International Freebies & Blog Contests

Is there any better way to start May’s posting other than with bragging? I don’t think so!
Ladies and gentlemen, please find below the *list* of prizes I won during the past 4 months.

February:
- I won a SanDisk Sansa m240 1 GB MP3 Player from Bush Mackel back in February, but I haven’t received it yet!

March:
- T-shirt and flash drive from Ask The Admin - well received!
- 125×125 banner ad on Blog Badly - received.
- A box of Ronzoni from The Domestic Diva - not received yet.
- I won a few prizes from the General Marketing blog:
* 40 Wiki Pages - received one only. I don’t understand how these work, nor do I really know their value.
* Regular link @ Blogoxide.com - nobody contacted me about this, I tried looking for my link in the directory but I didn’t find it.
* 468×60 Banner Ad on GeneralMarketingBlog.com - received.
* 125×125 Banner Ad on the TechTreak - received.
* Blogroll link on MyPPCadvertising - received.
* Blogroll link on Mr Javo Blog - received.
* 625 Entrecard Credits - received.

April:
- The Book of Air And Shadows from Shakespeare Geek - received.
- A hosting package from Contestu - received.
- TaxCut software from Credit Withdrawal - received.
- A two-books set, “Green This: Greening Your Cleaning”, and “Growing Up Green” from FriedOkra - received.

May:
- 1000 Entrecard credits from Moneybites - received.

After doing the maths, I got to the rough estimation of $1000! I won $1000 worth of prizes through this blog, in about 7 months. I only counted cash and physical prizes, and excluded reviews, banners and links. Not bad, huh!

I recently won a Bop-A-Lots DVD at Momsational, and while I was exchanging emails with Erika to claim my prize, it turned out that I am not eligible for it. They have a rule about the winners being legal US residents [Open to legal residents of the United States 18 years of age and older"], while that’s not my case. Now, I am not a US legal resident -I live in an exotic kingdom by the sea, far far away [poetic, huh? :)]-, but I somehow have a second home in the US. So I usually have my prizes shipped there, because I am used to contests with the condition of “US shipping addresses only“-which I have- to obviously avoid high shipping costs.

I never pretended to be a US legal resident -this blog would be enough of a hint, I suppose-. I even ask for my prize “to be shipped to…”, and never say “I received my prize”, but “my prize was safely received”. So I felt like if I were misleading others, or like cheating. I felt like if I had violated the rules of all the contests I won prizes at, so I got back to each one of them to ask if I were eligible for what I won or not [thank you for opening my eyes, Erika :)].

1) BAYB contest: I won a review, so there are no residency issues here.
2) Clutter Control Freak’s creativity contest: I told Eva back then that I was not from the US and would just have my prize shipped to someone, which was done. I just double-checked anyways and they didn’t have any rules for their contest [I have no idea why CCF's links never work on my blog].
3) Dad Balance contest: I won the traditions book -that was safely received-, but I just realized this blog belongs to the same network of Momsational, so the same rules apply. I am waiting for Derek’s answer about this.
4) Pj Mommy contest: I looked everywhere around, and I didn’t see any rules. I’ll still write to her for my own peace of mind.
5) Goji Capital contest: They said in their blog entry that their contest was open worldwide. Cool contest!
6) SEOlogs MBL contest: Their contest pages disappeared, but I won a hosting package. That’s a worldwide prize by default. Or not?
7) Mamanista contest: I looked everywhere for any rules, but I found none. However, Mamanista replied to my email promptly to assure me that I hadn’t violated any rules at her contest. Phew!
8) JoeTech’s contest: Joe didn’t have any rules either, and the prize was cash via PayPal anyways, but I’ll still double check with him.
9) The Domestic Diva’s contest: No rules here either, but I still emailed the Diva about this, you never know.

I guess that’s pretty much it! Next time I enter a contest I’ll make sure to ask if they require legal US residency or just a US shipping address.
And if you are running a contest on you blog, please underline any rules you might have.

I’ve always been told to be very lucky, and these winnings keep coming to prove the “rumors”. ;)
This time I won in the Kodak contest. The Domestic Diva is mailing me the $50 gift certificate tomorrow.

They have some wonderful cameras and clutches at Kodak’s, but to my disappointment, this gift certificate does not cover such purchases. I’ll see what I can get later.

I just received an email from JoeTech.com that read: “Congrats. Out of 549 entries to my contest you won.”

What?! I won *again*? Cooool! :D
This time, I won cold hard cash, $100, that was immediately sent to my PayPal.

Joe announced the result of his contest on both JoeTech.com and LinkBaitMe.com.
He succeeded in making it to top 10 in MBL’s contest, so he considers himself a winner too.

Today, I received an email from Mamanista to let me know that I won a $100 gift certificate from Natural Pod. Yay! I am one lucky girl!

I particularly love this Auris Stir Xylophone, the square mini bag beaded flower and Grandpa’s Yo-yo. I guess I know what I’ll choose at Natural Pod. :)