Who wants free stuff?

Is it just me, or are restaurants and retailers working harder to honour their customers?

Back in the day (meaning, before I had kids), you'd be thrilled to get a free dessert at the restaurant where you celebrated your birthday, even if that meant wearing moose antlers and being chanted at by the wait staff.

Now you can get a free coffee on your birthday (from Starbucks), free makeup (from Sephora) and even 25% off clothing purchases (from RW & Co.). You've probably heard about a few of these offers in-store or from your friends. But how great would it be to know about all the offers available across Canada, and pick and choose the ones you want to sign up for?

Thanks to our fabulous (and eagle-eyed) assistant editor, Kate Stewart, you can! She brought the e-book Free Stuff on Your Birthday to our attention this week. Download it for free or, if you don't have Adobe Reader on your computer, you can ask the authors, who also maintain the supermarket-savings site GroceryAlerts.ca, to email the book to you.

In most cases, getting the birthday deal requires you to sign up for the retailer or restaurant's loyalty program which, in turn, means that you will get email updates and newsletters from them all year long, but that isn't necessarily a bad thing, as I discussed last week.

What do you think? Are birthday freebies and deals a worthwhile perk, or would you even bother?

Photo by Ed Yourdan via Flickr.