Student gets more birthday freebies than he bargained for

Nick Matthewman celebrated his 20th birthday at The Bankers Draft Wetherspoon's pub in Sheffield yesterday, as the pub chain was offering 7.5% off all food and drink as part of its 'Tax Equality Day' – a campaign to highlight the level of VAT paid by the pub industry.

When they got to the pub, Nick's mate Rory decided to take their money-saving to the next level, asking Twitter users to buy his pal a birthday drink on Wetherspoon's table service app. The app allows users to order food and drink to a specific table in one of the chain's pubs, and pay for it.

But the pair got more than they bargained for, as the original tweet received over 8,000 retweets and saw them bombarded with bizarre orders from other users of the app.

First came a Becks Blue – an alcohol-free lager – which was swiftly followed by a platter of glasses of milk, an ice cream, a glass of prosecco, a plate full of peas with various sauces, a Fruit Shoot soft drink, and a bowl of crispy onions.

For a bevy of tips on how to save money on your birthday, see our Birthday freebies section.

'The weirdest was peas with curry, BBQ and blue cheese sauce'

Speaking about his money-saving exploits, Nick said: "It was the day where they reduced the prices by 7.5%, so we thought we'd go on that day as it was my birthday and we could take advantage of the cheaper stuff.

"I bought some nachos and a pint but then after that I didn't have to buy anything.

"The weirdest stuff we were sent was definitely the plate of peas with chip shop curry sauce, BBQ sauce and blue cheese sauce. I don't know how much the stuff was worth overall but an ice cream scoop was 60p and the bottles of Becks Blue a couple of pounds."

The pair documented the orders on Twitter.