If you happened to catch the Today Show this morning you may have caught Dannielle Kyrillos of DailyCandy.com talking about various Internet sites where you can get free stuff. Now there are a million sites where they say you can get free stuff, but there's usually a catch, like having to spend $50 to get the free thing, so this segment was trying to ferret out the stuff that is truly free. It was a hit-or-miss segment in my opinion, but there were a couple of sites that I think you should check out.

My favorite is Freecycle.org (which was down when I tried to go to it, probably because of the traffic generated by the Today mention). The concept is super simple: if you don't want something, someone else might, and it's better to give it away then to trash it and have it end up in a landfill. People on the site list their stuff that they're willing to give away and other people claim it and make arrangements to get it. You can be both giver and receiver on the site, giving away old furniture, claiming someone's dusty exercise equipment, whatever. Excellent idea both for the free angle and the environmental angle. (Keep trying; I'm sure the site will come back after the traffic wave subsides.)

The other suggestion that I thought was OK was TheFreeSite.com's product sample page, where a bunch of free sample offers are brought together in one place, so you don't have to hunt around to get free product samples at all the individual Web sites. Free samples are often hit-or-miss, but today there were sample offers for L'Oreal Skin Genesis, Dove Pro-age, Revlon ColorStay makeup, and, of course, Astroglide personal lubricant.

A few other suggestions from the article that accompanied the TV segment include home or apartment swap Web sites that allow you to use someone else's pad for free lodging in a different city, and sites that allow you to give away books or movies you don't want anymore and get somebody else's castoff books and movies in return.

Know of any other good Web sites that offer freebies? Feel free to list them in the comments, but try not to get too spammy about it please.

(Photo credit: Free Stamp by Claes Oldenburg, as seen in downtown Cleveland, Ohio. Photo taken by zoonabar.)