Furlough Friday: Free chocolate

It's time again for the jobless sensation that's sweeping the nation, offering money-saving tips for the out of work and low on luck. Live from Pennsylvania, it's Furlough Friday!

Chocolate can pick you up.

No matter whether you have a broken leg, totaled car or jobless day ahead of you, sweet cocoa butter will make it all feel better for a few minutes. The age-old remedy applied by grandmothers everywhere is truly useful if you're sitting at home, wishing you had some money to buy paint so you can watch it dry, and waiting for work.

The problem is that if you don't have money for paint, you might not have money for chocolate, either. Fear not, my cash-strapped foodies! Mars has you covered.

They have this little marketing campaign going on called The Real Chocolate Relief Act. It's a fun play off the bazillion-dollar American Recovery and Reinvestment Act the U.S. government passed earlier this year that gives you a free chocolate bar. (Don't panic, fiscal conservatives. I don't think this is funded by the stimulus, just inspired by it.)


Milky Way, Twix, M&M's -- they're all at your fingertips once you go to RealChocolate.com fill out a mailing address and wait a week or two for a coupon to arrive in the mail. You can do this every Friday through September, as long as you're one of the first 250,000 people to get there. I got a coupon, and I can tell you that free chocolate just tastes sweeter.

You do have to wait a little while to get your coupons, so this isn't a remedy for immediate food requirements. It would be prudent to plan in advance for chocolate-needing funks and pre-order a coupon, though. I also recommend ordering if you think your job is on thin ice. You'll need the free food as a pick-me-up.

Lest I sound like an advertisement for M&M's, let me recommend scouring life for giveaways, freebies and discounts during your forced time off from work. Two days ago I managed to get up to $14 off of two tickets to see the new "Transformers" movie from Kmart. There must be other deals like that out there!

If you don't have Internet access, this will be a harder task. But if you don't have Internet access you probably aren't reading this, either. (Shame on you!) So head down to the library and look for some deals!

Maybe you'll even find a deal for free paint so you can slap it on the wall and stare at it as it dries while you eat your free 3 Musketeers. Now that's Furlough Friday excitement!