Spending my Prizes

Last year at this time I was telling you about the lovely basket of gifts I won from the merchants of Almonte. The contest was to promote the town, and it worked as I had not been there for many years and was surprised at the amazing changes in the place. It's not just a pretty village anymore. It's well worth the visit now, to shop and eat and spend the day.  We've been back several times since then and I've told lots of people about it.

So, while I had won some amazing prizes by this time last year, worth hundreds of dollars, this year I'm winning on a much smaller scale.  Yesterday I got to go and collect a couple of my freebies.  First, I had a certificate that I got from Kelloggs that I could spend on a $10 toy. I didn't figure I'd get much for that but when I walked into Toys R Us, one of the first things I saw was a game that the grandsons had been asking for just a couple of weeks ago. How could I pass that up? It's not the big board version but a compact one that folds into its own case and is easy to store. Just the thing for Nana's house! And hey, it was $9.99 so I got to spend the whole coupon, which is great as they don't give you change. I expect I'm going to have a break from our ongoing Mille Bornes challenge while I figure out who done it while playing Clue.

After that, I went for lunch and used a gift certificate I won from New York Fries for a free regular poutine. I asked if I could upgrade that to one with the works and was told that the regular, in this case, referred to the size, and I could have anything I wanted on it.

So while I had a calorie-laden lunch for free, my hubby ate more sensibly but it cost him over $10 for his salad.

I still have a $10 Walmart gift card to spend too, but I haven't decided what I want to shop for yet. I won it on Facebook from a page that promotes freebies called Mae-Mae's Freebies. A lot of the offers there are just for people in the United States, but I won it so soon after I joined the page I didn't realize that yet. Occasionally there is something for Canada or other places too though, and the odds are good for the contests as competition isn't all that big yet. But it is growing.

Anyway, I am still having some luck, though nothing like last year. That's fair. It's not good to be greedy. After so many years of never winning anything at all, I'm still quite amazed when I win something and actually thrilled with even these little prizes.

People are still asking me how I win. The only advice I can give is, you can't win if you don't enter.

That goes for life in general. You can't succeed at anything unless you are willing to go do it.

Thanking my Lucky Stars!

Some people are lucky, and some people are not. I spent the majority of my life never winning anything. Well, that's not quite true as I did win a record album from a radio station once when I was a teenager. That got me all excited, but I never did get it. I expected it to arrive in the mail, but perhaps I was supposed to somehow make my way across the city to fetch it. No such luck. I ended up more disappointed than if I had never won it at all.

My youngest son won a Mickey Mouse phone from an Ottawa TV show when he was about 8, and he managed to win a couple of summer camp trips too. I thought he had way more luck than I'd ever had. Perhaps it had just skipped a generation or something.

Things changed for me about 5 years ago when I suddenly had a winning streak. I enter contests on line and was doing rather well.  Then it petered out again and I was actually having bad luck for a while.

This year has been extremely lucky for me so far, though I expect that luck just has to run out any day now.

In February I told you about winning a big basket of goods from the merchants of Almonte. Since then the BzzAgent people sent me an Oral B Genius 8000 electric toothbrush to test. The thing is amazing as it works with my phone's blue tooth and actually teaches me how to do a better job of brushing while it gets my teeth dentist clean. It was worth about $200 but all I had to do was write a review.  I did that but it was nothing compared to the extensive review on electric toothbrushes I later discovered posted on https://www.reviews.com/

 

Of course I managed to score a box of goodies from Sample Source too. That also takes luck and timing. I always count myself lucky when I manage to get one.

Then recently I went to the Shop Local Showcase in Kemptville and, as usual, filled out slips for various draws I found there. I was present when I won one of the hourly prizes. I got a $25 gift card for Hard Stones Grill. Later in the week I got a phone call and found out I had also another basket full of stuff from the Royal LePage realestate booth.  That's almost embarrassing as that's the booth I went to first, when I was trying to discover who had called my name. And before I could even get into Kemptville to pick that up, a new friend, Gary Blake,  presented me with a lovely painting he had done out of appreciation for some little thing that required no reward. Lucky is one thing, but who can believe there would ever be so much of it all at once! It's been an amazing week!

I picked up the basket this past weekend, and it contained two bottles of Wayne Gretsky wine (one red, one white), four jars of Mrs McGarrigle's mustard, a $50 gift card for Heather's Healthy Harvest, another $50 gift certificate for the Brigadoon, and also one for a car wash. The rest of the stuff in the basket had to do with rolling your own sushi. That's not something that is likely to happen in this house, but I'll find someone who will appreciate it.  Maybe it's even you, if you tell me a story about how you do such things at your house or what on earth got you started.  I've had such great luck lately, I think it's time I gave something away.  You deserve a reward for reading this far, or for answering my question on Facebook. Only a couple of my facebook friends have done that so far, so this is your chance to see how I actually win things. I pick contests like this, where the odds are really good as there won't be a huge number entering. I'll pick the winner on June 5, 2017.  I'm sorry, but you will have to be living in Canada to win though I'd love to hear stories from the rest of you too..

Unusual Lucky Streak

I'm having a real lucky streak lately. Nothing big mind you, but normally I don't tend to win much more than a bit of makeup or the odd book anyway, no matter how many draws I enter.  While it's true that I've won a good number of books over the years, the key word there is Years.  Here are just some of the books I've won, pictured at the left. 

Something has changed since 2012 has begun however, as I've already won 3 this year, plus a necklace, and a $10 gift card for Sears.
 One day in particular was so lucky I couldn't believe it.  First some friends had passes for 2 free buffet dinners at Rideau Carleton that they couldn't use before the expiry date. They knew we liked to go there, so they gave them to us.  The day we went we stopped into Shoppers Drug Mart on the way.  I happened to spot something that I use all the time and it was on sale so I decided to buy it.  They rang it in at full price, and when I pointed out that it was on sale, they told me that if I was right, I'd get it for free. They did a price check, and verified that it was indeed on sale. It's their policy that if anything scans incorrectly the customer doesn't have to pay.  This was news to me, but I came out $10 ahead of the game and quite happy to have learned about this. 
When we got to Rideau Carleton, there were several tables set up outside the dining room area. I asked one lady what that was all about, and she said it was Spanish Night, and would I care to sample some wine. I looked up in time to see my hubby being led off to our table, so I said I had to go.  Moments later someone arrived at our table with two glasses of wine, and said they had heard "the hubby was in a hurry."  That kind of service was certainly unexpected.  Oh, and they came back with more later on.  Free dinner, free wine, things were going great. Normally they charge you extra for coffee and tea, but that night they told us to forget that too!

Now, we are not gamblers, but we like to pick a horse and bet $2 to show, just so we have one to cheer for.  By the end of the night we generally break even, or only be up or down by a buck or two.  During this particular evening I picked a horse that came in 3rd.  While many of our horses that come in first only pay $2.10 for the $2 bet, this one, even though it was third, paid $18.50.  The stars must have been really lined up right that night!

My most recent win was yesterday, when a letter arrived from Reader's Digest. It seems I've won a Swap and Drop Kit, worth about $40.  I've been entering Reader's Digest contests regularly for so many years I can't remember, but I've never won anything from them before.  I don't know what's going on, but maybe I should buy a lottery ticket, just to see if I can win something worth a bit more.  What do you think?