It seems you really can make your own luck. Just ask Kim Searle.

The 50-year-old bookseller has won so many competitions that she has accumulated £100,000 worth of prizes – thanks to her fail-safe tactic of entering 100 competitions a day.

Mrs Searle, who runs an online book business with her husband, has won everything from holidays to Australia, Disneyland and Hawaii to flat screen TVs, games consoles, clothes and gadgets.

Won Furniture and Her Kitchen

She won most of her bedroom furniture and her kitchen is also full of her winnings – from the toaster and coffee maker to the cutlery she won 20 years ago.

Just this week she won a mop and bucket, a dustpan and brush and a set of hand luggage. Indeed she has had so much success she says she has become addicted to competitions.

She has even started entering contests with prizes she doesn’t want or need. The nappies she won were useless considering she doesn’t have any children and that petrol prize wouldn’t have done her diesel car much good.

She has netted so much that she and her husband Dave, 50, recently had to sell their cottage in Powys, Wales, to move to a bigger property with a garage for storing items such as their brand new giant fridge-freezer.

Mrs Searle has also started selling prizes on auction site eBay to free up storage space.

She said: ‘The house is still full of boxes and every time I open my cupboards they are brimming with new items still in their packaging.

‘I know it’s an addiction but I can’t help myself.’

Mrs Searle’s competition craze began in 1989 when she entered a local newspaper contest to win a microwave.
She said: ‘You had to come up with a slogan. At the time I was driving so I suggested “fast lane food”.’

This was easy in comparison to the competition which required entrants to write an original poem, and the one where she had to collect thousands of sweet wrappers.

Game Plan

These days Mrs Searle has follows a rigorous daily plan to ensure the best returns, which she claims tot up to at least £200 worth of goods a month.

Before lunchtime she scours the internet, magazines and grocery packets for competitions, entering as many as she can, and spends a couple of hours in the evening hunting for contests while she watches TV.

While most of the competitions she enters are free, she admits to spending around £150 a year on her habit.
Mrs Searle said: ‘I’m looking all the time, even when I’m on holiday.

‘I’ll be at a friend’s house and be asking, “Can I have that carton with the competition on the back?” It completely takes over your life and becomes part of your daily routine.

‘I get a thrill from finding the competitions, filling in the forms and looking forward to seeing if any prizes arrive each day.’
And who can blame her. This weekend she is celebrating her birthday on spa break with three friends.
And if you were wondering, she won that too.

Source: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2435734/Kim-Searle-enters-HUNDRED-contests-day-lands-100-000-haul-prizes.html
DailyMail, UK – 28 September 2013