John Ling giveaway

Thriller writer John Ling is hosting a promotion giving away a $200 Amazon gift card.  Be sure to check him out!

Disclosure: I am receiving a sweepstakes entry for this blog post.

No Fight at MY Fridge

Mixify is currently hosting blog giveaways to promote healthy eating.  The prize is a  $100 Visa gift card.  Eating healthy and being active is something I struggle with as a new mom, but I need to get my act together to be a good role model for my son.

Be sure to check out the giveaway blogs!

http://queenofspainblog.com/2014/11/12/no-fight-at-my-fridge/

http://www.serenabakessimplyfromscratch.com/2014/11/keeping-your-family-healthy-with_13.html

http://sellabitmum.com/2014/11/13/mixify-5-tips-healthy-balance-100-visa-gc-giveaway/

http://www.overstuffedlife.com/2014/11/finding-balance-in-world-of-extremes.html

Disclosure: I am receiving a sweepstakes entry in exchange for writing this blog post.

Trouble in Paradise win

Just in time for Christmas, and I won a $25 Amazon gift card in the "Trouble in Paradise" giveaway from Beck Valley Books!  I need to get cracking on my Secret Santa shopping so this will help get me started.

Also, my cat bundle arrived in the mail a couple weeks ago. Yay!

$50 Gift Card - choose your own

Peanut Butter and Whine is hosting a $50 Giveaway for the holidays!

Entry-Form

$50 Amazon giveaway

I just found a new giveaway that Queen of Savings is promoting.  Wine-Vine Imports is hosting a giveaway for a $50 gift card from Amazon.  This will be great for Christmas shopping!

November prizes

I am still waiting for cat bundle to arrive in the mail, but in the meantime I won two more giveaways. The first is a $25 Visa card from the September National Coupon Month Sweepstakes at http://www.coupons.com/.  That brings my Visa gift cards up to $100, which will be helpful for Christmas shopping.

I also won a Cottonelle Roll Cover while entering for their $10,000 Grand Prize at https://www.cottonelle.com/lets-talk-bums

Hills Pet Bundle winner

My cats are going to be so excited - I just won the Hills Pet Bundle giveaway from Confessions of an Over-Worked Mom.  They will get a laser pointer, new food bowl, and Science Diet cat food, while I will get a tote bag. http://www.confessionsofanover-workedmom.com/2014/10/show-cat-care.html


We used the Burger King gift card that I last won the day after it came in the mail.  It was my first time leaving my newborn baby with someone other than my husband.  We left him with my sister for all of *22 minutes* while we picked up Burger King for her and for us.  It was stressful to leave him but good for me to start realizing that he will be okay with other people.  (Well, with SOME other people...)

I need to start winning some of all these Amazon, Walmart, and Target gift card giveaways that I keep entering - I just used up my last ones buying diapers.

New win and new website!

I have won my second prize from a blog giveaway! On September 29th, I won a $20 Burger King gift card from GayNYCDad.com (http://www.gaynycdad.com/2014/10/announced-new-giveaways-are-up-65.html)  A bit more impressive than my first modest win of a Box of BandAids.

I have also found a new sweepstakes website that I like: http://contestchest.com/

New giveaway websites

I've added a couple more websites for giveaway and sweepstakes entries. I've been using Online-Sweepstakes.com and ContestGirl.com on a daily basis for almost a month now.  This week I also added the following two blog giveaway websites:

http://www.contest-corner.com/categories/sweepstakes-saturday/

and

http://www.tightwadinutah.com/p/low-entry-giveaways-ending-within-week.html

Sometimes I get worried that if I forget to check my sweepstakes email, I'll miss the 24-hour prize acceptance window.  I check the email regularly, but it means I feel leery about missing that window by a couple hours just because I checked the email in the morning one day and at night the next.

Starting small in September

Today, September 1st, marks my first sweepstakes/giveaway win.  And my big prize is.... a box of band aids custom designed by Isaac Mizrahi. I won this on a blog giveaway by My Life On and Off the Guest List.  http://www.mylifeonandofftheguestlist.com/2014/08/giveaway-we-need-fashionable-healing.html

Color me amused :)

August results

It's the last day of August, and I've been sweepstaking for 3 weeks now.  I haven't won anything yet, but most of the sweepstakes that I have entered are still open. Most of what I enter for is gift cards or cash prizes, since most of the other prizes don't interest me - although I do register for baby product giveaways since I have a little one on the way.  As an exception to the cash and baby giveaways, I entered for a giveaway of Patricia Briggs' Mercy Thompson series.  I have the first couple books, but this would be all 7.  It would be pretty neat to win those, but it's no skin off my back to continue slowly picking them up for a couple bucks each at the local used book store.

I also like registering for giveaway items that seem like nice gifts, such as perfume.

What are the odds?

I had heard that blog giveaways can have really great odds, but this one was pretty crazy! I entered a Zim's Creme and $10 Walmart gift card giveaway at http://www.masterofmom.com/2014/08/organic-skincare-zims-advanced-review.html and after 13 days of the giveaway, or about halfway through the contest period, there were only FIVE ENTRANTS.  I shop at Walmart every week, wouldn't mind getting $10 towards the grocery bill.  Every little bit counts!

I wonder if I am interested in the sweepstakes now because I am specifically hoping to get some of these Walmart gift cards while I'm on maternity leave for the rest of the year.  Obviously it won't make up for the fact that I'll be missing $10,000 of take-home pay, but every little bit helps.

Blog giveaways

I started entering blog giveaways as well.  The odds seem much better than in other sweepstakes, although they are much smaller prizes (such as a $25 Walmart gift card).  Blog sweepstakes give you more entries for following on Twitter or tweeting about the giveaway.  My next step became clear: set up a Twitter account! I'm officially following almost 200 accounts already and tweeted about 80 times yesterday to get additional entries in these drawings.  It honestly seems like an abuse of the Twitter system, since I post far more often than I read tweets, and only have 5 followers.  (Those 5 were all automatic follows after I followed their account).

So far, the favorite sweepstakes that I have entered is for the 2014 Tesla Model S at http://usbankpowerup.com/sweepstakes/

Good morning and good luck!

Monday I decided to start entering sweepstakes for fun.  I started a new email account, favorited a couple of websites, and have been signing up for sweepstakes during otherwise empty time.  Right now I am using Contest Girl and also Online-Sweepstakes.com.  Let's see if I win anything!