The Advents Are Coming

Hello again everyone!  How was your weekend, any nice wins to report?  Two wins so far for me this month – a Heat & Hug koala from the Cushelle on pack promotion, and a lovely Ultimate Christmas Hamper from Liz Earle from a tie-break comp on Facebook – chuffed with that one!  I did say I wanted to win a hamper this year – I meant a food and drinks hamper to be honest, but I’m definitely not going to turn my nose up at all these lovely skincare products!  Still hoping to win a lovely food hamper this Christmas though, so entering madly whenever I see a good comp.  How about you?  What would you really love to win?  I am still entering everything going for Lapland trips too – my lovey comping friends very kindly tag me in when they see them on Facebook, so I have entered quite a few this year already.  My eldest daughter is 8 years old, so I feel like we are on borrowed time a little bit, before she is too old to fully enjoy the magic of meeting The Big Man in Red, so hoping I can either win one or we book a trip in the next year or two.

So come on, who else is ridiculously over-excited for Christmas – it can’t JUST be me!  I love everything about Christmas – the music, the films, the stories, the food, the magic, the cosy family time – you name it.  I also love the amazing comping opportunities that there always are in the run up to Christmas.  Every day my Facebook and twitter feeds are full of lovely items being given away in Christmas comps, and The Prizefinder is full of fabulous comps to enter.  It is so enjoyable spending a few hours in the evening trying to enter as many as possible, and win some fantastic prizes.  However, one aspect of Christmas comping seems to either send people into a frenzy of excitement (me), or fill people – especially newbie compers – with dread – the ADVENT COMPETITIONS! 

So, what are the Advents I hear you ask?  Well, on 1st December you will see the number of comps available on The PrizeFinder – especially in the daily and weekly sections – sky rocket.  Every year promoters offer fantastic prizes, usually once a day, in their advent competitions.  You will get to enter short time entry (usually just 24 hours) competitions, as well as lots of lovely instant wins to win some fantastic prizes such as hampers, toys, holidays, gadgets, vouchers and lots more!  If this will be your first year of the Advents – or even if it isn’t – here are my top tips for getting organised and staying sane over the busiest of comping months of the year:

• DON’T PANIC!  Advent comping, just like all comping, is supposed to be a fun, enjoyable experience.  Don’t get too stressed about it all.  People will offer all kinds of horror stories about having absolutely no life during December (some of which will be completely true of course), but above all Keep Calm and Carry on Comping
• Accept the fact that you can’t possibly do them all.  Be selective about what prizes you really want to win, or what promoters you want to focus on entering with.  If you try and do every single advent every day in December you will burn out, give up or be use to no-one over Christmas itself.
• Get organised.  Browse through the advents section on The PrizeFinder and make yourself familiar with what is available.  Then set yourself up a nice spreadsheet, a folder in your bookmarks or a page in your paper notebook to make a note of which advents you want to try and enter every day.  You can also make a note of what time the comps open every day if you know – some will open at midnight for example, and some at 9am or later.  Try and check Ts and Cs too to see when the closing times and dates are.  Some comps will close at 5pm each day, whereas others will run until midnight, or maybe they will all be picked at once at the end of the advent period.  Gather as much info as you can – forewarned is forearmed, 
• Warn your friends.  If you use Facebook it might be worthwhile posting a message to warn your non-comping friends that their feeds may start to clog up with your comp entries over December.  Advise them that the simplest way to avoid this is to “unfollow” you, as it means you still stay on each other’s friend lists but they won’t see your statuses or shares on their feed.  Or they can jump in and enter a few themselves!
• Ma sure you check your emails regularly, including your spam folder, as well as your Facebook and Twitter messages and any spam and “other” folders.  Try and get into the habit of using Social Searcher regularly too, to check for any winning announcements you may have missed. 
• Don’t forget about all the other, non-advent competitions.  Because such a lot of compers focus all their efforts on the advents at this time of year, it means the entry levels on all the other comps usually go down.  Spend a little time every day doing a few non-advent comps as well, to maximise your entries and spread your time.
• If you have a spare 5 minutes on Christmas day itself maybe try and enter some comps that day too.  Most sensible compers will be off having fun with their family on Christmas day, Boxing Day, New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day.  This means that again entry levels are lower on these days.  Don’t make comping your priority for these days of course – Christmas is about spending time with loved ones.  But if you do happen to have any spare time, in between cooking, TV, playing with new toys & games and just relaxing, enter a few comps from The PrizeFinder and maybe you could be starting off 2015 with a few nice wins in the bag!

So, keep your eyes on The PrizeFinder this Christmas season, grab yourself a mug of coffee or a festive tipple, unwrap some choccies and get stuck into the best comping season of the year.  Keep us informed as to how you get on, and do ask if you have any questions at all – we are always happy to help.  Pop over to see us on facebook and Twitter too – there will be lots of other compers all going slightly loopy over the festive season – so let’s all go comping crazy together!

Happy festive comping everyone, and lots of Lucky Dust to you all!

Kirsty x