Newbie feeling confused

kelina22

Hello
I have been made to go on maternity leave early so needed something to keep me busy so have been entering competitions for a couple of weeks. I have just found this forum and think its fantastic. I read the guide but am still confused on where to start. Do I start on the threads at the bottom of the pain competition page? Or do I go into one of the other sections?
Sorry if that's doesn't make sense. Be gentle with me, baby brain is not my friend right now and I keep getting confused easily.
Thank you
Kelly

CheCazzo

Hello and welcome. Everyone finds their own way of doing it and I think when I first started I began on the actual day that it was and did everything I wanted to from that day. Same the next. I quickly got up to date so I started working from the back in chunks of ten pages or so doing comps that were still 'in date'. In retrospect this was probably not the best way but it worked for me and I still work backwards going towards the latest post - if that makes sense which it might not. No baby brain to blame - menopausal fug instead! Good luck whatever you decide to do.

kelina22

Thank you, its all a bit daunting when you first come on here. I have started at the top and am working my way down. Just hoping I can keep track and not get too muddled. Hoping to win something soon, I have been entering about 100 a day using other sites but not heard anything yet, probably being too optimistic. :rotfl:
Kelly

slbhill

Just make sure you use the "tick" button once you've entered, then you can see from the listings which ones you've already entered. I quite often find that when i read the post I'm not interested after all - if that happens you can use the "cross" button so that you don't forget and go back to that one.
You do know baby brain is permanent, don't you? Now what was I saying again...
Good luck with both the comps and the baby!

weeowens

Lots of advice here: NEW COMPERS PLEASE READ - Competition Board - useful links especially:

40 Comping Tips




Comping Guide - Getting Started & Other FAQs

weeowens

Personally I use a mix of these two ways to sort the board:

Today's most popular


Standard View

I then just work through the pages entering any that catch my eye.After entering for the time that I have it is more a an exercise in spotting threads that do not have a green tick on.I tend not to use the red cross very often.

I mainly use Standard View but the other is good for sifting the biggies to the top.

kelina22

Haha thank you, I have a two year old but kind of started getting my brain back but its gone again! Thank you, I have luckily started using the tick boxes from the start. I only enter competitions that interest me as I don't know what I would do with some of the stuff I see, do you do the same?
Kelly

weeowens

I would also say to hold off entering newly posted comps for a few hours at least.

That gives time for any errors re dupes or wrong answers to be flagged up.

Good luck.

mjm3346

I'd have a shot at this which closes soon

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/5056605

weeowens

kelina22 wrote: »

I have been entering about 100 a day using other sites . :rotfl:
Kelly

Hi,I would just be careful re using multiple sites or you'll not to be aware of duplicating any that you have done via the other sites & then via here.

My advice would be find a site that you can work with & stick with that.Naturally that will be MSE. :-)

Some do use multiple sites but I cannot see the reason why as this site has probably more comps that any other plus lots of help re answers etc.

sleepyjones

Hey there, welcome, Hoping you win some lovely baby goodies in the next few months .

For a newbie I would stick to the "Competition Time"
(http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/forumdisplay.php?f=72 ... at the bottom of that page)
forum, there are some sub-forums for regular competitions and Postal/Phone competitions, but I would ignore them until you've got a bit more of a hang of everything, can be a bit overwhelming trying to do everything at once. You've also got this forum (Compers Chat, which can be worthwhile to have a look through as there's a lot of forum / comp chat going on in here) ... and then there's the "I won, I won" forum, which is good for some motivation seeing that people on here are actually winning. I would pretty much ignore everything else

Competition posts will be posted with a title like :
E: 12/10 Win a blah de blah (FB / TW / RC / Gleam)

E: 12/10 represents when the competition closes, ie Ends : 12 October
Then there'll be a bit of a description of what the prize is.
And then the last bit explains what type of Competition it is, usually in these formats :
FB - Facebook (it's a Facebook competition)
Some will go into more detail, ie :
FB L - Fabebook Like (You have to like a page or post on Facebook to enter)
FB S - Facebook Share (You have to share a post or page)
FB C - Facebook Comment (You have to comment on a post)

But you can then mix that up by having :
FB L&S (Facebook Like and Share), FB L&C (Like and comment) etc

TW - Twitter comp, generally it's a follow and retweet
RC - Rafflecopter. This is a separate wee program thing that some comps use which can use a variation of FB, TW, Comments on blogs etc
Gleam is pretty much the same as RC.

If you're looking at the competition time there are filter options at the top of the the list of posts, you can click the arrows on these to sort by newest posted or by name (Which is why we use the E: 12/10 format as a post title, it means you can sort it by the title and all the posts ending on the same day will appear together).
So, If I were you I would click the wee arrow next to "Title" and then click through the pages until you find all the competitions ending the next day (so if it was tonight, I would go through until I found the ones beginning with E: 02/10 (ending tomorrow)).
If you do that for a while you'll be able to keep on top of all the comps ending soon (and should win a prize sooner, since your not entering comps right now that don't end for a month).
Eventually you'll get on top of it and then you can start entering future comps as they get posted.

When you open a competition post at the bottom right of the post there's a wee red X and a green Tick. If you enter the competition click the wee green tick, this tick will then show on the listing page so you will always know that you have already entered that competition, alternatively if it's something you don't want to enter, click the red X ... this will also show on the listing so you know not to bother opening that one up again. You can also click "Thanks" if you want to Thank the poster for posting the competition.

I think that'll do for now, this is probably all covered in the new to comping threads, but I didn't read them

Good luck