How To Hit The Free-Food Trifecta This Summer

Leave it to the penny-pinchers at Yahoo! Finance to dish out some smart tips about how save a buck or two on food this summer.

The website's roundup of all the various giveaways and other promotions offered up by many of the nation's biggest fast-food chains this month notably reveals three straight days of free stuff beginning July 11. Take a few days off and go for all three, then tell your friends that you hit the free-food trifecta! It won't cost you a thing. Well, maybe 79 cents, plus the price of a dozen doughnuts. Oh, and don't forget the cow costume!

Here's the agenda:

July 11: "Free Slurpee Day." Grab one 12-ounce Slurpee at any 7-Eleven nationwide. No charge. Just get there between the hours of 11 a.m. and 7 p.m. Easy! But beware the brain freeze.

July 12: "Cow Appreciation Day." Chick-fil-A is giving away one free entrée item to any customer who walks in dressed as a cow or sporting some type of "cow-printed accessory." Encouraging patrons to adorn themselves with bovine garb is a long-standing tradition for the Atlanta-based chicken chain, which likes to play up its cow cred in advertisements as a playful way of distracting consumers from the horrors of industrialized poultry production. So what happens if you show up in a chicken outfit?

July 13: "Happy Birthday, Krispy Kreme!" Buy a dozen doughnuts at the nearest Krispy Kreme location and get a second box of sweet rounds for just 79 cents. Why 79? The odd number is a nod to the North Carolina company's 79th anniversary. It's also 50 cents less than the cost of a single original glazed doughnut at Krispy Kreme in New York City.