Top 10 Things You Can Get for Free or Cheap

Everyone likes saving money, and while sometimes you "get what you pay for", there are a few great things that you can snag for free with just a little ingenuity. Here are our ten favorite expensive things you can get out of paying for. 10. Cellphone Minutes With all the smartphone-compatible VOIP setups out there these days, you don't need to be paying extra money for unlimited cellphone minutes. Just grab a VOIP solution likeFring on most smartphones,Talkatone with Google Voice on the iPhone, Google Voice and SIPGate (also available on Android), or just plain Gmail on your computer, which is free through 2011. With a setup like one of these, you can start using the lowest minutes plan (or in some cases, ditch it altogether) and make your calls over 3G or Wi-Fi. 9. Paywalled Web Sites Paywalled web sites have been around for awhile, but they're starting to become more prevalent. If you don't have the cash to shell out for a premium Wall Street Journal or New York Times membership, you can get around the paywalls pretty easily with just a Google hack,a service like Instapaper, orother handy methods designed for a particular site. Note that unlike most of the other things on this list, this is bucking the system in a pretty big way, and from an industry that (unlike, say, the cellphone industry) is struggling pretty hard. If you're a heavy reader, we'd kindly recommend you pay for the services—after all, we're writers too—but for those of you that just need access to a few paywalled articles here and there, we understand the desire to avoid a full-on subscription. Handle with care. 8. Speeding Tickets Getting pulled over by the police isn't fun, and getting a $100 ticket on top of that is even more annoying. We've gone through quite a few ways to get out of a speeding ticket, and while it isn't foolproof, you can probably get some of those tickets thrown out. Not every trick is perfect, either, so you'll have to try them out and see what works for you. Of course, if you're getting more than the occasional speeding ticket, we'd suggest you just drive slower, but for the occasional honest (or not so honest) mistake, this can help you squeeze your way out of it. 7. Education You won't be able to get a college degree from it, but if you're just looking to expand your knowledge, you don't have to pay an arm and a leg for extra college classes. There are a lot of places you can get a free education online, whether you just want to brush up on a few things or take a year-long course on a subject you've always been curious about. Some of them you can get for free on-the-go, like iTunes U or previously mentionedKhanApp. Photo remixed from originals by marcopakoand J-a-x. If you actually need a degree from your education (or you're already in college), you can still save some serious dough by getting your textbooks for free or cheap. 6. Online Storage One of the best ways to sync or back up your files is by uploading them to the cloud. While you'll have to shell out if you're looking for a huge amount of space, there are plenty of ways you can get past the meager 2 GB offerings without paying a dime. Dropbox is especially good about offering a lot of free upgrades through referrals and other promotions, and Amazon's Cloud Drive will upgrade you to 20 GB with the purchase of one MP3 album—some of which you can find for less than a dollar. If you need even more space, you can combine online storage solutions for a large, free, and organized backup system. 5. Student Discounts Even if you aren't in school anymore, you can still get discounts on tons of things with your old student ID, a .edu email address, or other sinister methods. For example, you cansnag a free year of Amazon Prime with just a .edu email address, or grab Windows and other premium software for free (or with really heavy discounts). If you're in school (or have a friend in school), you can get even better deals at your university's computer store, whether it be for a new computer, iPod, or just an "academic" copy of expensive software. 4. Wi-Fi Wi-Fi seems to be everywhere you go these days, but it isn't all free. If you need free access to the internet on-the-go, there are a lot of ways to find it. You can grab it from a lot of popular chains like Starbucks orMcDonald's, or even a few other unexpected businesses, like laundromats. If you're traveling, be sure to check out the best and worst hotels for Wi-Fi, and learn how to get cheap or free Wi-Fi when you're flying. If Wi-Fi is a bit less ubiquitous, be sure to check out ourdefinitive guide to finding free Wi-Fi. And wherever you go, make sure you're staying safe on those public networks. Photo by °Florian. 3. Movies If you're a movie buff, you can catch quite a few movies in the theater for free just by searching around. Lots of movies havefree, advance screenings to build buzz, and other theaters have show free kids' movies during the summer for a weekend family outing. If you like classic movies, you can find a lot of them for free online, at places like Hulu, previously mentioned Classic Cinema Online, or even YouTube. 2. Smartphones and Other Gadgets If you have a smartphone, there's no reason to pay hundreds of dollars every year or two to get a new one. In fact, with a little strategy, you canupgrade to the newest iteration of your smartphone each year for free. All you need to do is take good care of your phone and know where and when to sell it for optimal cash back, which you can then use to buy the newest model. In fact, this strategy works with most gadgets, too—so there's never any reason to keep plopping down money for the newest gear. 1. Anything Else If there's something we haven't mentioned on this list that you feel you're paying too much for, you can always try and get discounts with a bit of haggling. We here at Lifehacker have learned that, no matter who you're dealing with, it never hurts to ask if there are ways you can save a little money. You might not be able to get everything forfree, per se, but you can save quite a bit of money on anything from cable bills to gas to blank DVDs if you just look a little harder. Photo by Daniel Borman. There are a lot of things you can grab for free on the net, too numerous to mention here. If you aren't picky about your choices, you can grab tons of eBooks for free,discover new music, and get extended free trials to services like Hulu Plus orGrooveshark Plus just by looking around. And, of course, we offer money-saving tips every day here on Lifehacker. Got any of your own favorite freebies of heavily discounted items we didn't mention (or any other ways to grab items we did mention? Share them with us in the comments.