Things are always better when they’re free.

And for me, there’s nothing more rewarding than working to gain points with everyday activities (buying gas, playing flash games) and easy tasks (filling out surveys) that turn into material goods that get mailed to me for free.

This week, both Katie and I cashed in some virtual points for actual goods.

Katie’s been building up Club Live points (now Club Bing, I guess) for a while.  The games at the site aren’t groundbreaking, but getting rewarded for playing flash games is a pretty good incentive.  She had previously cashed in a bunch of them for frequent flier miles, but a few days ago noticed a new prize: a book called The Tale of Despereaux: No Ordinary Mouse!  Now our unborn child has a free book about a mouse with big ears coming in the mail!

Although, with their shipping time frame of 10-12 weeks, who knows if it’ll actually arrive before the baby.

As for me, I’ve been faithfully going to my Sony Rewards page day after day, answering questions about Wheel of Fortune, Jeopardy, and Sony Pictures Television.  Every answer nets me 10-25 points (which is roughly equal to 10-25 cents of rewards money) and just yesterday I was able to get enough points to redeem it for a free copy of LittleBigPlanet.

I wasn’t given any shipping time frame, but here’s hoping it arrives before Christmas!

It’s a great feeling of satisfaction.  All we did was spend time online, clicking and typing, with no actual money spent.  And our reward for mindless devotion to a brand-spouting website?  Real, free, useful stuff from that brand!

That is how advertising should work.  We drink in your ads, you give us free stuff.