Wednesday, February 10, 2010

My New Obsession: Blog Giveaways

Back towards the beginning of my blogging adventure, I wrote about my addiction to free samples.  This is still going strong, as you can see here and here from all of the loot I've received.  Now I have moved up to a new addiction, blog giveaways!  To think that just a few months ago I had no idea they even existed. 
Basically (for those uninitiated like I was) there are bloggers that are given free items to review, then they are asked to blog about them and host a giveaway to offer the same item free to one or more of their readers.  Some of these giveaways get thousands of entries, while some have only a handful.  I think it all depends on how many readers the blog has, how they promote the giveaway and how desirable the free item is.  The more expensive an item, the more entries it tends to have. 
Each blogger has different requirements for how to enter their giveaway, sometimes you just have to leave a comment and other times you have to follow their blog, subscribe to their blog, become their Twitter follower, become their Facebook fan, blog about their giveaway...  The list goes on and on.  From time to time you might even see me post about one of the giveaways since blogging usually counts for multiple entries!
I am excited that I will soon be hosting my own giveaway for the first time!  In preparation for that I have added icons on the right side of my blog to follow me on Twitter, through Google or via email.  Sadly my followers list is still empty, but hopefully that will change soon!
Most of the giveaways I enter are found through linked giveaway posts, such as the Giveaway Gathering hosted every week by Deal Seeking Mom.
I have been entering giveaways since around the first of the year, and so far I have won 5 of them, which is an average of about one per week.  I'm not sure how many I have entered - probably more than I care to admit!  I was so surprised when I won my first one, but it spurred me to enter more and more and thereby fed my new addiction.  Here is a rundown of what I have won so far:



  • My second win was from Jolly Mom, where I won a Musicolor toy (there were over 300 entries in this one - which made me realize I needed to keep entering no matter how many other entries there were, I still had a good chance to win!)


  • My third win was a $50 Godiva card, courtesy of Shop at Home, won from Frugal Fritzie
  • My fourth win was a Grand Rapids Coffee Roasters gift pack of coffee and chocolate, from Jolon at SavvyChicSavings, who was even kind of enough to visit and mention my blog on her post! 
  • My fifth win, just received this morning, was from the Money Crashers New Years Giveaway Bash - they gave away over $9,000 in prizes and someone didn't claim their's so it fell to me, a 30-minute conversation with a personal finance consultant.  Of course I had hoped for one of the cash prizes, or one of the nifty tech gadgets they gave away (an Amazon Kindle is surely in my future someday), but I will try to make the most of this prize!  Maybe they will have even more ideas to help me live a leaner life.
Needless to say, I get so excited every time I win something!  I'm like a kid at Christmas, except now Christmas can last year-round! 

4 comments:

Yona said...

Yum. You've won tasty giveaways! I'm addicted to giveaways. I will soon host my own. I just learned how to get my Google Friend Connect widget up on my blog, but maybe I need to position it higher to actually get some friends. I've won a lot over the past 4 to 5 months - one of which being a bottle of wine (yum). My biggest disappointment was actually winning a SodaStream machines and refills...and never getting the email saying that I did. I got the email that said they chose another winner (insert sad face here). No chocolate yet :( Good luck with your new giveaways!

Sara said...

I love blog giveaways too! Once I won three in one day! =)

Heather said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Heather said...

Thanks for entering our blog giveaway! I like your healthy obsession!
-Heather @ www.savingmoneylivinglife.com

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