so I discovered that when you sign up for an Azure FREE account, there's times when you can sign up, but NOT have a subscription associated. So it's basically a shell account until you link it to the free subscription itself. It's odd because I've seen walkthroughs where the subscription is part of the setup of the free account, and times when it just skips over the subscription.

What I had to do to resolve this issue was:

1.) Log into the portal.azure.com account

2.) In the search look for "subscriptions"

3.) When you get there you will see that Microsoft has the option for the free or pay as you go subscription. Choose free.

4.) It'll walk you through adding your debit card, 2 factor authentication, etc.

5.) Once done this issue is resolved.

Let me know if this helps.