Many sweepstakers subscribe to sweepstakes newsletters and belong to online groups to stay informed of the most current sweeps and contests. But another way to make sure you don't miss out on some of the best sweeps is to keep track of your favorite website haunts. This can include your top online shopping spots, entertainment websites and hobby sites. This can get overwhelming so you'll need to have a time management and information collection system in place to keep up to date with all of the possible sweeps.

One of the first things to do is to sign up for email newsletters from the official websites. Any giveaways and promotions should be sent right to your inbox. But this is optional and many of you may not want to wade through what you consider spam in your email.

You may want to keep a bookmark folder on your browser for each of the sites you regularly visit and want to check sweeps for. But again, this is optional. Alternatively, you can just keep a list of site names and clickable web addresses in a word document (or copy and paste into the browser).

Determine how often you want to check the sites for sweeps. Weekly or monthly are both reasonable time frames. You can set an electronic reminder or jot it down in your datebook and then keep a checklist to check off each site as you go. A simple list that you print out each week/month will suffice.

Keep track of what sweeps you entered and end dates, especially if you're allowed only one entry. This can be in a notebook, a word or text document or even a spreadsheet. Use keywords for prizes instead of long paragraphs as this is meant to be a time-saving system. You can always re-visit a site if you really need to go over the particulars of the sweepstakes again.

Sometimes sweepstakes seem hidden on websites or at least not highlighted the way you think they should be. For instance, as of this writing the Rite Aid Pharmacy website does have a sweepstakes going. But it's listed in small print on the sidebar. The word 'promotions' is a term to watch out for when you can't find any obvious contests on the site.

Subscribing to sweepstakes newsletters is something for the enthusiastic sweepstaker and you may want to consider this eventually. But some of your favorite online places may fall through the cracks occasionally and not be included in these newsletters so it doesn't hurt to keep track of these yourself.