Tuesday, September 21, 2010

Simple Math

Years ago, our local homeschool support group held monthly meetings. Ideally, each family would host one night and pick a topic to share with the group. When my night arrived, I chose homeschooling for the thrifty. I spoke about numerous ideas, books, part time jobs, sources for free curriculum and other tips. One of my strange tips was:
Enter Contests
I went on to list some of the things I have won over the years. Here goes what my colander of a brain has the capacity to remember: $100.00 cash, a health club membership, a box of expensive cigars(Gross!), books, pizza, a sailboat, a gold bracelet, concert tickets, albums(o.k. that was a real long time ago) restaurant gift certificates, a computer desk, flowers and gift cards. The other Lori used to grumble when I kept winning the door prize at our meetings.

I have to tell you, I do not believe in luck. I am not a lucky person. I believe in God, His provision and His blessing. I do believe God shows us in His Word many promises to the believer as they walk in obedience to His word. I won't deny, many times I prayed to win. Especially the $600 furniture gift certificate. The desk in my bedroom consisted of 2 file cabinets with a wood door across the top, Oh so ugly. I did thank God for that and testify to anyone who would listen of God's goodness. 

So why did I win all of those things? I don't know.

Now those were the days before I had discovered blog give aways. Because I entered contests where the amount of entries were low, my chances of winning was high. It was simple mathematics. Most blog give aways have between 10 and 200 entries. If 4 or 5 of the entries are mine my chances are 2% to 50% of winning. 

I experienced a few winnings lately on blog contests. They were not things I needed, but things I could use or bless someone else with. I won an o.k. Christian book from Lori @  www.homeschoolreviewsandmore.com. I won the cutest little ride on toy from Mama M. for a sweet little girl that I don't get to see enough of, I won a therapy ball for my boys to beat each other with bounce on from Dandy Giveaway. I won a 3 month membership to JumpStart.com for my Little Guy from here. Yesterday, I won a $45 gift card to the CSN stores from BentoBloggy

Before you start thinking, does all she ever do is enter blog contests? Actually no. Only when I feel like avioding sleep or housework. At times I may not enter for weeks. I just follow some blogs and enter them sporadically. In fact, I entered the Bentobloggy give away late the night before and had a good feeling about that one. 

At our local park day gatherings, the home schooling Moms have discussed this part of blogging. I think the consensus was, you either love them or hate them, the commercialism of them turns people off. I love them. Most bloggers have interesting posts. A contest in between great writing is a bonus. It's like a commercial that you jump into to. Of course, I am the wierdo that when I get in front of a television, I become mesmerized by some of the commercials. I think of these blog give aways as a fun commercial. I'll watch and play if I have time. Do I ever end up purchasing items from the ads/contests? No. Do I want to? Many times. Usually may all time favorite tightwad tip kicks in. If you want to know what one that is, you have to endure an eternal post from me, again. This was one of my first blog posts on thrift.

How about you? Do you enjoy a good give away? Do you ever win any of them? What was the best prize you have won? Do give aways on a blog annoy you? Did you enter my last give away? It's not too late.

I welcome reader comments with open arms. I also understand if you aren't the commenting or hugging type of person, you can drop me an email at accidentallyhomeschooling@gmail.com.

2 comments:

Laurie said...

I enjoy giveaways. It can be awkward to blog about them- as in get an extra entry per a blog post. But, I appreciate hearing about a worthwhile giveaway, so I can only hope others do to. :)

SisterTipster said...

I love giveAways AND thrift articles~in fact, I have a blog dedicated to thrift~
Thriving With No Green$ where I share all that's worked for us~thanks for sharing! Hugs!