Okay, so you twisted my arm and told me you wanted to see my wins list for 2010 so here it is. I has been a good sweeping year and while I didn’t win the illustrious iPad I wanted I did get to buy one by selling two of my wins so I was free after all.
What did I love winning the most?
This year and forever – Experiences – tickets, trips, events, because they stay with me forever.
This past year was quite busy for me. This site has grown, my secret site has grown and I started the Sweeties Freebies site. While I do enter sweepstakes I think I spend much more time posting them these days than entering so much.
After reading my list you should be able to see that it is definitely possible to win a fair amount of prizes entering much less than you thought. I don’t enter hundreds of sweepstakes a day and I still win.
I enter from 10 to 30 sweepstakes a day and win on a regular basis and sometimes even skip days.
What is my secret? FOCUS, FOCUS, and FOCUS some more
I have said this numerous times:
It’s not the QUANTITY of sweepstakes that you enter but the QUALITY of sweepstakes that you enter.
Many of my prize wins came from local sweepstakes I posted on the secret site. This is why the site works so well. You can win more by focusing on local sweepstakes that have much better odds rather than entering hundreds of sweepstakes that are open to the entire country all day. Whether you get the locals from the secret site or you find them on your own that should be your goal.
Work smarter, not harder!
There are hundreds of sweepstakes sites out there and now the mom blogging population is getting in on the craze and starting to post all of my Sweeties Picks on their site. That means your competition for winning from national, open to all of the US, sweepstakes has probably doubled over the last year. This should give you even more of a reason to find and enter local sweepstakes.
As a reminder, a local sweepstakes is one that is open to just your state or maybe a handful of states.
Tweet to Win
Another winnable option is entering Twitter only giveaways. This doesn’t mean Twitter contests that have another way to enter like through an entry form or sharing on Facebook. The winnable Twitter giveaways are ones with just that one option. The less ways to enter a sweepstakes, the better your chances of winning.
Twitter parties are also a great way to win. Do you know why? A lot of people don’t understand Twitter.
If you want to learn more about how to use Twitter check out these posts and ask the peeps in the chatroom. Many of them win daily from Twitter.
- How to use Twitter
- How to use Tweet Chat to participate in a Twitter Party
- How to use Tweet Grid to participate in a Twitter Party
- A List of Ongoing Twitter parties
Tracking and Recording your Wins
Recording your wins is a great way to see how you are doing and find out exactly where your wins are coming from so you can focus (there’s that word again) on the best sweepstakes to enter.
It is also good because you can go back to your wins list and see what you have won to encourage yourself to keep going. We often forget what we win and this is a great reminder.
I record information like where I won the prize, time of day if it is an instant win game, date won, prize received or not, breakdown by month, etc. My spreadsheet is free to download. Read more here
Here are some of the prizes our family won in 2010:
I am not posting all of the small $5 and $10 gift cards, things like coupons for free candy or gum and other miscellaneous prizes like a candle or a t-shirt or ball or even some of the larger items like headphones, etc, just items over $50. The SS means they were sweepstakes here on the main site and SSS means sweepstakes on the Secret site.
- $250 Visa gift card (SS)
- $50 Dave and Buster gift cards (SSS)
- Papa John’s medium 1-topping pizza and 2 20oz. servings of Coke Zero (5 times) MyCokeRewards (SS)
- Blackberry 9700 (one for me and one for my sister-in-law) (SS)
- Four tickets to the Mary Poppins play, a Vera Bradley duffle bag and show merchandise ($900) (SSS)
- Four $50 Visa cash cards (different than above) (SS)
- $50 Marshalls gift card (SSS)
- 2 theater ticket to the Johnny Baseball the musical ($150) (SSS)
- Trip for 2 to Arizona to the Nextel cup race with a stay at the Fours Seasons Resort (where I have my first Sweeties meetup, yet another great experience I couldn’t pay for) ($4,500) (SSS)
- Two tickets to any NFL game ($150) (SSS – Text)
- Two Connecticut Art Trail museum passes ($50) We really enjoyed using these as they were our first real museum experience (SSS)
- iPod Touch (SSS)
- $50 cash (SSS)
- $100 Home Depot gift card (SS – IWG)
- $1,800 Prada handbag (which I sold on eBay and bought a new recliner!) (SS)
- Football grill, table, chairs, twice (SSS)
- Two tickets to the Grand Tasting in NYC for the Food Network Wine & Food Festival, another thing we really loved this year ($300) (SSS)
- $100 Visa gift card (SS)
- Garminfone for T-Mobile (gave to oldest son) (Facebook)
- $1,000 cash (SS)
- Longboard skateboard from Best Buy in my local store ($100)
- Sketchers courtesy of Dr. Oz which I am loving
- 2 tickets to the 2010 New York Chocolate Show (SSS)
- Corona Summer Beach Kit: Weber Smokey Joe Gold grill + $90 gift cert (I am giving the gift certificate away to one lucky Sweeties Freebies reader soon) (SSS)
- Trip to BCS Game in Arizona January 2011 for 4 for my youngest son (thanks to the readers of this site voting for him, much appreciated, our only contest of the year) ($7,500) (Facebook Contest)
- $400 gift cards to a local electronics store (SSS)
- Dell Streak (which I sold along with my iPod Touch to buy the iPad I wanted) ($500) (SS – Twitter)
- PlayStation Eye camera, 2 PlayStation Move motion controllers, and EA Sports Active ($240) (SS – IWG)
- $40 Chilis gift cards (SS)
- $1,000 cash (SS)
- Four tickets to see the Rockettes in NYC, yet another fab win I will always treasure ($400) (SSS)
- $30 Office Depot gift card (SS)
Grand Total approximately $23,000 – yes, it was a good year
Share your wins with me. I would love to hear about them. Just leave a comment below.
And let me know how I can help you win more in 2011!
WOW that is amazing
AWESOME WINS! I won a cruise to Bahamas (SSS), $1000 from the Circle Sweep, the Corona Summer Beach Kit: Weber Smokey Joe Gold grill + $90 gift cert, (SSS) PlayStation Eye camera, 2 PlayStation Move motion controllers, and EA Sports Active, $50 from Frigidaire, Microsoft 2010 and a Sony Ericsson Camera Phone from Reader’s Digest. I am a member of the SSS and wonder how we could get more sweepstakes for Utah. I have Google Alerts on but there never seems to be any. I will have to try what you suggested above. Congrats again!
Tiffiny, if you will ask that question on the secret site under sweepstakes chat or email me I will answer your question.
Oh, and congrats on your fab wins 🙂
Sweetie, If you could answer the same question for my state, I would REALLY appreciate it. I will e-mail you. Thanks!!!
Okay I will!
Sweetie – “Twitter parties are also a great way to win. Do you know why? A lot of people don’t understand Twitter.”
LMAO, yes this applies directly to me; thanks to Sweet, Sweetie, Lex, and Manda for trying to explain Twitter to me [over and over] but …. I still don’t get it. :o( Yes, I do remember not so fondly my first (of 2) Twitter parties lol. The grid, the @s, the #s, the disappearing questions/comments before I even had a chance to read them … ahhh!
Sweetie those really are some AMAZING wins which you truly do deserve for all you share with us – thanks and Happy New Year! Lets win some more!
I agree with not understanding Twitter, I’m a newbie and get so confused with all those symbols and how everything works. CrypicMama from SSS has been trying to help me out too. Hopefully, I’ll get it soon.
Great year for sure! Without going into detail, I think I won around $8000 this year. Big wins were the 2,500 from PCH sayandwin and the $2,000 Simmons mattress, also a twitter win. A Dell touch, on twitter, a 300 apple gc from spaweek on twitter, a $350 netbook, several flip cameras, a pair of $100 headphones and a variety of hotel stays, about 15 days in total, all without airfare. I focused on twitter, FB and prizes I covet, namely electronics and hotel stays. I won a lot of giftcards in the 25 to 50$ range from sweeps and IWG and I only entered a handful of blog contests, I find them too time consuming for the most part. I am considering joining your secret site soon as I believe the locals have better odds. I found 2010 to be a harder year for sweeps and IWG, I think more people are playing IMHO. Good luck everyone in 2011!!
Congrats on the great wins! Question is.. how do you like the Dell Touch? I ordered one this week,waiting on it’s arrival!!
I was planning on selling it on ebay or craigslist but haven’t gotten around to it yet.
I think that’s a great year I just started in sept and I won two 50 dollar gift cards and a 60 dollar gift card and a handful of ten dollar gift cards. the dove gift set worth 20 bucks still have not received it and a 20 dollar i tunes from tyson. My spouse won a set of movie tickets to mega mind and 4 intel swetashirts. no big wins yet but getting very organized thanks to sweeties info just download the sheet to organize and track wins. so I think 2011 is going to be a really great!
congrats to all and thank you sweetie and I don’t think people mean to get nasty I think it just can be very frustrating when you really need a win as opposed to want it..Thank you for the things you do we really do appreciate it even if we have a bad day now and then. Jari
I forgot to add this to my previous rambling. I only started sweeping again in early Oct. of this year after a pretty long hiatus. Here are my wins for 2010 (not in order of win date):
•[2] $100 PathMark GC (SSS)
•[3] Halls Cough Drops (SS)
•[3] Toaster Struedel (SS)
•Playstation Move Package from MCR ARV $300 (SS)
•$[2] 25 GC from AT&T (SSS)
•$1000 AMEX GC from Advil (SSS) – best win b/c helped us through a hard time
•3-5 hours with a personal shopper/assistant from Advil ARV $300 (SSS)
•$10 Cabela GC from Frito Lay (SS)
•2 tickets Giants game ARV $800 (SSS)
•2 movie tickets from Rice Krispies (SS)
•2 movie tickets from Comcast (SS)
•Head Phonies from Comcast ARV $22 (SS)
•Yogi Bear Movie Tickets from Tyson (SS)
•$50 Amazon GC from Verizon IWG (SS)
•Wilson Junior Tennis Set ARV $75 (SS)
•$30 GC from Office Depot (SS)
•4 tickets to Radio City Christmas Spectacular ARV $400 (SSS)
•Bath/Body Set from Allure Magazine ARV $12.50 (SS)
•Child’s toy (will not know type until I get package) from Hasbro and Cartoon Network ARV $30 (SS)
•$25 KarmaLoop GC from UPromise IWG (SS)
•$25 Visa GC from AllState IWG on FaceBook (SS)
•$30 Toys R Us GC from Santa Text & Win Toys R US IWG on FaceBook (SS)
•Playstation Move Package from Coke and 7Eleven ARV $150 (SSS)
And about 2 more $25 Visa GCs from somewhere I can’t remember!
You had a great year! I did just over $31,000 this year! That’s more than I would have made take home after taxes while teaching! I appreciate all the sweeps you post here and on SSS and I wish you another lucky year!
Holy wow that’s amazing!!! Congrats 🙂
That’s amazing! How does that work out when you file for taxes? I’m curious because I’m nervous about winning too much, though I didn’t come anywhere near as much as you did. 🙂
All of it. You are supposed to claim the whole lot.
I did read your article about claiming your winnings on your taxes, I just wondered if you end up owing a big chunk and if so, do you save up all year to pay or do most of the really big prizes come with cash to pay taxes?
My accountant has me bring in (if bigger wins) the paperwork and we file that with the IRS every 3 months. This way you don’t wind up paying a large sum come tax day. I hope this helps.
I only just started entering sweeps in late October and joined SSS in November. I haven’t started a spreadsheet yet, but will for the new year (wishful thinking that I will win a lot more than I did in 2010). If I had to guestimate, my wins probably top out at around $100-150. A large bag of popcorn fish from SeaPak (entered through their Facebook page); $25 See’s Candies gift card (SSS); six bags of Halls; Commemorative bottle of Sparking Grape Juice (SS, not received yet); full size bottles of Gingerbread Girl shower gel and lotion from Philosophy IWG. I’m sure I’m forgetting a couple of things, but as I mentioned all of my prizes were small ones. Besides the grape juice, I won a $50 gas card from 21st Century Insurance that I haven’t received yet. Plus, a $25 Visa gift card from the State Farm IWG (that I didn’t even know was coming) arrived on the first mail day of this year. The game kept telling me I wasn’t a winner. Anyway, these last few prizes will be the first ones on the 2011 spreadsheet.
Adelina, I just received my bottle of sparkling grape juice today. I didn’t even remember winning it! LOL!
BTW, congrats to all of you on your wins from 2010.
Wow those are awesome wins! I’ve been folloring sweeties sweeps and entering them since I was sixteen (two yrs ago) and have had some pretty sweet wins myself nothing big like y’all but I’m keeping my fingers crossed! Good Luck!
Amazing wins all! I have won quite a few small things this year- a few visa gift cards $50 or less, starbucks gcs, movie tickets, toaster struedels, halls, office max gc, some chocolate- things like that, but so far this past year nothing significant, and I’ve really ramped up my entering, lol…so hopefully this next year will bear something larger for me- but either way I enjoy the hobby, I love getting even my small wins (people are amazed at even those, lol) and I will likely just keep plugging and hope that one day I get that ONE BIG WIN:) Thanks to Sweetie and all of you, I love sharing my hobby with others and reading about the success of others and appreciate all the support and sharing I find here~
Congratulations on all your wins! I had a stupendous winning streak for a couple of weeks in November and December. First, I found out that I won a Vespa from a national sweeptakes then a week later I won Day One of Ellen DeGeneres 12 Days of Giveaways which included a B&N Nook Color, Xbox with Kinect, Google TV and Camera, HP Envy All-In-One Printer, Nikon S80 digital camera, and an iHome charging system. the next day I won a Sharper Image Literati e-reader and several smaller wins kept coming in for the next few days. Several of these items are now winging their way to our son and his family as late Christmas gifts. What a roller coaster ride!
WoW! Congratulations on an amazing year! I have picked up sweeping again just recently (after getting discouraged last year). I am hoping to win somethings this year though. Thanks for all you do here on your website!
Congrats to you all!!! I haven’t had a moment to get mine altogether but I’ll post when I do. Thanks Sweetie for a FANTASTIC year!
I was more than happy to vote for your son — so glad he won!!!
I was a member of the SSS and let it lapse because the Fl sweepstakes were so sparse. Has it improved? I would join again if it did.
You did great, Wendy, considering you spend so much time running your sites! Ive been sweeping since August 2010 and Im still learning. Ive won a lot of smaller items through blog giveaways. Most of my “big” wins have been local wins (radio station wins) and photo contests. Nothing more than $300 value. This year Im going to focus more on one thing and go after it (like an all expense paid vacation). My big wins:
– $100 iTunes gift card (radio station)
– Pair of Jonsi sold out concert tickets ($60-$70 value radio station)
– Garden set ($300 value Welchs Harvest IWG)
– $100 Dining Gift card + Airline B1G1 Free Ticket ($100+ local bank sweep)
– $75 Gift card Colonial candle, $50 Gift card Birthday Express, $50 Gift card Oriental Trading, and $60 Gift card Disney Store (photo contest promoted by Upromise)
– Artificial tree and trimmings ($300 value Sams Club promoted photo contest)
– $50 Target gift card (Dr Oz giveaway)
– $200+ Amazon Gift cards (Not a sweep, but I consider it a win. Doing a project for Huggies as a member of their community.)
– Alien bluray box set ($80 value) My hubby’s first win and my brother won one as well.
Thats over $1K alone in prizes. I dont remember how I stumbled upon Sweeties Sweeps, but Im forever grateful. I warn you, Wendy, if I ever meet you in person I might have to give you a big ol’ kiss!
I just started sweeping at the end of Aug beginning of Sept. At first just playing a few games here and there at night before going to bed, about mid Sept I was one of the $500 Open My Safe winners and I was hooked full time! I totaled out a little over $4100 for the year and have won everything from $1000 Football Suite tickets with Bud Light VIP passes off the SSS all the way down to a coupon for a 12 pack of coke. I’ve won on IWG, daily, twitter, mail ins! The last few weeks of 2010 I went out with a bang.. $100 spa basket, $100 silk scarf, Barbara’s Bakery gift basket (loaded about $60+ in product), popcorn pack,heinz gift pack, $100 Marshalls/TJ Maxx GC, $25 AmEx, FYE Card, home mani/pedi unit, $20 Chili’s Card, Cholula Hot Sauce pack, box of party lite candles + more – all within the middle of Dec! I was winning 3-5 times a day on Twitter! I can honestly say I spent less than $50 on Christmas this year, between GC’s and prizes everyone was covered. I was also one of the lucky ones to win the BK Xbox Kinect Package and a week later the MCR PS3 Move Bundle.
Christmas morning I thought my sweeping had come to an end, I walked away to open gifts and came back to a virus that took over my entire desktop computer …only to have my laptop crashing constantly. While on my win streak in Dec I received a work from home job offer that was a once in a lifetime shot.. (I could keep on sweeping during the day and work doing what I love best, dispatching big rigs, what is better than that??!!) Thanks to all the great prizes I’ve won, which I might add I’ve shared most of with my Mother, my Mother bought me a new Dell Touch computer, so I can work my new job get back on my feet..and sweep! She knows how much I love my sweeping and I will sooner stay home to a twitter party than go out partying with my friends!!
Wow, great winning going on here! I have had some wins, nothing big yet, the biggest so far being $55 gc for the 55 beer facebook, and a $30 office depot card. I have only been sweeping for a few months and just joined the secret site a few days ago. I have won almost $150 in prizes and gc’s in just over 2 months! Thanks for this site sweetie, you are amazing!!!!
I love hearing all the wins, it keeps me motivated!!!
Hi, I just today got in the mail a $100.00 gift card from Land’s End! Thanks Sweeties Sweeps! I did not have much luck last year even though I entered sweeps all year long. How do I become a member of SSS? Thanks again
Arlinda
Congratulations Sweetie on your wins and Congratulations to everyone else who won prizes in 2010. I did not win anything major for 2010 & only won a few prizes, nothing like everyone else. My winnings for 2010 was around $150. My biggest win was a $25 Visa Card. Also won a lot of prizes for free food, t-shirts, and music downloads. It’s funny I don’t have an MP3 play or an iPod Touch. Have not won anything big, still waiting to win an iPad. Hopefully, my luck will be better this year. I am also getting more organized this year with my sweeping and will be downloading the chart to keep up with my wins. Also, like others I don’t understand Twitter parties and have read and watched videos and still can’t figure it out. Happy Sweeping.
I love to hear about all of the wins; it is very motivating. Anyhow, these are my wins for December:
1. grape juice from R.W.Knudsen-12/9
2. Playstation eye, move controller, and champions game from Coca-Cola/7-11
12/11
3. 25 Bonus Box Tops from 2 ways 2 win game-12/21
4. 1 free yr of credit monitoring from Quizzle-12/25
5. $10 amazon.com coupon-Toy Story 3 instant win game-12/27
Very excited about my wins because this is the most i have won in a month. Although not the huge wins i would like, but wins that have motivated me to keep going. Thanks Sweetie! Please continue to post the wins when u can! They are very encouraging and congrats to you for a great 2010 yr. I hope to have at least half of what u have accomplished for 2011. Thanks for all u do!!!
It’s a shame that I can’t get an answer
What was your question?
Wow….. nice list everyone, 2010 has been good for many of us. I won:
1)2010 Mazda Miata MX-5 – $25.750
2)All expenses paid trip to Florida – $6000.00 (taking this trip on 2/23/11)
3)$55 prepaid mastercard
4)$200 prepaid visa card
5)Ipod touch
6)Suite tickets to see Tyler Perry live show
7)$200 to a local mall
8)Lots of t-shirts and coupons for free products and movie tickets.
Let’s see what 2011 has to offer (been good so far to date).
hi guys i have hundreds of $5 cracker barrel gc’s for sale for $1 each separetly or in bulk .50 cents each please email me if interested [email protected]