OK, it's not Friday yet.

But I'm taking tomorrow off. So let's do freebies a day early this week...

*Wal-Mart has a Nivea for Men shave gel freebie here.

*And Old Spice body wash here.

*And a Pond's Towelette sample here. 

*There's an Aquaphor sample here.

*You can get a free Olympic pin when you buy two Stayfree or Carefree items and mail in the form found here. This could be pretty easy with the BOGO Stayfree coupon from last week. 

For the Fourth of July weekend, Rocky Top restaurants are offering a buy one get one entree deal when you bring in the coupon from their Web site. Rocky Top is a Raleigh-based company that owns Michael Dean's, Hi5, Red Room, Bogart's and The Twisted Fork.

The offer is good tomorrow, July 4 through Sunday, July 6, and you must have the coupon to get the deal. However, if you plan to use this coupon, Rocky Top owner Dean Ogan highly recommends making a reservation. So far, he said, more than 700 people have printed out the online coupon, and it will run in tomorrow's News & Observer as well.

Walgreens is offering 15-cent prints from its photo center when you use the coupon code STARS15. The deal runs through July 12... 

When I saw the extremely generous $2 and $3 Pert Plus coupons on Sunday, I thought there might be some really good deals out there. Sure enough, this morning I heard from reader Jeannine, who reported this deal at Kroger:

"I just went to Kroger at Creedmoor and Lynn and purchased the Pert Plus Botanicals shampoo.  It was $3.35 and I had a $3 off coupon from this past Sunday's paper (6/29/08).  On the outside of the bottle there was a mail-in rebate offer for the price of the bottle (up to $3.99).  I just made a profit of $3 and got a free bottle of shampoo!!"

Not bad at all... Of course, there's no guarantee that your Kroger will have the same deal. But if you're in a Kroger store this weekend, it would definitely be worth checking.

Boy, I hope this trend gets bigger...

Chipotle Mexican Grill announced this week that its stores will begin buying 25 percent of at least one of its produce items for each of its 730-plus restaurants from small and mid-sized local farms. That may not seem like much... 25 percent of one item. But it's a start. And consider that Chipotle had revenues of $1.09 billion last year.

I just got an e-mail announcing Bed Bath & Beyond's summer clearance sale on outdoor furniture. At least according to the e-mail, select furniture items are 20 to 50 percent off.

And, while we're on the topic of clearance sales, upscale mattress retailer Dormia announced it will begin a liquidation sale on Thursday, following its bankruptcy filing last month. There are Dormia stores in Raleigh's Crabtree Valley Mall and Cary Towne Center.