My winning streak! How I’ve won £300k in competitions – and you could, too
Brighton mum Di Coke has won endless competitions and been on more than 50 prize holidays. Do you fancy doing the same?
As we jetted to Spain on an all-expensespaid party weekend, I chatted to TV presenter Rylan Clark-Neal, who was joining us as part of the prize. ‘My mum loves entering competitions, too,’ he said, after learning the plane was full of enthusiastic ‘compers’. He went round asking us to name some of our most unusual wins and someone shouted, ‘a gravestone’.
That Majorca weekend in 2019 was one of my favourite wins because I was joined by 99 members of the Facebook group Lucky Learners, which I set up for keen ‘compers’ like me. We won the prize together and it was great to meet them all.
We come from all walks of life but we have one thing in common – we all know entering competitions can change your life. Over the past 20 years, I’ve won more than £300,000 worth of prizes – everything from holidays to cars, TVs and cash.
My passion for competitions started when I was a teenager and won two music festival tickets after filling in a form at HMV. Amazed at how easy it was, I started looking for more competitions to enter.
Back then, most were won by sending in a postcard, so I made sure mine stood out. My first holiday success was a trip to Ireland, which I won after sending a postcard in the shape of a shamrock.
As the internet grew, more competitions appeared on websites and I even won a car after writing a rhyme about washing machines.
I won by writing a rhyme about washing machines
I was soon entering competitions all the time and winning holidays to Iceland, Los Angeles, Japan and Florida. I always took friends as my plus-one until I met my now-husband, Rob, in 2004.
He was a bit baffled by my hobby at first but when I started winning us TVs, room makeovers, and tickets to his favourite sporting events, he soon saw the attraction!
When we got engaged two years later, it was on a holiday I’d won to San Sebastian and in 2007, I won a trip to the Brazilian Grand Prix, which became part of our honeymoon.
My favourite prizes are the ones you can’t buy, such as a signed Damien Hirst print, and the time I got to hand over the Man of the Match football trophy to Kyle Walker at the European championships in France.
When I was pregnant with my son, Ryland, who’s now 11, I gave up work as a graphic designer and started writing a blog about competitions and sharing the top tips I’d learned.
There was so much interest that having set up my website Superlucky, I then launched Lucky Learners, where members share competition details.
I enter around 400 competitions a week and spend two hours a day completing entries. I get such a buzz hearing about my Facebook members winning prizes too. One woman was able to go abroad for the first time using my tips. Another won a cash prize that paid for a master’s degree.
Around 97 per cent of people don’t enter the competitions advertised on products they buy. But if you become one of the three per cent who do make the effort, who knows? You might wake up to a phone call one day saying you’re a winner.
You really have nothing to lose and everything to gain!