Sweepstakes and Giveaways!

The other day, I was watching TV, and one of those new sweepstakes shows came on. It was showing two people who spend their days entering sweepstakes. One man makes a living from it by spending 8 hours a day entering sweepstakes. The things that he wins, he either keeps or sells. He has won trips and even a $50,000 car! This peaked my interest. I like to get free samples, so why wouldn't I like to win free stuff?? I always overlooked the giveaways on blogs because I just thought it was too much work to like this and follow that, but I gave in. I've started entering sweepstakes and giveaways. I don't have a lot of time to dedicate to it right now because I am doing my externship for school, but I will be done with that at the end of this week and then will have some time to put into entering sweepstakes. The things that I don't want, I will attempt to sell on ebay or craigslist. Well, that's assuming that I win something, haha. I have to admit, it is a bit tiring entering so many forms, but if I start to win some things, it will hopefully be worth it. This is just something I'm trying out; if nothing comes out of it, I will give up, but I will never know without trying.

My first suggestion is to make a separate email address for the giveaway and sweepstakes entries. You will most likely get a lot of spam mail from signing up for things, so if you don't want your regular email cluttered up more than it probably already is, make a separate address.

Do any of you enter sweepstakes and giveaways? I want to hear your story! Have you won anything? Tell us about your experience!

Here are a few of the websites I am using to find giveaways. Feel free to add your favorites in a comment and I may eventually make a big list for everyone.

About.com Contests

The Buck List

Giveaway for Prizes



Also, be sure to follow me on Twitter as I will sometimes post about specific giveaways I am entering, and you can enter, too!

Oh, and I may be hosting my own giveaway soon, so keep coming back, especially if you love to scrapbook!!

Strange Travels

Thanks to Wm Rowe

I like going on vacation but I especially like it now that I’m married! My honeymoon was my first real foray into international vacationing but now that I’ve got a taste I can’t imagine anything else I’d rather do. This year my husband and I are going to go to Croatia which I’m so excited about but it’s going to be an expensive trip so we’ve been saving for quite a while! I went toHttp://www.home-alarm-systems.COM/to get a system for our new house before we left and I made sure I could pack in a small bad so we don’t get charged flight after flight for a checked bag (we’re flying three times once we get over there) and other than that and one last hotel I think everything’s booked. Flight prices to Europe right now are just outrageous but this is somewhere we’d always wanted to go so we figured we might as well go ahead and check it off the list. Afterall, you can’t take that money with you, am I right?

*This is a paid post

Zemandi: Getting Paid to Write

Since Demand Studio's list of article topics have grown quite boring and none of them seem to be anything that I have enough knowledge of, I have been looking for other places to write for money. I read a bit about Zemandi and decided to check it out. So far, I am not impressed. First of all, you have to request that an article topic be sent to your email, then you have to go check your email and decide if it is something you wish to write about or not. If you don't want to write the article, you have to go back to the Zemandi website to decline it, and then put in the article number. Seems like a lot of wasted time to me. You have your choice of writing content, review, or blog article. A few assignments I received in the mail were for me to write for free so that they could get an idea of what writing level I am at (isn't this why  most places just ask for articles you have already written), or they are 450+ word articles for $2.50. Really? Even though I am pretty desperate for money, I do value my time a bit more than that. Most of the articles are mundane and uninteresting things to write about on top of the no/low pay. It may be a good place for new writers to start off at and dip their toes into the writing world, but I don't know if you can generate a decent amount of money.

Have any of you worked for Zemandi? Is there potential there? Is it worth writing an article for no or low pay to get to the better paying articles? Please feel free to comment and give us your input!

Crowdtap: Answer Questions and Get Samples while Earning

I joined Crowdtap a few days ago and it seems great so far. You start out simple by just answering quick questions or "quick hits", and you get a certain amount of points for answering them. Your ranking goes up the more points that you get, and the higher your ranking, the more opportunities you get. You can get invited to join in discussions, where you get points for answering a discussion question and then joining in the discussion with other users. You can also get opportunities to sample new products or websites and then you can convert your points into cash once your points are worth a minimum of $10.00. Five percent of your earnings go to a charity of your choosing, so you can earn a little bit while helping a good cause. So far, it's really simple to do and kind of fun. I've been trying to do it as much as possible because I like to see my rank go up and find out what new opportunities I may get.



Have any of you worked with Crowdtap? How has it been for you?