Nike Free Run Women How I Raised my Family in Ten

[quarreli]

I could hardly believe it when, laden with jeans, trousers, T-shirts, fashionable shirts and trainers, the manager accompanied us to a check out. It was like meeting Santa Claus in a suit. He totted up the bill to the amount of our prize win, thanked us for entering their competition and smilingly escorted us to the door before waving us a cheery good-buy!
"Congratulations, you've won a health and country club weekend in the Lake District."
The article featured ordinary people, like me and you. I read how they enjoyed holidays to exotic locations, drove gleaming new cars and showered their family and friends with exciting goodies - all for free.
Our diet changed according to qualifying till receipts.
"I want to win a car with store because..." usually asked you to attach a qualifying till receipt, I noted.
"Mmm, yes," I answered, trying to recall which competition he meant.
"Tonight," I'd tell my family, "we're having pizza - to try and win an Italian holiday. Served with tomato salad - to win a holiday in the Canaries. Followed by apples - to win a healthy break in France. Oh, and as a treat, you can have a chocolate - to win a Valentine's cruise!"
Instead of window shopping, knowing we couldn't afford to buy expensive goodies and luxuries, shopping became fun. Often the only thing I'd come back with from an afternoon of shopping, was a pile of entry forms!
Suddenly, "luxuries" like family holidays or a new car seem things of the past.
Intrigued, I read on. Thinking there must be a catch somewhere!
The lady in the next bed passed her magazine to my daughter. Inside was a tiebreaker slogan competition to win a healthy weekend break.
Sitting in the library, wading through an encyclopedia to answer some of the competition questions, I realized what a challenging and fun pastime I'd discovered. And one that was only as expensive as I wanted it to be.
Within six months of discovering this new pastime, I won a family holiday in Devon, a TV, video recorder and lots of welcome runners-up prizes like bottles of wine, spirits, leather handbag, a watch, camera and shopping vouchers. Then came a worrying time followed by an exciting ten days.
A prize crossword in a high street chain store caught my eye. Completed, I sent it on its way and forgot all about it. Three weeks later the postman brought me a long white envelope.
Wandering round the high street stores I discovered a competition in a free magazine in a bank to win one of 25 pair of trainers and an entry form in a men's clothing store.
Thrilled was an understatement, when a store manager phoned to say I'd won first prize in their free to enter contest. A new wardrobe of clothes. My kids were delighted. Hubby and I took them to the store.
"Congratulations... Paco Chicano T-Shirts," I read, "you've won a small gift voucher."
"Do you remember entering a competition in your local supermarket recently?"
All these "compers" had one thing in common - they won prizes. Cars. Holidays. Landscaped gardens. Entertainment systems. Computers, toys and games for their kids. Luxury kitchens. Even a house. You name it. They won it.
Although unsuccessful at finding new employment, despite scouring job advertisements and completing application forms, my new pastime of "comping" was keeping my brain active as well as changing our shopping and eating habits.
Your thigh muscles are seconds away from snapping like old knicker elastic. You remember the tiny tissue that you blew your nose on yesterday--the one that's in your handbag, which you cannot unzip because you only have one free hand. So you take your hand off the door and scrabble about in your bag until you find a ball of paper that would barely cover a gnat's arse. You smooth it out and fluff it up, but it is still only slightly larger than your thumbnail. At this point someone pushes open the door because you've taken your hand away to open your bag. The door hits your handbag, which thumps you in the chest and you and your bag topple backward against the toilet cistern--which is disconcertingly wet.
"Just remember I need the wrapper!"
And a new job? Well I gave up job hunting! You see, I remembered a childhood ambition to write a book - when I had the time - and now I had the time and the subject - how to Win Your Fortune in Prizes. And the rest, as they say, is history!
Avoiding expensive "qualifiers", it was easy to switch buying habits. For instance, instead of your normal brand of soap powder Nike Free Run Women, you simply bought the brand which was running a competition. You kept your till receipt and enclosed it with your entry as proof of purchase or "qualifier" as it was known.
Those competitions where you were asked to complete a tiebreaker sentence, such as:
I was speechless! He said a confirmation letter was in the post. An agonizing "have I dreamed it or not" weekend followed until a long white envelope arrived on Monday. It was true - I'd won a car! And all for identifying eight products and writing a slogan "In 10 words or less".
It was fun spending the gift voucher, after writing a thank you note to the competition promoter, I wondered if my win was a fluke! I decided to find out...
I understand that feeling only too well. It happened to me some years ago. As if that wasn't enough, my husband was also made redundant at the same time.
The competition tasks were varied, challenging and fun as family general knowledge improved by leaps and bounds. The reference library became a second home.
Having never noticed competitions before it was like going on a treasure hunt. Sherlock Holmes would have been proud of me! An entry form collar on a bottle of wine. A prize draw on a bookmark in the local bookshop. Instead of bags of shopping I came back laden with entry forms, all shapes and sizes.
Still on cloud nine, the next morning I answered the phone to a man who quizzed:
This was followed, a few days later, by a fantastic sur-prize - a family holiday for four to Miami, Florida, including hotel, flights, car hire AND tickets for an air boat ride in The Everglades. Wow!
On Christmas eve my daughter was rushed to hospital with suspected appendicitis. Whilst in the hospital, we watched Del Boy and Rodney from "Only Fools and Horses" in The Everglades and wished we too, could take an airboat ride just like Del and Rodney.
Ahhhh, relief. More relief. But then your thighs begin to shake, not helped by the fact that your left arm is stretched to its fullest extent trying to keep the door shut. You'd love to sit down but you didn't have time to wipe the seat or lay toilet paper down, so you hold 'The Position' as a quake that would register an eight on the Richter scale travels through your aching thighs. To take your mind off the pain, you reach for what you now discover is an empty toilet paper dispenser. In your mind, you can hear your mother's voice saying: "Darling Air Jordan Retro III 3, if you'd cleaned the seat first, you would have KNOWN there was no toilet paper!"
At that moment I realized there wasn't a catch. Ordinary people like you and me could, and did, win competition prizes.
A few weeks later, returning late at night from an interview, I opened an interesting looking letter. Tiredness disappeared as I read:
A simple shopping expedition to buy new clothes can become a daunting experience when you've lost your income through redundancy.
Normally, I'd read an article and forget it. But with teenage daughter needing new trainers and time on my hands, apart from seemingly endless job hunting, what had I to lose?
Quickly discovering that prize draws were free to enter, all it cost was a postcard and stamp and not even that when you were allowed to drop your entry form into the free prize in-store posting box.
"Well", he continued, "you've won a brand new car!"
Then a newspaper article changed my life...