I, like most people in this world, love free things.  Free in the sense that I don’t have to use money to purchase it.  However, I am more than happy to spend my time and efforts to earn it!  (Which, in the end, may or may not pay off.)  It’s funny how this idea of “free” works.  I mean, if you really think about it, the time I’m spending at this very moment on the Burt’s Bees site trying to win a free lip balm is appalling.  And the effort?  Just short of pathetic.  For the sake of this free item I am refreshing their page at least once a minute, sometimes five times in a row because they’re giving away 1000 free lip balms a day for 25 days, between the hours of 9 AM and 12 PM.  I rushed home from work when I realized that I’d be getting back right when it opened up, even turning on my computer as I walked so it’d be loaded and I’d just have to wait for the internet connection to register.

photo credit: burtsbees.com

Now of course, at first thought I figured I’d just have to catch them at 9 sharp and try to be one of the first 1000, but here I am, an hour later and they’re still “gearing up.”  So I guess they’ll open it up at an arbitrary time before 12.  I am fully prepared to wait until then so I don’t have to try this again tomorrow.  And try I will until I get so hopeless I don’t go for it anymore or the giveaway ends.  Amazing, isn’t it?  Why is it that for the satisfaction of winning this free little item, I’m willing to spend enough time and energy to earn enough money to buy dozens of them?  It truly is just a mentality thing.  There’s something so fulfilling in feeling like a winner and having this “prize” delivered to you, even if all you did was waste enough time sitting there, clicking to get your share.  It’s a great marketing tactic and I’m sure it has drawn a huge crowd, since the first 15 minutes of loading yielded either a blank page or just plain text with no images.  Obviously, there were a lot of other eager beavers too (haha, BEEvers).  I can’t even focus on writing this post right now because I keep going back to refresh the page.

Recently I’ve entered some other contests as well, but those were far easier because all you had to do was post a tweet and a blog post for entries, then it was randomly drawn.  Not too much of a time commitment, though with the blog entry, some thought and research was required for a semi-decent attempt.  Luckily, Alice is still a new site that people don’t really know about, so there weren’t that many people to go against and I had a very high chance of winning the Aquanotes and Pure Organics Lip Balm.  This week I’ve entered the contest to win a cleaning set that is environmentally friendly and apparently very effective too!  I’m not counting on this one just because there’s only one, whereas the other two they were giving away 15 each.

photo credit: thenaturalbeautyshop.co.uk

Well, at 10:45 or so, a good hour and 45 minutes into waiting, I finally got the form!  I happily filled it out and now a coupon will be coming my way in the next couple of weeks.  I’ll have to ask my mom to get it for me, but hey, s’all good.  Too bad when I asked Panda to fill one out it was already too late.  But hey, it’s only day 2 of their giveaway, so we’ve got until June 22 to make it!  Next time he’s on around this time I’ll be tracking it to see if I can score one through him as well.  😛  Can you believe I did all this for something worth about $3 retail value?  Panda’s also a huge fan of free things, so he often checks sites and his “sources” to see what good deals there are out there.  Between the two of us, we can get a lot of free things (and probably feel like life is so great)!

I think that free really is just a way to make you feel better about yourself.  Anyone can go work for their money and buy things, but when it’s given to you out of a select few items, that’s just cool.  The same reasoning explains why getting the perfect gift is so much more exciting than buying it for yourself.  You feel like you’ve gained something (even if that something may have been bought with your own money, like in shared accounts or with children who use your money anyway).  Winning prizes or getting exclusive deals may not always be worth the time commitment, but ultimately it’s often worth the payoff in quality of life improvement!  It makes you feel like a luckier person, which makes you feel near invincible.  At least, that’s how I feel and I’ll pay in time and energy!  Just goes to show what some people are willing to do in the name of free stuff!  Are you a sucker like me?