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Enter sweepstakes offering smaller prizes. Many people enter contests giving away cash, cars, and trips, while passing on the ones with smaller prizes. Don't throw away your calendar at the end of the year! Calender pages make great sturdy envelopes. Take a regular envelope and open it completely to use as a template for the ones you will make. Hold the template to the paper you want to use for your envelope. Cut carefully around the edges, then fold it and glue it in the appropriate places. Calendar pages are just another variation on making your own envelopes. You can use sturdy magazine pages, flyers, construction paper or colored paper, wallpaper, shopping bags -- anything you can find that doesn't have words on it. If the envelope you make is a dark color or particularly busy and you're concerned that the addresses won't show, you can address the envelopes using white labels. Check with your local Copymax or Kinkos to see if they have a paper cutter available. Many of these types of places will let you go in and use their paper cutters and other equipment relatively inexpensively (or for free). The harder a sweepstakes is to enter, the less competition there will be. For example, if a sweepstakes requires that the qualifier and the address are written in block letters (all capitals), enter that one more often. Many people will skip over those kinds because block letters are harder to write. Use cereal boxes or boxed food items to make postcards. The cardboard is heavy, and it’s nice to be able to use a postcard that matches a current promotion. For example, use a Kellogg’s Frosted Flakes box to make postcards for a sweepstakes being sponsored by Kelloggs. If you usually use water to close your envelopes or to apply nonself-adhesive stamps, try a glue stick instead. It’s easy to use, and there are no spills or mess. Use a pair of pinking shears or craft scissors to add a unique edge to your heavy postcard entries. This can help your postcard stand out from all of the other plain ones. If a sweepstakes requires your Day Phone and you are uncomfortable about giving out your work number for nonrelated work business, you may put the phone number of a friend or neighbor. Just state the name of whose phone number it is on your entry. Enter sweepstakes more often if they require an odd-size paper or card. Again, the harder a sweepstakes is to enter, the less competition there will be. Have a stack of larger papers and cards handy that you can cut down to size. A lot of people will skip over these with intentions to enter them at a later time, but most won’t get a chance before the sweepstakes ends. All second chance sweepstakes are not created equal. It takes a lot more effort for the match-and-win or collect-and-win types than for the instant win types, therefore, more prizes may be available for those types. When entering second chance sweepstakes, evaluate how many entries you are going to send in by the type of game that was used. There are many grand prize winners whose method of attack is to enter every sweepstakes only once. Make sure you get at least one entry in for every sweepstakes that you are eligible to enter (for the prizes that you want). Be persistent--but don’t burn yourself out. It’s a lot better to enter sweepstakes throughout the year than to enter a whole bunch of sweepstakes for a few months and then not enter for another few months. Many sweepstakes are now asking for e-mail addresses along with your NAZ and Phone. If you don’t have an e-mail address, please state that on your entry. Don’t leave out any information just because it doesn’t apply to you at this moment--omissions can get you disqualified. If a sweepstakes has multiple ways to enter, be sure you enter at least once each way. Sometimes the sweepstakes will let you mail either a postcard or a 3x5. We suggest you enter a few times using both methods. If you prepare entries ahead of time, write the date due in the upper right-hand corner of the envelope. When it’s time to apply the postage, the stamp will cover your handwritten date. Use return addresses. It’s the only way the post office can return an entry to you. If you filled out multiple entries ahead of time and made an error addressing them, you will have a chance to fix the other entries before mailing them. Don’t mail entries too close to the deadline. Allow plenty of time for the post office to deliver your entries. There’s nothing more frustrating than receiving an entry back due to a closed PO Box. Always hand-print addresses for entries to sweepstakes with restrictions for one entry per person or per household. If you use a computer system for label generation, you may accidentally create more than one mailing label for the restricted sweepstakes, especially if the life of the sweepstakes is a considerable amount of time. You may end up sending in more than one entry, which can disqualify you for that particular sweepstakes. Stagger your entries throughout the life of the sweep-stakes. Many people flood the mail bags at the end of the sweepstakes, right before the deadline, trying to get in a few more entries before the sweepstakes ends. This means that your chances of getting picked from one of those last mailbags is greater. You have a much better chance of winning a sweepstakes if you enter throughout the life of the sweepstakes, getting your entries in as many mail bags as possible. Mail your entries on different days. Many people like to fill out sweepstakes entries on the weekends and mail them on Saturday or Monday. If you mail your entries on Tuesday through Thursday, you may have less competition for the mail bags. Be sure to use permanent ink or markers on the outside of envelopes. Smudged entries sometimes can be hard to read for the Post Office, and you may get your entry returned. Have the kids help. My kids like to help decorate envelopes, and my oldest likes to help by writing out 3x5 cards in advance. When a sweepstakes is open for children only, we have plenty of hand-decorated envelopes done by the children! Check stores that sell greeting cards for extra envelopes. Many stores that sell greeting cards return the cards to the manufacturer after a certain period of time, but they are not required to return the envelopes. You often can buy them at bulk prices or even get them for free, and there are an assortment of sizes and colors. Our favorite store for this is Longs Drug.

Remember to Send a Thank You Note! Whether your win is online or through snail mail, you should send the sponsors a letter or e-mail message thanking them for the prize you received. It only takes a few minutes to let the sponsors know that you appreciate them holding the promotion, and how much you appreciate the prize you won. Sponsors appreciate hearing from winners! If you like to decorate your envelopes, be sure to leave about an inch or so on the bottom of your envelope so the post office can apply the bar code legibly. If the scanner can't read the bar code, then your envelope could either be manually sorted, or have to have a label with a bar code applied, which could add an extra day or two to your delivery date. We usually leave the bottom 1.5 inches clear from any decorations, print, stickers, and so forth. If you have an unlisted phone number, please state so when you fill out your 3x5 or postcard. The judging agency will disqualify you if you do not provide a phone number when one is specified. If you let them know your phone number is unlisted, they should not pass it on any further. If you like the look of hand-decorated envelopes but don’t consider yourself to be artistic, you can buy hand-decorated envelopes from many people who do this as a business. Many of them also are online, so do a search using your favorite search engine. Go to the Customer Service desk at stores when looking for official forms or entry blanks. They are usually responsible for keeping entry blanks stocked at the displays and will have all of the promotions and sweepstakes forms available right there. This can save a lot of time, because you won’t have to search throughout an entire store. You also may get there before the store has had a chance to display the forms. Use the front of greeting cards for postcards and cut them to the appropriate size. They usually are blank on the other side, which then enables you to draw a line down the middle and address it like a regular postcard. These make interesting postcards and also save you money. Similar to using greeting cards, use photos for postcards, too. You can use those "out-of-focus" pictures or doubles if your developing store gives you a free set. It’s also a good use of those pictures in which you didn’t know the shutter was open and you took some silly picture such as your kitchen floor or car dashboard. Use different kinds of envelopes and different return address labels or stamps if you enter all of your family members in contests limited to one entry per person. If you mail all of your family’s entries on the same day and in the same type of envelope, judges may think you are inappropriately flooding the sweepstakes with many entries for just yourself. Remember that local contests are great! The area is limited, and there are less entries. Look for them in grocery stores, department stores, drug stores, gas stations, on local radio stations, and so forth. Enter the sweepstakes for which you are eligible that have restrictions for others. For example, if a sweepstakes is open to households with children under a certain age, we would enter that one more often (as long as we meet all of the requirements) than sweepstakes that are open to everyone. The odds decrease drastically. Postage and supplies are expensive. If you are on a budget, for example, one roll of stamps a month, choose your sweepstakes wisely. That brand new car might be nice, but if it’s the only prize offered in the sweepstakes, you might be better off entering the sweepstakes giving away a different grand prize with a few smaller prizes. Your chances of winning something would be greater. Use different size envelopes. Unless specified, use a mixture of different size envelopes for each sweepstakes. Again, you never know what’s going to catch a judge’s eye at a particular moment. Computer-generated labels are fine as long as the sweep-stakes doesn’t specify hand-addressed envelopes. Return labels are fine for all. Smaller wins make great Christmas or birthday presents. If a contest has a particularly uninviting grand prize and lots of smaller ones, we still send in a few entries. You can always decline the grand prize, and you’ll still have a chance to win the smaller prizes. Always have a stack of blank 3x5 cards or papers handy. Then when you find yourself with a few extra minutes (for example, waiting at the doctor’s or dentist’s office), you can fill out a few. Stationery can be expensive. If you don’t want to buy colored envelopes, use stickers or rubber stamps on the regular white envelopes to help them get the attention they deserve. Use different postage stamps. You have a lot of different stamps designs to choose from, and we usually have three or four different designs handy. Brightly colored fruit may catch a judge’s eye one day, while flags might catch a judge’s eye the next. Devise a method of organizing your entries. You can use an accordion folder with pockets labeled for each day of the month. As you fill out entries, slip them into the appropriate slot. Then when you are ready to mail some out, you can choose some entries for sweepstakes whose dates are farther out, and you can grab those that are due sooner. Of course, you’ll need one folder for each month of the year. Enter often right up to the deadline. Many sweep-stakers flood the bags right before the deadline. If you enter consistently throughout the life of the sweepstakes, your entries are in more mail bags, so you may have a better chance of getting chosen as the lucky winner. Write out entries in multiples. It’s a lot quicker to write out 10 entries for one sweepstakes than it is to write out one entry for 10 different sweepstakes. Code your entries for the different kinds of envelopes so you can keep track of what’s working well. For example, use your middle initial for white envelopes and your full middle name for colored envelopes. You could make a pretty elaborate system if you wanted to include neon, pastels, smaller sizes, #10's and so forth. When an affidavit is delivered to your house, you’ll know by how it was addressed exactly which kind of envelope was chosen. Use a mixture of white and colored envelopes. Span the range of pure white to neon colors. You never know what will catch the judges’ eyes at a particular moment.