or FreeBitz.com newsletter. On the next page, type in your Email address and perhaps a few other bits of information to sign up for their newsletter.  Then surf their sites and see what's avaiable. Further Reading: The Free Site, a good place to look for all kinds of free stuff. Lucky Magazine, get a 90-day risk-free trial of this magazine with lots of freebies in each issue. Free Stuff For Everyone, a top-rated book showing how to get hundreds of all kinds of freebies by mail or on the Internet, available at Amazon.com.

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Banks and governments lose track of account owners, due to post office mistakes, misspelled names, business and banks that go bankrupt, unplanned changes of address, marriage breakup, unexpected job relocation, and relatives dying without a will.  The government holds on to the money virtually forever, or until it is claimed.

America has a total of more than $10 billion in unclaimed money.  That averages out to $150 for a typical family of four.

MissingMoney.com is a free, easy-to-use site that discovers whether there is some unclaimed money for you.  Here are some tips to keep in mind when searching for lost money:

• Another way to find lost accounts is to get a free credit report, which might show an account or deposit that you've forgotten about.
  
  
• If you have a common name (e.g. "John Smith"), you may find that the money really belongs to someone else with the same name.
  
  
• To find out how common your name is, type your first and last name in the boxes below (ignore the city and state boxes) and select your country.  Then click the Search button.  A new window will open that tells you how many adult "name clones" you have running around.  If you see "Results 1-10 of 151", you know you have at least 151 clones in America.
  
  Infospace: Look Up A Phone Number Or Address
  (This directory includes businesses, fax numbers and toll-free numbers.)
  

  First Name: Last Name: City: State: Choose a State Alabama Alaska Arizona Arkansas California Colorado Connecticut Delaware D.C. Florida Georgia Hawaii Idaho Illinois Indiana Iowa Kansas Kentucky Louisiana Maine Maryland Massachusetts Michigan Minnesota Mississippi Missouri Montana Nebraska Nevada New Hampshire New Jersey New Mexico New York North Carolina North Dakota Ohio Oklahoma Oregon Pennsylvania Rhode Island South Carolina South Dakota Tennessee Texas Utah Vermont Virginia Washington West Virginia Wisconsin Wyoming Country: United States Austria Belgium Germany Italy Luxembourg Netherlands United Kingdom Search Region/Metro Area

Note:  Women are under-represented in these searches, because they will often list only their first initial, or they're living at a male-owned residence.  So ladies, if the search reveals 100 name clones, you really have about 165.

	Claim Your Long-Lost Property   Time to complete:   1 to 5 minutes per name you search, depending on how common your name is. Money you'll spend:   $0 to search What you'll get:   Maybe nothing, maybe thousands of dollars.  Most finds are a few hundred dollars. Step-by-step instructions:  Click here: MissingMoney.com.  A new window will open with this page. When you search, type in your last name and first name.  If you have a common name, type in your middle initial too.  However, remember that if you type the middle initial (example: "John R Smith") you may not see records that omit a middle initial (e.g. "John Smith".) If you see your name listed, that means that you (or someone else with the same name) have unclaimed money waiting for you. Remember to search for friends and relatives, maiden names, and business names that you may own.  If you have an uncommon last name, try searching for that last name only. Further Reading:  The Dollar Stretcher site has created a page to help you search for unclaimed property.  I also like the Unclaimed Property: Free Found Money page. Personal Finance Magazines, 90-day risk-free trials available for most magazines. How To Claim Your Money, a top-rated book showing how to find and claim money from your lost and forgotten accounts, available at Amazon.com.

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Some financial companies are so eager to get you to sign up for an account with them, they'll pay you to do it.  In some cases you will need to fund the account with $500 or more, and you might be required to keep some money there for a few months.  Here's how to sign up for some free bonus money:

	Sign Up With A Financial Company, Get Bonus Money   Time to complete:   15 minutes Money you'll spend:   $0 What you'll get:   $50 to $250 per sign-up Step-by-step instructions:  Tucson Kid's Money Bulletin Board is a site that tells you how to sign up for free money at various financial sites.  Some are brokerages, some are credit card companies, others are "reward programs" such as CyberGold.  A site run by someone named "The Tucson Kid" might not sound very reliable, but he's been doing it since about 1999 and he's good. Continue to explore the site and follow the online instructions to open an account and gain the bonus.  It takes some digging to find the best bonus deals:  there's not as many good deals as there were at the top of the Internet boom. Further Reading: Business and Finance Magazines, 90-day risk-free trials available The Only Investment Guide You'll Ever Need, a top-rated book containing basic investing lessons, available at Amazon.com. Online Investing, a top-rated book about online investing at Amazon.com.

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