Few discoveries gall me more than paying for something I could have received for free.That’s one reason why I chose not to get text messaging with my recent cell phone package. Why pay for texting when I could call?Unfortunately, several of my friends didn’t have the same idea, but sent me texts that cost 25 cents to receive and 75 cents to reply to. They also sent me texts during times when I couldn’t call them back or had run out of minutes for the month. Having fallen into a position of either sacrificing social relationships or material goods, I was stuck.Fortunately, I discovered this list of Web sites by heyitsfree.net that offer text messaging services for free.Some of the ones I’ve tried:Txt Drop : As promised, this site not only delivers your text messages, but allows your friends to respond! One of my friends, whom I coaxed into sending me a reply, had a name that looked a little goofy in my inbox — basically a string of numbers that corresponded to my friend’s phone number — but apart from that minor caveat, this site works extremely well.Send SMS Now: One of my friends told me this site sends text messages that show up as image pictures; if the phone you’re sending this to can receive images, this should be fine. You may have to convince your recipients that this message really is from you. The first few times, you may have to call and confirm they got it!Free Text Send: This one is probably the “Google” of all text messaging Web sites I’ve found so far. A clean, fantastically simple page design that makes shooting off your next SMS a joy — provided, of course, that you know your recipient’s phone provider.)