My Birthday Journey

I recently celebrated my 41st birthday. 

My friend Shannon always creates a lovely graphic for my birthday in honor of our friendship and my strange interests (pooping and making fun of Chad Michael Murray’s hair are definitely top on my list). 

Each year I embark on a January journey to redeem all of my free birthday perks. This is the highlight of my year and when it is over, nothing else quite holds a candle to it. I keep a schedule on my phone of what I get for my birthday and the expiration dates so I can plan accordingly. Here’s how this year went:

I began with $15 at Moochie’s which I cashed in for a 6” Philly cheesesteak sandwich, fries, and Dr. Pepper. Moochies birthday reward is top notch!

Cafe Rio does $5, which isn’t enough to get a full meal for free, but I’ll take it!

In a strange twist of fate, the Cafe Rio app showed me TWO birthday rewards. I used one and figured they would both clear out afterward, but they didn’t! So a few days later I went back and used the second one!

(I timed it with tostada Wednesday of course!)

Target offers 5% off your purchase, so I saved a whopping $1.50 on this snake plant. 

(In your 40’s you are obligated to own a snake plant).

Chick-Fil-A does a free menu item, and you can even get the deluxe sandwiches. I got the regular grilled chicken sandwich because I don’t care for the deluxe (cheese) version, but if I’d had a hankering for cheese and bacon, Chick-Fil-A would have hooked me up.

Bath and Body Works does a free item up to $9.95 for your birthday, but you have to buy something. They were having their annual after Christmas sale, so I spent $4.95 on a body scrub and got a small lotion for free. Everything about B&BW is gimmicky, but I get a lot of free stuff there. 

Ulta offers your pick from about six different items for your birthday. I chose whatever this is… I’m sure it will solve all my life’s problems!

Maverik gives a free pastry. I opted for a raspberry turnover. 

McDonald’s has a list of free items you can pick from. I got a McChicken, which recently returned to the Utah menu. Now can someone convince them to bring back root beer? It makes no sense that we have orange hi-c and orange Fanta but NO root beer.

Krispy Kreme does three glazed donuts, so Eva, Zoe, and I enjoyed a Friday morning treat.

(They used to do a full dozen, so my oh my, how times have changed!)

I figured I should share the love, so I used my birthday freebies to take each of my kids on a lil one-on-one date (except for Nicky because he’s never around). 

I took Eva to Menchie’s where I had a $5 credit.

Zoe is my popcorn junkie, so I took her to Megaplex for a free medium popcorn (we didn’t see a movie, so she thought that was weird to go get popcorn and leave).

Daisy loves burgers, so I took her to The Habit for my free charburger.

She also got my free dessert from Arby’s (she chose an apple turnover).

I forgot to get a picture of my free bundtlet from Nothing Bundt Cakes before I wolfed it down in my car (chocolate chocolate chip for this round).

I missed my Subway cookie and Zupa’s dessert before they expired (so sad about these! But I always mess up somewhere!)

And Jimmy John’s never paid up with my free sandwich. I’m ticked. 

My final birthday perk will be my BOGO meal at Tucanos, but I’m saving that one for the end of the month. 

It’s been a lovely and rewarding experience. Can’t wait to do it again next year!