Monday, August 18, 2008

Another win!

This morning I added another win to my growing list of contest wins -- a family four pack to a local amusement park and a $250 American Express gift card!!!!!

I luv me some contests!!!!!

I've been winning contests for many many years now! When I was a kid, I would listen to the radio at night, mostly when I was supposed to be asleep. I would cradle my Bell Princess phone (just an "extension" -- do you remember those?) and wait for the evening contest to be announced. Sometimes it was a trivia question, usually it was just be the Xth caller. I would dial furiously -- remember, there was no "redial" function in those days -- and put on my best adult voice if I was lucky enough to get through. I won movie tickets, t-shirts, record albums, memorabilia and once I won a ham. Yep, the good little Jewish girl won a HAM!!! My dad is a great cook, so he took it on as an experimental project. He figured it was the only time he'd EVER cook a ham, so he did it right! Slow-baked with a sweet glaze and decorated with pineapple rings and cherries. I don't think we took a photo of it (evidence, you know....), but I wish we had. He outdid himself!

As I got older, I drifted away from contests, but a few years ago, I discovered how easy it is to enter on the Internet. These days, stamps cost too much to waste them on contest entries. A few clicks on the net is free!

In the past couple years, I've won a theatre subscription, theatre tickets, movie tickets, CDs, lots of amusement park tickets, rodeo tickets, cash, lottery tickets, Aquarium tickets, behind-the-scenes tour and tickets to the zoo, a pinball machine, cleaning products, posters, arts and crafts supplies, restaurant gift cards and 4 laps in a NASCAR at a real racetrack. I'm going to be using that last one later this week when we start our vacation -- keep watching for that post!!!!

If you're thinking about contesting yourself, here's my suggestions:

* Start by finding the websites of your local radio stations and newspapers and magazines. They run very good contests and fewer people enter compared to the national contests, so your chances are much better!
* Create a file in your bookmarks for the contest pages of those sites you've just found. I try to keep the radio and TV stations together at the top and next the local newspapers and magazines. Most contests will let you enter daily, so do it!
* Enter, enter, enter!!!! Don't give up -- it may take awhile, but I guarantee that if you enter regularly, you'll win something eventually!
* If you're reading this, you're obvioulsy a blog reader. Many blogs run contests for their readers. Because of the relatively small number of entries in the average blog contest, you've got a really good chance of winning something!
* Keep a list of your winnings. It's really inspirational to look at when you're having a dry spell!

Good luck!!!

1 comment:

Teresa said...

Yippee!!!! Are you going to Hershey? I'm going to Hershey courtesy of our local "all news" station- we're going on Labor Day Sunday. (The curse of teachers- no September outings!) I also won theater tickets in March to the Academy.

I've been doing well in blog contests lately also. I won TWICE- from two different blogs, but for the same stamp company. I asked to have them choose another winner when I saw that I won twice from the same company. But I will still keep going.

This is FUN! Thanks so much for turning me on to contests- I love them now!