Everyone has seen those ads all over the Internet. "Click here for your free laptop". Can you really get a free laptop, Ipod, or XBox360 on the Internet? Absolutely not! What you can get is a variety of promotional items that companies give away every day in order to promote their company or products. These generally include health & hygiene items, household or beauty products, magazine subscriptions and the occasional hat, t-shirt, or coffee mug.

Hundreds (maybe thousands) of websites have popped up promising the visitor a chance to get free stuff on the Internet. Most of them rely on unsuspecting website visitors to sign up for services they don't need, take surveys, and buy things they don't want. Then they may (I emphasize "may") receive a "free" item that is not worth the price that they paid.

However, after weeding through all of the scams found on this experiment in free speech and entrepreneurial opportunity we call the Internet, you can find some sites that offer totally free stuff and other lower budget items that you can really get for free. I have been ordering free stuff over the Internet for a long time and I have received so much free stuff that my husband jokes that we will need to build a new room on the house to hold all of my free stuff. Once you have found the right websites to get truly free stuff, here are some things you should remember to make the freebie experience a less stressful one.

• Make sure you have good anti-virus and spy-ware software installed on your computer. This is a good suggestion anytime you are on the Internet, but whenever you do something that requires entering your personal information, it is a must.
• Get a separate email address. Much of the free stuff you will be ordering requires that you sign up for email newsletters. Using a separate email address keeps spam out of your primary email inbox. All of the newsletters you sign up for will have an unsubscribe link at the bottom if you want to stop it from coming, but don't delete them mindlessly. I have gotten many newsletters that had good information that I wanted to keep getting. Healthy living tips and recipes is a good example of some of the helpful stuff you may find in these newsletters.
• Download and install the Google toolbar. It has an auto-fill feature that will allow you to fill out most forms with a single click. A great time saver when you are filling out a dozen or more forms.
• Don't give out your phone number. Getting phone calls from solicitors while you are trying to eat dinner is too high of a price to pay for getting free stuff. Check and see if the phone number field on the form you are filling out is required. If it is not, leave it blank. If it is, either lie, or move on to the next free item. There are tons of them out there.
• Do not take your bank or credit card out of your wallet. If an offer you are responding to requires your credit card number, IT IS NOT FREE! This is probably the most important tip. There is too much stuff available out there that is really free. Don't pay for stuff.

• Get a larger mailbox and empty out some cabinets to hold all of the free stuff you will be getting.

Free Stuff headquarters is my favorite site for ordering free samples. When you find the freebie sites you like, stick with them, sign up for their email updates, and check the site regularly for new items. Many of them go fast and you have to sign up for them quickly. Companies love to give out free samples and promotional items and I love getting them. Just use your common sense and have fun with it.