The good, the bad, and the FREE

If I can get something for free, I'll buy it. Even if it's a product I've never heard of. This can be great because I can discover an awesome new product that I must buy again in the future! Here's an example. 

I'm in love with Colgate Optic White toothpaste. I bought a few tubes of it when I had some coupons in early September or October. I think I got maybe 6 tubes for $1.00 total, if that. (I could go back and read earlier posts, but I'm lazy, so I'll have to take a guess.)

It doesn't have the greatest taste in the world, but it WORKS! My teeth are becoming noticeably whiter. I even like it more than the Crest 3D Advanced Vivid that I swore by. I never would've tried this product if not for coupons, so for that, I thank them!

But not all freebies are created equal. For example:

I actually made money on this at Rite Aid--so technically, this is a product that was free PLUS $2 profit. My husband, Chad, uses nasal spray frequently for his stuffy nose. He usually uses Afrin, but I bought him this Sinus Buster spray since it was free. 

Unfortunately, I was not awake when he tried it so I wasn't able to witness the horrors that he swears occurred after use. He said it felt like he was shooting pepper spray up his nose! His nose was on fire and his eyes were watering like crazy. He actually had to put water up his nose to see if he could get it to stop burning. Apparently the burning let up enough for him to go to bed a couple of hours later--but not before he left me a scathing note to read the next morning. He wrote to NEVER buy that stuff ever again and told me he'd squirted pepper spray up his nose thanks to my "stupid couponing." Pssh.

In his defense, Sinus Buster DOES have one of the ingredients of pepper spray. So maybe he wasn't totally exaggerating. (Disclaimer: I looked at Sinus Buster reviews on Amazon. Some people love it! Others had the same reaction as Chad. Maybe it works better for different people.)

You're always taking a gamble when trying a new product. Sometimes you get lucky and you find something awesome! Often the product is just meh.. okay, but you probably wouldn't go out of your way to buy it again. Seldom the new product causes negative side effects. Like a fiery inferno up your nose.