Grand free handouts (8)
I believe the answer is:
thousand
'grand' is the definition.
('thousand' can be a synonym of 'grand')
'free handouts' is the wordplay.
'free' indicates anagramming the letters.
'handouts' anagrammed gives 'THOUSAND'.
(Other definitions for thousand that I've seen before include "-- Island dressing" , "a couple of monkeys in total?" , "Roman numeral M" , "quite a lot" , "Numeric value of kilo" .)