When I was a kid, it seemed like winning some sort of sweepstakes was a lot more common than it actually is. Many commercials convinced me that by simply eating my favorite breakfast cereal, I could be rewarded with a free trip to Disney World, tickets to a Jonas Brothers concert, or perhaps even a lifetime supply of something delicious. And while I, unfortunately, never was able to cash in on an unlimited supply of my favorite snack or a household essential, some lucky individuals out there were.
Reddit users who were winners of year or lifetime supplies of products have been sharing what their experiences were like, so we’ve gathered some of the most interesting responses down below. Keep reading to also find an interview with Frank Cazares, who once won a lifetime supply of toilet paper, and be sure to upvote the replies that make you thankful you never won a year's supply of ice cream!
This post may include affiliate links.
I won a year's worth of free pizza from a delicious take-and-bake pizza place near my house. I was given 104 coupons for a free large pizza (16") with up to five toppings. For the first month or so, I had some friends over, and we just drank and had fun with free pizza. By the time the fourth month hit (I'd used about six months of punches at that point), I started giving away pizzas to family, friends, and just about anyone else I could think of. It was a pretty sweet year for me. Playing the angel of free pizzas was a great feeling.
I won a years supply of Marmite. The jar should arrive tomorrow.
To learn more about what it's like to win a lifetime supply of a product, we reached out to Frank Cazares, who once won a lifetime supply of toilet paper, and he was kind enough to have a chat with Bored Panda. "I entered the Toilet Paper Wedding Dress Contest in 2014, in which we had to construct a wearable wedding dress made from toilet paper, glue, thread, and tape only!" he shared. "Out of several thousand entrees, I was a top ten finalist and won a lifetime supply of toilet paper. I was excited to win, and thought it was a funny and quirky, but useful prize!"
I once won a year of free groceries. They gave me 52 $100 dollar gift cards to use anyway I wanted.
I was single and ate and drank like a goddamn king that year. Nobody went hungry when I was around.
I got a Big Mac a week for a year... I usually got them and gave them to a homeless guy on the corner...
We were also curious about the process of how the company delivered the toilet paper to Frank. "I received a phone call several months after the contest from UPS asking if I could come to their local warehouse to pick up some toilet paper because there was too much to deliver," he told Bored Panda. "I arrived in my Mini Cooper, and out came the UPS man with two pallets of boxed toilet paper! I looked back and forth between my car and the pallet and had no idea how it was all going to fit! I ended up unboxing hundreds of rolls of TP and shoving them into every crevice of my Mini. It ended up taking several trips! After that, I would periodically receive several boxes by UPS for about another 4 years."
One of my friends won a $5,000 a week for life in the NY Lottery a few years back. It's actually only for 40 years, but that's plenty of time to save for retirement and live a long happy life. He's doing well because he isn't acting like a lotto winner, it's as if it was the social security he was receiving previously (he's disabled).
He still has his friends, too. It pretty much went as best as possible.
I know this homeless guy named Rob and I will sometimes give him a Timbit. Once I gave him a box of 10 and he offered me a year's supply of hugs. I haven't collected yet, but I think the offer is still on the table.
"I was surprised to get the first 2 pallets and after that, I carefully read the contest provisions," Frank went on to explain. "Turns out the supply was based on average toilet paper use and my life expectancy (I was the youngest contestant). Over the next 4 years, I received all that amount of TP!"
Frank also noted that he had to get creative when story the toilet paper. "I was in college at the time, and all the TP boxes became GREAT side tables and furniture in my apartment," he shared. "I had plenty of TP for myself, and I gave away a lot as While Elephant gifts."
Web developer here. I made a website for a local pizza chain. The owner paid me then asked for support. I gave him a price ($75/hr) and he suggested free pizza for life. I took it. I've enjoyed excellent quality free pizza about ten times since 2006. He's had me do about an hour's worth of maintenance. I just walk into one of his stores, order a pie and when they ask for payment I say "call Tom!" They do, they talk then they hand me the pizza. It's kind of cool actually.
Yeah, I won a year's supply of Kraft mac and cheese at Wrigley Field several years back. It was literally 365 boxes of mac and cheese delivered to my house several weeks later. We kept 50 boxes and gave the other 315 to our local soup kitchen. Who in the world eats 365 boxes of mac and cheese a year?
We also asked Frank if there is anything in particular he would love to win a lifetime supply of. "I'm a costume designer, and while I wouldn't mind getting another lifetime supply of TP, it would be great to get a lifetime supply of sequins, trims, and beautiful fabrics so that I can continue making fun and unique designs," he shared.
And thankfully, Frank's toilet paper winnings live in his memory as a positive experience. "The women who created and run the Toilet Paper Wedding dress contest each year, Laura Gawne and Susan Bradford, have been wonderful to me and the other contestants— supportive, organized, creative, and a lot of fun!"
If you'd like to learn more about Frank and check out some of his costume designs, be sure to visit his website right here.
Dominos Pizza.
It was about 5 years ago and I'm pretty sure the contest was rigged for us to win. It was a Christmas raffle type of thing held by a church group. A few weeks prior, I was in a really bad car accident. I was driving and hit a patch of ice and hit a tree. My younger brother was in the passenger seat and had a broken skull, eye socket, jaw, nose, cheek bone, etc. Had to be life-flighted and have major surgery (He survived and is fine now).
So then Christmas rolls around and our old church which we hadn't attended regularly in years tells us we won the pizza raffle. Basically we got a HUGE book of coupons but could only use one a week. So it was like a free large 1 topping every week. Which came in handy and was pretty sweet and a great gesture as well.
£40,000 per year for life on a £10 national lottery scratch card! It was that or £1m up front. I had just turned 21 at the time so my Dad made me take the annuity because I'd just spunk the £1m in a couple of years left to my own devices. Now it's good, it takes care of my mortgage every year so my salary is just for me and the family. We get a couple of nice holidays a year but don't live to excess.
27 yo now so I'm sure I'll see over £1m over the next 40/50/60 years
I won free toilet paper for a family for life, which is 62 rolls a month.
I give them to a homeless shelter.
I won a year's supply of gas. Lasted my jeep a whole two weeks.
In the mid 90's I won a free year of DSL internet from a Citibank promo that actually lasted for 3 years before they found out that they didn't cut off the connection. That was awesome.
I was one of the first 100 customers to a Dennys' restaurant a few years ago and won a year's worth of grand slams. The restaurant was a block from my house and on my way to school so often I'd just pick it up to go and bring it to class. It was awesome.
A new restaurant opened up down the block, and they gave free chicken wings for a year to the first 100 people in line. I went every week for 52 weeks. I tried every flavor and combination of flavors they had, and I still love chicken wings. They got their money back in beers sold I'm sure.
It does not get much better than good, plump chicken wings with some fiery sauce and a cold beer.
I won a year supply of heart worm medication for my cats. It was from a scratch off at the vet.
I won a year's worth of chocolate. I'm not a huge fan of chocolate; I'm more of a savory person myself. So, I was expecting my winnings to last well over a year. It ended up lasting less than a month. Everyone kept taking a few bars here and there, thinking I wouldn't notice since there was so much. By the time I actually went to get some for myself, there were two bars and a pack of hot chocolate mix left.
When my dad was a young ~~stallion~~ bull, he got drunk and sent Miller a letter suggesting they make square cans, to be different and make packaging more efficient.
They liked his idea, but tried it and said it wouldn't work. Sent him a year supply of a Miller beer of his choice!
Won a movie theatre pass for a year (me and a guest). It was awesome. Was at the movies at least 3x a week (nearly everyday during the hot summer).
Unless the theatre sells out that’s win win for the business…cuz you know your getting popcorn!
Won a years supply of dog food when I was 10 and tried to convince my mom that it was the perfect time to finally get a dog, as it must be a sign. We did not get a dog. I gave the vouchers to my neighbor.
Condoms!
Pops gave me one when I was 16, ended up lasting well over a year and a half!
A while back, I won $2,000 cash, an Xbox, and a year's supply of Hardee's burgers in a Burnout Revenge tournament. The free Hardee's came in the form of 52 vouchers for free burgers. I worked as a porter at a car dealership at the time, and there was a Hardee's right next door to the gas station where we would fill up the new cars once they were sold. Naturally, I would swing through and redeem my vouchers pretty regularly. One day, I filled up a new Civic, went through the drive-through, came back to work, delivered the car, had my lunch, and went about my day. On my way home, I realized I left my burger booklet in the center console of the car. Someone went home with a new car and about 30 free burgers.
I won a year supply of coffee once at a local gas station when I was in high school. It was awesome. I'm pretty sure the cashier only told his favorite people about the drawing, because he kept the slips behind the window. I chatted with him every morning as I got my coffee, and one morning he's like, "Hey, have you entered this drawing yet?" and I was like, "Uhh, no, I didn't even know there was one because you have obviously been keeping those pieces of paper hidden." A week later I found out that I won. I kinda suspect that he had something to do with it, but I was really grateful. I got a fancy cup that said "Free coffee for the year 2005!" or something to that extent, and I used it every day. I could go in and fill it up as often as I wanted.
When I was in high school I would go to the gas station next door as well to get coffee. Well I went about a month one time without getting coffee because my stepmom was making me give her my checks, anyway when I finally did go back in one day the guy that was always there in the mornings was also the owner. He asked where I had been and I told him about my money situation. He told me I never need to worry about money for coffee there, that I could just come in and get a cup everyday for free. Turns out he knew my biological mom from AA so he probably was playing favorite because of that.
When I was 6 I won honorable mention at a Trix cereal talent contest. My prize was a years supply of Trix. They started me off with a huge box containing something like 24 boxes. When my mom p****d me off, I would lock the door to my room and sustain myself on Trix.
my grandfather won the lottery for 2 million. He died 2 years later to prostate cancer. My mom was the recipient for the remaining 18 years of $80,000 a year after taxes. That time period has now expired.
My mom won a year's supply of Orbit gum. As a 7-year-old, I was stoked. Me and my sister chewed so much gum, that we still don't chew Orbit to this day.
I won 2nd place in a 15K race in 2011. My prize was a massive container of protein powder. (literally the size of my chest) I slowly used the entire container over the course of a year. I finally finished it about 2 weeks before the 2012 race. I won 2nd again and got the same prize. By february of 2013 I had gone through it again and the race was in march. I ran again and placed 2nd again. and now I have another container. This one is banana though, the others were chocolate.
All three years I lost to the same guy, but next year he's out of the 16-21 division, so I should win the elusive first place next year!
TL;DR: I have won a years supply of protein powder for 3 years in a row
Edit: I truthfully do not know the first place prize. This year I asked the guy who beat me all 3 times what the first place was and he answered "gift certificate" I do not know where to or for how much. Also, I love the banana powder. I make banana protein pancakes with it every sunday after my lsd run. I may actually make it through this container before march of next year.
I won a year supply of coldstone ice cream. It was a 120 dollar gift card.
I won a lifetime supply of oxygen. When I run out my lifetime its over.
i won a years supply of general mills cereal once. im a single guy w no family. i eventually got so sick of it, even though every three months they would ship a new variety of it. a years worth of ceral is a LOT of ceral.
Every year there's some dryers ice cream contest in our area. You write an essay about what you would do if you had a year's supply of ice cream. My aunt wins almost every year. She always writes about how she would host an ice cream party for all the neighborhood kids. She wins, gets a years supply of ice cream, the party never happens, she gives a bunch of Icecream to us and we hoarde it.
Tl;dr we rob children of ice cream parties and get fat.
I won a years supply of ice cream. There was a contest at a local kids expo. We of course didnt expect to win so when we got the email stating we had won, it was shocking. About two weeks later we got 52 coupons for a free half gallon of ice cream.
I won a years supply of Irish Spring soap at a hockey game. It was a one time package of 12 bars of soap.
Lasted me a decade.
A friend in college won a 'lifetime supply' of Red Bull. They determined it as a couple hundred cases (300? I don't remember the exact number) and gave it to him all at once. He lived in the dorms and had nowhere to put it, and ended up lining the walls of his room with the boxes, like giant blue and grey bricks. In the end he was pretty much begging for his friends to take boxes because he just didn't have anywhere to put them and it was a huge nuisance. Plus, red bull expires, so it would've been gross if he kept it, getting flat and unrefrigerated for months/years trying to drink it all.
It’s also super unhealthy - the amount of caffeine is terrible for your heart, and has actually caused deaths. Don’t drink it.
I shared this story already, but my neighbor won $1,000 a week for life on a lottery scratch off ticket. I haven't seen him around recently, but he lived at his childhood home with his parents for a while and owned two corvettes. He also loved dogs, and would always stop me to pet my dog when i would walk by. He was always a nice guy who seemed to be smart with his winnings.
One free scoop of ice cream a week from the local ice cream place . I won an ice cream eating contest. Yum
When I was 7 or 8, I won a lifetime supply of playdoh. It was pretty much 100 of the little containers, 2 of each color.
Neighbor won $500 a week for life. He quit his job, divorced his wife, and moved into a small apartment across town where the rent was cheap and now he almost never leaves. He has everything delivered to his house from Amazon.
EDIT: Yes, I get it already. He's living the dream.
My band won a contest to open for 311 and Ziggy Marley that included free Taco Bell for a year, which turned out to be $240 of gift certificates to split among six guys. Not quite the year supply we imagined. To top it off, we didn't actually open for the bands; they stuck us on a 10x10 side stage with no monitors.
I won a year supply of crab for camping in line at the grand opening of a Joe's crab shack. it rained all night. You should have seen my f*****g face when I found out a "Year Supply" means one snow crab meal per month for a year.
My older cousin won 5 grand a month for life. It ruined him. He got all paranoid about people only wanting to be around him because he had money (we live in a rural, fairly low wage area so that's a lot of money to some people). If you ever mentioned it to him, he just stopped talking to you. He's pretty much a loner now with almost nothing to show for it.
Not exactly a year supply, but I did win 5 cases (60) boxes of Girl Scout cookies. Ended up giving a lot of them away.
I always heard about the hype, I bought some "thin mints" from the store. They were really waxy and artificial tasting. Not my cup of tea
L'Oreal Kids Shampoo. I was about 11 years old and Teletoon (the Canadian equivalent of Cartoon Network) had a "Singin' in the Suds" contest. You could make a video, or just send in your favourite show's theme song on paper. It was the mid 90s and we didn't have a camcorder, so I just wrote down all the lyrics to Scooby-Doo on a piece of paper and sent it in.
Top prize was a hot tub (obviously I didn't win that) but there were 100 runner up prizes of a years supply of shampoo (6 bottles, actually last way longer than a year!) and L'Oreal Kids T-shirt. Seeing as my entry was pretty pathetic, I may have won because not enough kids entered, or they found my childish scribblings so sad they gave me a prize. I still have the T-shirt! It's fluorescent green!
Edit: [Here's the shirt!](http://imgur.com/FmtUYGG)
My brother won a year supply of peanut butter. He was given twelve peanut butter jars at once. So the company figures one jar a month is what people eat.
I won a year supply of buffalo wings, it was 2 dozen a week for a year. It did not include boneless wings, but I prefer bone in anyways. Any dates I went on that year could bet on the fact that were getting wings.
A years supply of dog food.... for my dog.
Lasted about 2 years.
I won free Applebee's for a year which turned out to be $600 in gift cards. Kinda lame. Spent most of it on beer...
Years ago m&m was having a contest where you won something like $10,000 a year for the rest of your life if you opened a special pack of m&ms.
I was at work one day, opened a pack of peanut m&ms at my desk, they had bits of other color shell stuck to the outside of all the candies. I looked at them, thought to myself "this is weird," then ate them and threw the package away.
In the next couple of days, saw a commercial letting me know I f****d myself out of some serious cash. The girl that sat across from me thought it was hilarious.
My question is, did I lose my one chance at something seriously glorious, or is there something still in the cards for me?
I got free pizza for a "year." 12 pizzas. I got 12 pizzas. It was about a month ago and I've used around 4 of them already.
It's not gonna last a year.
Won a years supply of stride gum when I was about 13 for participating in a counterstrike source tournament hosted by xfire. They sent me a box with 4 cartons? (I guess that's what you would call them) each with around 12 packs of gum. I wasn't disappointed.
My brother once won a year's supply of beer as a student. Lasted less than 6 months.
Pizza. Which was actually only one a month.
I received a year's supply of deodorant from Secret Clinical and Klout. I wrote about it because they only sent 4 sticks. If you used it according to directions (twice a day) it would never last even half a year.
I won a year supply of Dunkin Donuts coffee. I was supposed to get 2lbs a week int he mail. It never arrived. I think the post office was stealing it.
Free chik fil a a week for a year. Just had to be one of the first 100 people at a new store.
It's pretty good.
Edit: they do this at every chik fil a. And no, I'm not in your city
I won free bagels from a bagel shop for a year. It was good for 13 bagels, 2 loaves of bread, and 2 tubs of cream cheese/spread each month. I tried 3 different locations and none of the managers believe that the voucher I won was legitimate at their store. They all gave me different reasons for why they wouldn't accept my voucher.
Long ago when I went to Disney/Universal in 2001, me and my cousins got to participate in Nickelodeon's Slime Time Live show. My cousins and I were given numbers when we entered the recording area shindig. My eldest cousin at the time got called up to pie himself with one of three pies. On the bottom of the pies were numbers corresponding to the ones handed to kids in the audience. My number being 10, was beneath the center pie which my cousin smothered his face with. Thus, I won a year supply of Air Heads!
The funniest part was when he called the number, me and my alpha self in a sleeveless shirt trot across the stage and right past Dave Aizer and he just looks at me walk past him and says, on camera, "Orrrrr just keep on walking..." I don't know why I walked by him when he told me to come up but it was funny as hell. My aunt has the recording of it from when they aired it. Maybe I can figure a way to get it digitized from VHS onto the computer?
Anyways, I won a year supply of Air Heads which was 1 case of 12 Boxes of Air Heads and each of the 12 boxes contained 72 Air Heads. I gave 6 boxes away to like the Hannah Home or something for homeless people to eat I think and gave some to my cousins and ended up keeping only 3 boxes to myself. Took me more than a year to finish those three without wanting to vomit the second I opened one.
TL;DR I won a year supply of AirHeads on Nick's SlimeTime Live at Universal and I gave most of them away to the homeless and friends.
Edit: Nice to see some fellow SLIMERS :) Universal was loads of fun. If I can find the funds and equipment I would love to share this with some strangers over the internet. :)
I won a year's supply of calendars
I won a year's supply of Nestea **four** times in a Coca-Cola contest back in 2010. It came in the way of 4 stacks of 52 coupons each. Each coupon good for a 12-pack.
http://i.imgur.com/PVogMTa.jpg
1) When I was about 10 I won a year supply (12 boxes) of cornpops. I didn't even really like cornpops that much so we pawned them off to everyone we knew. I won them because I was the 10th caller during one of those YTV contest things. Also won some other stuff too: the movie "dinosaur" on VHS, a flimsy fold-up stool, and the game "Dinosaur" for playstation (which I didn't even have so I traded it in for Super Mario 64)
2) A couple years ago I won a "year supply" of smarties (the Canadian delicious candy-coated chocolate) that lasted about 2 weeks. It also took almost a year to actually get them. I won them because I dressed up as the blue smarties cat (blue is back win a mac) for Halloween.
tl;dr : CORNPOPS & SMARTIES
My friend won free lunch for a year at a school fundraiser, but he had to enter in his account number so they could at least document it. He was promptly given a limit on how much he could have.
won a years supply of domino's pizza though some r******d radio show when i was 16, domino's sent me a book of coupons with a small line on the back that said "participating stores only" witch turned out not to be any at all. Every store i took them too told me to go f**k myself. so i ended up with a book of c**p and a hatred for domino's pizza.
What a perfect thing to happen to someone who still thinks using the R word is acceptable
I won a year supply of Bubba Burgers once.
My soon to be ex wife won a year supply of Dr. Pepper from one of those contests under the cap. (before we knew each other) But she said it was fantastic.
But she is a lying w***e, so not sure if serious.
My wife won concerts for life from blender magazine. They fedex'd $20,000 usd of Ticketmaster gift cards. We ended up starting a ticket broker biz with them 6 years ago. In 2012 we had over a million in sales and now have 6 employees.
Edit after comments: so yeah we're an Internet scalper. The million in sales isn't a million in my pocket. After payroll, taxes and overhead we didn't have much left, hopefully this year growing a little more will turn out decent. Yes it's legal, and yes some of you hate the business model. But remember people this is a luxury item, we aren't buying baby formula or old people medicine and hoarding/scalping. Every event is a risk, some events we lose money when supply & demand was misjudged, others sure we make a lot. As long as we make a lot more than we lose we're good.
Edit: a photo of the gift cards (80 $250's): https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/23111981/d/20k.jpg
