FRUGALISTA FIND: HOW TO SCORE FREE SWAG

Blog Giveaways: My Afternoon of Lunacy

For the first time in a long time, I found myself financially not so well off the day after Thanksgiving. I have never been a "wait in line at Best Buy right after eating drumsticks in cranberry sauce" kind of person, but I always have ventured out to the stores on Black Friday to peruse the sales and abuse my wallet. This year, having no job and lack of savings, (no pity party here, just stating facts) I resigned myself to the fact that I would be skipping the craziest shopping day of the year and spending my Friday reading snarky TV show recaps and watching Hulu while doing so. 

As I began my inane clicking of tabs (the crazy Gemini in me cannot focus on just one browser window, quelle horreur!) it dawned on me that maybe there was a way I could score some loot after all. I had just read an article about blog giveaways the week before. Women were  sharing how they did their holiday shopping on a tight budget. One lady shared her love of blog giveaways. She had won gifts for almost every person on her list. I stored this tidbit of info in the back of my brain (after of course the pessimist in me scoffed and the snob in me snooted. Hey I am not a schizo alright? I'm just a Gemini). But I digress. I found a website that listed giveaways (Click HERE to go to Blog Giveaways) to make it easier for myself and just worked my way down the list. I didn't enter each one, just things that I knew me or someone from my family could use. There were many different givaway sites; blogs designed for just giveaways, blogs with the occasional giveaway, blogs that people should giveaway, but the format was pretty much the same. A mandatory entry consists of something fairly simple: following the blog and making a comment "I would really like this or that because it would be perfect for so and so."  Then you could get additional entries by following the blogger or product on Twitter, liking them on Facebook, putting their button your blog.

After 4 insane hours of whoring out my likes on Facebook and following cartoon Twitter icons, I had entered in about 20 giveaways. My fingers cramped, my back ached, I was done. It was all in Random.org's hands now. I would never attempt to do another giveaway marathon, but I am definitely going to enter a giveaway now and then. I just got word that I won a pair of cute leggings from Agoo!

 Here are some tips if you are interested in blog giveaways:

*Bowse several blogs and choose 2 or 3 you like best. Additional entires to the giveaway usually repeat so you can save time by not having to like 50 different blogs or products on Facebook and follow them on Twitter.

*Try to find giveaways that don't have too many comments/entries. It increases your chances to win. If there are over 200 comments of "I wanna win!", I usually move on the next. (Hello, Pessimist Mars! Nice to see you again!)

*Sign up for things you know you are going to use! Be practical. Yeah, the item is free but your time surely isn't! Do you really want that bottle of Country Bob's All Purpose Sauce?

Lots of Luck, Love, and Light, MARS