If you’ve been following my Twitter antics this week you may have noticed it’s my little sister’s 21st birthday. She traveled from her slightly inferior Los Angeles to the great New York to get her first [legal] beverage and celebrate her 21 years of making me share the limelight.
(See! She clearly doesn’t care about stealing all the only-child attention away from me.)
Entertaining guests always throws me into a bit of a financial frenzy, but add in bankrolling a 21st birthday celebration and I started to have nightly cold sweats. Luckily NYC offers some great shows, events and tours for cheap or free (I’ve even written about them). I also realized, if we combined my frugal knowledge with birthday deals, we could take the Big Apple by storm.
We kicked off the birthday week with rush tickets to a Broadway show and now I need to go rest up before the mandatory 21st birthday bar crawl begins. I leave you with some of my friends, readers and personal favorite birthday deals!
AMC – Apparently it used to be a free movie for AMC Stubs members, but now you can just get jacked up on sugar with a free jumbo drink
Anthropologie – 15% off for loyalty members.
AuntieAnne’s Pretzels – Sign up for Pretzel Perks and get a BOGO offer on your birthday. Someone best be paying for the first one so you get the free one!
Argo Tea – LoyalTea (word play!) members get a free drink during their birthday month. You can upgrade to a medium for 50 cents and a large for a $1.
Au Bon Pain – Free sandwich or salad for eclub members.
Baskin Robbins – Free ice cream on your birthday and a special discount on a birthday cake.
Benihana – Both Debt Blag and Erin (#2) from Red Debted StepChild mentioned the $30 birthday gift certificate for Chef’s Table members.
Caribou Coffee – Free medium coffee by joining Caribou Coffee’s rewards and discounts program.
Chevys – I hadn’t heard of Chevys, but Michelle over at Making Sense of Cents got a free birthday dinner by joining the Compadres Club.
DSW – DSW sends a $5 coupon to rewards members (although I didn’t get mine this year…).
Firehouse Sub– Free sub on your birthday, just show ID (What do they do for small children? Birth certificates?)
Godiva – Godiva Rewards members get a birthday offer and a free piece of chocolate every month.
Haru Sushi (NYC) – $20 birthday certificate during your birthday month for Access program members.
Moe’s – Join Moe’s E-World and pig out on a free burrito on the day of your birth.
Panera – My Panera members receive a birthday surprise (often a sweet or pastry).
Red Robbin – Free burger on your birthday if you join Red Robin news. David from My 2 Cent Opinion signed up for the deal while in the booth at Red Robbin. Well played, sir. Well played.
Sprinkles – Join the Sprinkles Birthday Club for a free cupcake. Thanks to Cynthia from kinda silly mommy, for calling this one out.
Starbucks – Free drink for My Starbucks Rewards members.
Sephora – Club Sephora members receive free “Real Birthday Turn-Ons” in the form of some sample makeup.
Victoria’s Secret – $10 gift card for Angel Card members.
What are your favorite birthday discounts and freebies?
Great list, for firehouse they didn’t even ask me for my ID when I gave it a try. So the kiddos probably get it on the honor system.
Thanks for this list! I just signed up for a bunch of those as my birthday is July 21st and I want to take advantage! Whoohoo to free stuff on the birthday.
Girl you need to go to Chevys when you go to a city that has it. DELICIOUS!
Good news, there’s a Chevy’s in Times Square. And they have $5.99 happy hour (margaritas) until 8pm and free chips and salsa. I work in Times Square so I happened to have been there Thurs, and I agree with Michelle-delicious!
Great list! I wrote a similar post about birthday freebies. I get a $15 birthday gift from The Limited but I failed to use it in time this year. I did take advantage of a free dessert offer from The Bent Fork, a restaurant here that sent me the offer once I joined their email list. There’s actually a HUGE list of retailer and restaurant birthday freebies here, if you’re interested! http://www.mrfreestuff.com/birthday-freebies/ Happy B-Day to your sister and I hope you guys live it up on the cheap in NYC!
Awesome list Erin, thanks!
Thanks for the list! I love getting free food on my birthday.
Great list! I love getting the Starbucks free drink. 🙂
Thanks for sharing, Erin – a great list! And happy birthday to your sis. 🙂
Great list! It’s my wife’s birthday TODAY and she has her Caribou coupon printed out for her free drink. Maybe I will have to hit up Caribou AND Starbucks on my birthday??? 😉
The Moe’s in Wilmington, NC, used to be 50% off for military members. My wife and I would go there every weekend and buy two full meals for $8. They caught on pretty quick though, and canceled that promotion 🙂
Oh Man! I had no idea about most of these deals. I was lucky on a trip to Sephora and they informed me that I was eligible for a free gift. Great to know though. Next year I might make a day out of Birthday Freebies!
I just bankrolled a 21st birthday here in L.A. This list would might have been good to have then, but at least I have it now for my upcoming birthday. Cool post!