Comping is one of my hobbies

What I love about comping is the community and chance of winning things a long the way. By no means is it a form of income and no way would I be able to quit the day job, to fund our life, through competitions.

I've won a couple of big prizes, one being the first competition I ever entered when I was 16, of a large screen television from Heart Radio's website, I received a winning letter in the post and we arranged to get the television delivered to our house, at a small delivery cost. (FREE collection was available) I was chuffed to pieces with that prize, especially as I just entered the competition on a whim, as I was passing their website.

The real comping didn't begin until April 2016, when I fell ill and off work for awhile and had lots of time on my hands, but little energy to actually put into anything. My first month of coming I received three prizes, consisting of a pod holder, for our coffee pods, worth £30, some foundation also worth £30 and a candle worth £20 which smelt divine! £80 worth of goods for little effort, I couldn't of been more pleased. 2016 was my best comping year even though I only started in April, I won around 5-12 prizes per month, all things I would use or be able to pass on as gifts to friends and family who would be able to use them.

As the years go on, more people seem to be comping, wins can seem few and far between, but due to social media, the competitions do keep on coming, but the competition is tighter. Some days I only enter one or two competitions if that, other days I can spend hours entering. There are plenty of websites and forums out there to help you comp. My favourites and most used being...
Money Saving Expert - Competition Time Forum.
Competition Database
and Loquax.

What I love about MSE is the forum and the friendships I've made from it, it is a great community and lots of competitions are posted daily, with end dates listed in the title, prizes and ways to enter, you can tick the competitions you've entered and cross of the ones that you do not want to enter or cannot enter, due to collection or dates you cannot go to an event etc.

The downside is you sometimes get duplicate competitions, although most of the time if spotted, they will merge the posts together, so that you don't accidentally enter a once only competition more than once and disqualify yourself. You aren't allowed to post your own competitions to the forum though, self promotion is not permitted on MSE.

What I love about the Competition Database is you can easily select which types of competitions you'd like to enter from it, Facebook competitions, Twitter or even Gleams, or you can choose via the types of prizes you'd like to enter for, such as vouchers, children's clothing or wedding items. People are also allowed to post their own competitions to the site, so if you host competitions, this is a good site for you to get more entries and traffic to your site. 

The more you contribute to the site, whether you are adding your own competitions or someone else's, the more contribute points you get which puts you on a leaderboard, the top 10 people a week get the chance to win a £20 amazon voucher, as their name goes into a random draw. You can gain points by adding competitions to the site, correcting errors and even announcing the winners of competitions.
The downside is competitions have to be accepted by the website team, this can take time and competitions could be missed.

What I love about Loquax is you can also enter via competitions type entry ways, selecting Facebook, Twitter, Gleams etc. You can select the date they are ending or index by closing soon competitions, you are allowed to advertise your own competitions on there, for more traffic and competition entries to head your way, if your hosting a competition.

The downside to Loquax is the lack of community chat and forums, I'm also not a huge fan of the layout.

This year has been an okay year for wins, in total so far I have won 30 prizes, totalling to £330.77 not including my custom portrait and custom phone cover, which I couldn't put a price on. My biggest prizes being a Ergo Pouch sleep suit for 2-5 year olds worth £59.99 and a £50 Pets at Home voucher.

If you like the idea of entering competitions and the chance of winning, then I say choose a forum or website, stick to one to start off with, to be able to keep track of what you are entering and so to not dupe yourself. Enter and forget - if you get your hopes up and wins do not come your way then it can be very draining and feel like a waste of time. If you enjoy entering and forget about what you've entered and a winning email or phone call comes through, then it is just an added bonus to this hobby. Some people win daily, others weekly, some people don't win a thing for a year. But have fun, enter and congratulations on anything you do win! Thank you to anyone who contributes to competition sites, you are amazing and I have lots of you to thank for most of my prizes. Much Love! xx

Photos to follow.