12th July 2012
Like everyone else I'm sure I have entered the occasional competition in the past, not won anything and never really gave it much thought other than 'the odd's of winning make it pointless entering'.
Over the last couple of months however, I'v found myself completely skint (can I get a hurrah for being a student!) and started looking on-line to find some free samples, such as toothpaste, to tide me over until I found a job and manage until pay-day. I found a community of 'freebie hunters' at freestuff.co.uk who always seem to know where the samples are at any given time making it really easy to fill in your details and wait for it to be delivered (if you begin this I recommend using chrome for auto fill saving lots of time!).
The sound of daily post hitting the floor in the morning is now magic to my ears and I honestly feel like a kid at Christmas opening mail and packages to see what freebies I have, some of which I has forgotten I applied for.
Now this lead on to filling out a few competitions as well just to see how I got on and I was really surprised when I started getting emails with a nice big 'congratulations you've won!' messages.
Now I'm only at the beginning of my freebie and competition career, I'v not been in this game long enough to have won TV's, cars, games consoles etc. like some of the people in this freebie community, but I'm very pleased with the stuff that I have won so far.
The list to date includes 4 VIP cinema tickets, 2 boxes of heroes chocolates, 2 bottles of coke zero, a 4 pack of Rice Krispie honeycomb squares, a box of Tetley's RedBush Tea and an invitation for 2 to an exclusive afternoon tea put on for the Queen's Diamond Jubilee (which lead to something else which I'll explain in just a minute).
Now the love of my life stated he thought I was a 'sad animal' for spending so much time on getting silly little sample of freebies through the post, but I soon changed his mind after he was my guest to the afternoon tea, where there was a raffle...and he won second prize. He won dinner for 2 at La Garrigue (a delightful French Bistro, which I highly recommend), lunch for 2 at the Scotsman Hotel, 2x tickets for the Camera Obscura, 2x tickets for the Scotch Whisky Experience and a large box of traditional handmade fudge by the Fudge House of Edinburgh (we went back to buy more on the day they happened to be closed, tried their competitors and we both agreed that the Fudge House was superior!).
My partners agreement that my on-line time was worthwhile was cemented when I told him I'd take him to see the new Batman and Spiderman films at VUE with my tickets.
He even asked me to start entering him into these competitions when I do mine if I have the time, as has my sister!
Now I do agree that doing this means spending a lot of time on-line looking for the new samples and competition websites, but I'd like to point out its not all I do with my life. I'm still looking for work and I'm still a student (passed my first year at University with 4 A's, 2 B's and 2 C's), I volunteer weekly at a local British Heart Foundation charity shop, see my friends fairly regularly and my flat is undergoing a spring clean at the moment, so a room at a time is a mess while I pull everything out of cupboards to clean them, but otherwise fairly spotless. I'm planning on exercising more, but I'm taking time off that for the spring clean. It will happen!
So now I just wait to see what else I'v won, wait for the post and enter new competitions and freebie forms.
Winning is addicting!
