Online Contests: Finding and Making A Junk Email Account For

Entering to win things online is sort of fun.  As you come across or look for the contest you just saw on TV, winnings can range from the usual things like cash, a car, a trip, hotel stay for several nights, shopping spree at that store of yours, free movies, free Amazon money... well, you name it, it's probably been put up for a give-a-way.

And some contests are easy to enter.

All you have to do is supply and or all of the following:  Your email address, name, address, and maybe some other details, and away you go.

And some contests are one time only, while others are enter every day for the next few months.

BE CAREFUL... the one time only contests can smite you from the drawing if you enter more than once.  You don't want that!

But then there are the contests that require a Facebook 'Like' or newsletter sign up.

I skip the Facebook required contests.  I have friends and family I care about and I do not want to expose them to these cretins.  (Yes, when you like something, that something has access to some select profile info of yours and your friends too.  Facebook is insidious that way.)

But everything else is pretty fair game.

Now admittedly, I have yet to win anything.  It's rare when I do win things.  But still, that does not stop me from entering.

For one, I use Google's Chrome. 

Why do I use Google Chrome to enter online contests?  It has an auto-fill mode that seriously helps fill out lots of different contest pages.  And if you've found a contest that allows you to enter daily, it's a huge boon for that.

Email Account Just for Contests!

Second, I create an email account specifically for junk like this.  For me, I created it under gmail, use it for my contests and other insidious marketing machines like real estate agents and such.  That way it doesn't clutter your real inbox.  Trust me.  I get a few hundred emails a day now at this junk account and I'm glad I get them there!

On, and one more thing:  I pretty much set my forwarding/filter options to dump all the email in the trash folder.

That's right, skip the inbox and land it right in trash.  In gmail, trash over 30 days old supposedly gets deleted.

So this becomes a win/win all around.  As long as you check your trash often, just in case they send you the winning notification.  But it's nice that when your trash becomes your defacto inbox, it will empty itself as time goes on.

And while you watch your inbox, you'll probably notice some pretty insidious email marketing campaigns.  Most will only send you an email letter every now and then.  Some will make sure to send something weekly.  Then there are those that send things daily or a few times a day, every day.  Just wow.
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In case you're wondering how I find these online contests, I tend to check out Contest Bee.  They do an awesome job collecting lists of contests to enter.  It's up to you which ones to pick.

HAVE FUN!

http://www.contestbee.com/

http://www.contestbee.com/sweepstakes-and-contests/car-giveaways/

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