Entering Giveaways – A Valid Source Of Income? I’m here today to answer that question.
I’ve been entering giveaways/competitions here in the UK for a good ten years or so now – and I wasn’t adverse to entering them before either, often encouraged by my father and grandmother. Giveaways and competitions are quite a bit different over here rather than the USA as we don’t have to pay tax on prize wins – which is quite lucky when you win something big!
Plenty of people have spoken about giveaways being a valid source with which to boost your income. I’m not so sure. Yes, it can definitely supplement your income. I managed to win £400 worth of saucepans and cookware just before we were moving into this house – that saved us plenty of ££ when we finally moved in. I’ve won an iPad which we had planned on buying anyway – so it is obvious to see that they can supplement your income in this way.
Boosting your income is different. The only way I would say that competitions and giveaways boost your income are if you win cash or you sell your wins. I’m not sure about the US – it seems like it may be deemed okay to sell on wins there – David from Young Adult Money posted about making money from entering giveaways – but here in the UK, it is frowned upon by the ‘comping’ community – there are some people who enter for everything and sell it all, their Ebay pages full of a complete mismatch of new and unsealed items.
I will admit I have sold the odd thing – a runners up prize that I don’t want or something we’ve had our use of (so sell it second hand) or something we just can’t get on with. I try not to do it too often though and only really enter for what I want or what I know those close to me would appreciate. I rarely find the time to sit there entering giveaways nowadays so I am very selective with what I enter – cash, vouchers, children’s prizes, wedding prizes – these are my main competitions of choice.
What do I think in conclusion?
Whilst cash wins and selling prizes can help you to boost your income, it isn’t a reliable income stream as you cannot ever be sure you will win that prize that you can then sell for £££. You would need to be entering hundreds of competitions a day to have any chance of winning enough cash or winning enough decent items to sell for a decent income.
If you are entering competitions to enrich your day to day life by entering for things you would love but can’t afford nor justify, then great. Competitions and giveaways are a great source for supplementing your income and treating yourself to items you probably couldn’t justify buying. So for those people that say entering giveaways really boost your income – I’d say no, they can’t. They can certainly supplement it and very occasionally boost it with a really good win – but overall, it just isn’t a reliable enough income stream.
