The lottery craze among the people here baffles me.Almost everyone buys a national lottery and Euromillions lottery ticket without fail every weekend and so many of them wake up depressed on Sunday because they did not win despite decades of trying.Apparently because they play the same numbers which is often their loved ones' birthdate and month or year,they hope the formula should work eventually.I still can't comprehend this mass mentality of spending hundreds of pounds over a lifetime to buy tickets and win almost never .
The lottery rebel in me got lucky for the first time when I entered a competition for a magazine online for winning a pair of shoes.My work-mate had brought in a bunch of fashion and gossip magazines to share and bored at work,I emailed the magazine with my shoe size and address and forgot about it until a week later I got a parcel delivered for me - hot blue satin stillettoes.Not really a tall girl's need but nevertheless,my colleague did'nt seem exactly happy for me when I told her it was her borrowed magazine that bought me those shoes.Slowly,I started browsing various fashion and lifestyle magazines online in the evenings in my free time to see what kinda goodies they had in offer and I did see that there were so so many.I decided to try my luck and started entering the competitions online-all you had to do was to email them so my template was ready, or you'd had to fill in an application form online for which the autofill function on my laptop was useful.
At first,I got a mini carton of chick - lits - confusing because I am also on the reader panel of another magazine where they send you books and you send them a review. But apparently this time,I had won those books - not the best read though,nevertheless,that motivated me to continue my new craze of ' comping' as its called .I had nothing to lose so I kept browsing gossip magazines,food magazines,gardening magazines,home decoration magazines etc and there's a massive variety of them - weekly,monthly,bi-monthly and so on.I'd spend maybe half an hour comping online every other day (so now my friends know why I joined facebook only recently!).
Slowly,I started winning small goodies - mostly beauty products like perfume,shampoo etc and unwanted cosmetics like anti-ageing creams,tanning lotions etc.I won a Sony digital radio alarm which is one of my favourites and winning just gets so addictive-it was like a constructive way of spending time online because I can't be bothered playing computer games or window shopping online.I thought I was the luckiest girl on the planet when I won a designer blue handbag ,but when it arrived ,it was so hedious that I could not imagine gifting it to others-a primark bag was cuter.I moaned on about winning disappointing stuff till my good friend Katja advised me to sell it on ebay because that bag was at a retail price of a hundred quid.I was guided by her how to post a listing online,my digicam was broken at that time so my friend Serge took photos on his mobile of the blue bag and blue stilletoes I had not even worn for over a year,and I created a paypal account and posted my bag and shoes for sale together as an ideal combination.
The very next day people started bidding which caught me totally by surprise,since then I've sold old clothes,used shoes,other stuff I'd win and not use,I guess it got addictive once you see the benefit of the money being deposited in your bank account with a mere click.All the more believable that shopping on ebay is not only convenient for people,its also very addictive and competitive as they want the best bargain online .You'd wonder how people can possibly pay for used stuff,but then its clear that its like shopping for used goods at an online charity shop.Winning branded goodies and selling them on ebay is the best combination for making profit I've had even before starting my own 'BollyFood' authentic indian cookery classes the next year.
Some people say I'm plain lucky but I'd like to quote Andy Murray 's recent saying ''The harder I work, the luckier I get '' . Obviously comping is not as easy as buying a lottery ticket .It takes dedication,concentration and motivation.And the only reason I get lucky occassionally is because all perfume,cosmetic,electronic companies etc have lots of products to promote as a part of their marketing and advertising budget via popular magazines which serve as the style bible of the women.Only magazine readers would apply to win such stuff as it would be foolish for example for a company to give away 100 tubes of the latest handcream launched at a store,so they rather market and promote it online and in the magazine where they have a larger audience -and it seems to work ! Pray I win an all expenses paid holiday to a sunny island soon .
