A lifetime supply of Tootie Rolls? How about free video game rentals from Blockbuster for life? Can you imagine what it is really like to win a "lifetime supply" of something? Do you even have the storage for a lifetime's worth of toilet paper?
We found an amazing set of stories by people that received prizes just like this. Some loved it, but for others, it was a huge burden. What would it be for you? Content has been edited for clarity.
“He Wouldn’t Drink It Because He Was So Sick Of It”
>>> “When my dad was 16, his basketball team won a tournament sponsored by 7UP. The prize was each member gets a lifetime supply of 7UP. I found this out because he was thirsty once and I offered him mine and he wouldn’t drink it because he’s so sick of it.”
>>> “We had just moved to Atlanta, Georgia (birthplace of Coca-Cola), and my Dad ironically won a year’s supply of Pepsi. We were amazed when a tractor-trailer pulled into our driveway and dumped off pallet after pallet of Pepsi products. We gave a lot of it away but still had a ton left over. What I remember most is that it took up most of the space in our garage and we had to park our bikes on the side of the house and they got rusty from being out in the rain.”
>>> “Back in October, I won a movie-themed pumpkin carving contest at a local theater chain with the prize of a ‘year’s worth of free movie tickets.’ This translated to 52 free movie passes that can only be used Monday – Thursday, can’t be used on holidays, and can’t be used for a brief period time after a movie first releases. But even with all the restrictions, it’s still pretty sweet. Especially because I freaking love going to the movies.”
>>> “I won a year’s worth of Skittles last year at a raffle for a school event. I ended up getting 60 coupons for a free bag of any size. It doesn’t really sound like a lot, but after going through a few 16 oz bags, you get tired of them. So I passed a lot out to random people and made some pretty good friends out of it. Of course, we always kept a bag or four on hand in our dorm anyways…”
>>> “I currently have a lifetime supply of Red Bull. It’s kind of an endorsement for being a musician, but I don’t have to wear red bull helmets or anything on stage. I just email a rep whenever I want some and he sends about six cases and a friendly letter. I’ve sort of cut back lately and started drinking tea, but will grab a few cases every few months. Pretty fantastic setup.”
>>> “I won a year’s supply of Apple Jack’s cereal when I was 10. Literally, a pallet of Apple Jack’s was dropped at my front door. The entire neighborhood ate Apple Jack’s for months.”
>>> “I won a year’s worth of free Schick razors from a kickboxing tournament when I was 16. They lasted my family for about five years. I had to buy my first razor when I was in college and was shocked at how much they cost.”
>>> “I won a year’s worth of french fries playing the monopoly game at McDonald’s years ago. Got 365 coupons for large fries. No McDonald’s ever knew what they were. I would always end up getting them after a manager checked it out. 16-year-old me ate a lot of fries. So did my friends.”
>>> “I earned a year’s worth of Chick-fil-a for being one of the first 100 at a grand opening of a new store. I think they do it for every new location. The actual prize is 52 free sandwich meals or 8-pack nugget meals. I would sometimes redeem two meals for myself for one sitting though. It was awesome. I took my girlfriend 10-15 times that summer. She later became my wife.”
The Tale Of The Lifetime Supply Of Butter
>>> “My roommate and I won a ‘lifetime’ supply of butter in college. Apparently, ‘lifetime’ was 2lbs of butter a week for a year. We stocked it up, got wasted, and tried to make a slip and slide with all the butter. It went okay. Basically, we won it because our college was having some random event where you got locked inside a clear bubble thing and had to run around a track. It was in the winter, so it was icy as heck. My roommate Jesse, bless his soul, took it upon himself to analyze and comment on each person’s run. After about an hour of listening to my trashed roommate call out every person on what they did wrong, he goes ‘I can’t do this anymore, these guys need a lesson.’ Being the supportive person I am, I held his drink while he gets in line. Cue the most perfect, beautiful ice-bubble-course running there ever has been. He got the best time and they told us we won a lifetime supply of butter. If there has ever been two guys more happy about anything in the history of this earth, I would like to see them. When I have kids and my kids have kids of their own, that will be the first story I will tell them. The ballad of uncle Jesse and the lifetime supply of butter.”
>>> “I won lifetime passes to the Oregon aquarium for being like their 5 millionth visitor. My original pass didn’t expire until like the year 2999. When I got a replacement, the new expiration was 2099. They got smart. I planned to name every child my name so all could use that pass.”
>>> “My dad used to be really into entering sweepstakes as a hobby. He subscribed to a newsletter listing a ton of sweepstakes offered by a major company. He won stuff constantly. Normally small things like CDs or movie passes, but he also won a big screen TV, a Toyota Camry, and a trip to the Bahamas. I got interested after he won the car. We started entering together. This involved sitting for hours and filling out 3×5 index cards. I really enjoyed the time with him. I won a year’s supply of Snickers when I was in 10th grade. I got a box with 738 Snickers bars (I have no idea how they arrived at that number).”
>>> “During university orientation week, one of the local pubs (it was called The Captain Cook Tavern) held a competition where you could put your name in a draw to win a years supply of meals for you and your flatmates. I won it, along with some other people, and it started off great. The meals were straight off the same menu as the bar food so they were fairly decent. About three months later, the free meals were reduced to the point where they were essentially a pot-noodle with a squirt of tomato sauce.”
>>> “I won a year’s supply of Slurpees from 7-11 through a radio station contest when I was in college. It was a book of 52 coupons for one free Slurpee each. I wanted to use them all that summer because I was going back to college in a town with no 7-11s. I ate Slurpees for breakfast, lunch, dinner, and late night snack. I had a party that centered around mixing our drink concoctions in Slurpees, which got a little wild. And then when I returned to school I had a few left so I gave them to a friend who still lived in town and went to community college.”
>>> “When I was 13, I won a lifetime supply of Bic razors. They started me out with a box of 36 packages, and each package had 12 razors. There was a postcard to mail if I needed more. I’m 34 now… and still can’t grow a beard…”
>>> “My mom’s friend from work got a package of Goldfish. She got to the bottom of the bag to find a coiled up dead rattlesnake. She got free Goldfish for life. I would think after that, she wouldn’t want to be eating anymore Goldfish, but hey.”
She Didn’t Exactly “Win,” But It Shows No Sign Of Stopping…
>>> “I currently receive what seems to be a lifetime supply of toilet paper…
Over 20 years ago, I lived in Southern California and became fond of a variety of Charmin that was infused with baby oil. It was so soft and smooth! Shortly thereafter, I moved to Virginia for work. The local stores didn’t have my baby oil Charmin, and I was told that it didn’t exist.
I called Proctor and Gamble to find out what was up and was told that the baby oil version was offered in SoCal as a test market, and it didn’t turn out so well, so it is no longer offered to stores. I was crushed. The company did, however, take my name and address, and I was told that I would receive coupons in the mail for my inquiry, and interest in their product.
About three weeks later, a box arrived from Proctor and Gamble that contained two separate four packs of toilet paper, one marked A, and the other B. The letter that was enclosed stated that since I had such a penchant for toilet paper, I had been selected to test out their new varieties. I was instructed to use the package marked A for a week, and then switch to the package marked B the following week. I was told a phone call would follow.
After two weeks, I received a call from the company asking about the results of my test. They asked these crazy questions, like, could I name three adjectives describing my experience with both types of paper! It was definitely a phone call to remember.
At the end of the call, I was told that I would receive coupons and other considerations in the mail for my participation in this test. Ever since then, I have received a free four-packs of Charmin toilet paper, once a month, every month. This has gone on for over 20 years, and does not look like it will stop.”
Luck Or Disappointment?
>>> “A couple years ago, I won an order of wings per week for a year at a local pub. I had just moved to an area of the city with great nightlife and one of the bars was reopening after a month. I randomly saw an ad on Facebook that if you were one of the first 200 people in line that night, you got 52 coupons, each with a specific week on them, for an order of wings. So I went. And waited for two hours. In Alberta. In February. It was freezing and I couldn’t feel my toes by the end and the bar brought everyone got chocolate while we waited. Worth it. Also, this bar had $3/pound wings on Wednesdays. So I would go on Wednesday, use my coupon, then get two or three more pounds. Usually, a hockey game was on, too. Good times.”
>>> “3 years ago, in March 2011, I raced a 15K and won 2nd place. The prize was a massive container of protein powder which was donated by one of the race’s sponsors. Over the course of a year, I worked my way through this 10 lb container of protein powder, and eventually finished it in late February, 11.5 months after I had won it. I raced the same 15K again two weeks later and came in 2nd again and won a new container of protein powder. Once again, I slowly ate my way through it, making a protein shake once a week or so, and finished it in early March, less than a week before this year’s race. I once again placed 2nd, all three times losing to the same guy, and got my vat of protein powder and am currently working through it. They did change it however, the first two years were chocolate but this year’s prize was banana-creme flavored.”
>>> “When I was young (like 5 years old), my parents won a years supply of Cool Whip on Let’s Make a Deal. A few weeks later, my dad stopped a truck and informed the driver his trailer was on fire. The truck was hauling Tootsie Rolls and the driver gave him several cases. I only remember that during that time it seemed like Cool Whip and Tootsie Rolls were universally ‘free,’ similar to water, unlike the other things that you had to shop for. These things are still valueless to me.”
>>> “When I was in middle school, my family won free rentals for a year from the newly opened Blockbuster. It applied to video games, too, and we were told it was unlimited. We played the crap out of the SNES rentals and watched a lot of movies. My folks even became friends with the manager and his wife and partied together.
Unfortunately, several months into it, we arrived one day to find most of the employees had been replaced. The new manager told us he’d found 52 free movie rental passes in the store’s safe that should have been ours. Apparently ‘free movies for a year’ meant one a week, and he quite rudely informed us that we had used up several times our quota. He took the free rentals off our account, refused to give us the 52 coupons we’d actually won and insinuated we had done something wrong and taken advantage of the store. He treated us like criminals and didn’t apologize for the mix-up. We left and never went back.”
>>> “Last New Year’s Eve, my local Applebee’s did a drawing for ‘free Applebee’s for a year.’ I won, and what it ended up being was one $10 coupon per month only valid towards sit down meals and not on drinks or take out orders. Pretty big let down.”
>>> “I won a ‘lifetime supply’ of Tootsie Roll products, which ended up being just a medium size box of candy. Apparently, I’m only supposed to eat, like, three Tootsie Rolls a year.”
Pudding Can Be A Great Blessing…And A Great Curse
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>>> “Through a series of hilarious events (a grocery truck flipped over and my parents run a tow truck company), I became the owner of about 5,000 Snack Pack puddings.
It was all cool and fun until I got home and started filling my cupboards. I didn’t have enough room in my kitchen for all this pudding, so I kept some in my bedroom closet, and when that filled up, my dresser drawers, linen closet, and eventually even my laundry room cupboards were now makeshift pudding shelters. I finally filled up the kitchen cupboards and pantry top to bottom with pudding cups.
Again, great for a bunch of guys smoking pot and doing nothing all day, but really strange when you bring a girl back. She goes to your kitchen, and you can hear her open one cupboard, then another, and another, followed by a whispered, ‘What the heck?!’ That’s followed by the pantry being opened and her finally yelling, ‘Hey, what’s with ALL THIS PUDDING?’ If I was able to talk her into spending the night, she would be greeted by a still unfathomable amount of pudding taking residence in my room. If she took a shower in the morning, she’d have to ask where towels were, because, of course, another wall of freaking pudding was staring at her when she tried to find them in the closet.
I finally finished enough of the pudding to make room for dishes (I’d been keeping them in the dishwasher, dirty ones in the sink), and eventually started putting actual nutritious food in the kitchen about three months after. I ended up giving a ton of pudding away because I couldn’t bear to eat any more of the stuff.”
He Was Dealing, Alright, Just Not What She Expected
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>>> “This dude in my high school won a year’s supply of Dr. Pepper. Like clockwork, every month, they’d turn up and drop off a crate full of cans.
Apparently, by the second month, he was sick of it, so he started bringing them to school and selling them for slightly less than the shop by the school was selling them for. He made a tidy profit and was able to buy himself an Xbox 360 with some of his earnings.
I do remember one particularly funny moment. A teacher saw him receiving money from another kid, then producing a second backpack from under his desk. She went crazy, thinking he was dealing in her class, only to open his bag and find about 20 cans of Dr. Pepper.”
His Fifteen Minutes Of Fame Came With Quite The Reward
>>> “Back in 2010, my buddy got wasted and decided to wait in line for Late Night with Jimmy Fallon. He was asked if he wanted to do a skit involving punching balloons on air. So he gets on the air and they dress him and two other people up in karate uniforms.
The two other people go and kind of try and get some balloons but you could tell they were shy. My buddy got up there, wasted out of his mind, and Jimmy asked him his name. He tells them his name is ‘Sho-Nuff the Shogun.’
Quest Love got up from behind the drum kit and gives Sho-Nuff a hug. My friend proceeded to ninja kick all the balloons and Jimmy told him he just won a lifetime supply of Soft Taco Kits. The Roots played a song, ‘Who’s the master? SHO-NUFF!’
I lived with him at the time and we seriously had two pallets of Taco Kits dropped off at our house. We had them in the cabinets, in the living room entertainment center, gave them away. But you know, 1,000 boxes of taco kits is hard to give away. We donated about 200 when we realized we wouldn’t use them all.”
There’s Only So Much You Can Do With That Much Stuff
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>>> “In the 90s, my Granddad won a lifetime supply of Readers Digest. He was the only doctor in a small village in India (population < 1,000). He started stacking them up in his clinic and the village kids would randomly browse through them. As long as there wasn’t a rush or they weren’t being loud, my Granddad would let them sit there for as long as they wanted.
I spent my summer vacations in the village with my grandparents. My parents had moved to a nearby city long before I was born.
And so it happened that every summer I’d come to the village to find my rural friends speak better English than anyone else in the village – and in some cases better than my English-school educated city friends – and sharing jokes from the ‘Life’s like that’ and ‘Laughter is the best medicine’ sections.
Every time I think back on it, I feel happy and proud of my Granddad.”
>>> “I went to school with a kid whose mom won a lifetime supply of aluminum foil. They wrap EVERYTHING in foil. His whole lunch every day was wrapped in foil: sandwich, fruit, ect…and then they make one of those baking pouches, and that’s his lunch bag. When we had a dessert potluck, his cookies came wrapped in foil. I asked him about it once and he said they even wrap all their Christmas presents in it, and they still get too many boxes of it. They give it away to friends and family.”
>>> “I went to a music festival announcement party for a new festival. Everyone got an envelope upon entry which clearly had passes in them but everyone was told not to open them. At the end of the night, if you still had a sealed envelope, they gave you a ‘lifetime’ pass. I think about 20 out of 200 people won. So far there have only been two years of the festival, but they just confirmed the third. Two of the best weekends of my life. I would definitely recommend.”
>>> “When I was little, I won a lifetime supply of apples by correctly guessing how many were in a barrel. There were 110 and I guessed 109. The prize was 110 apples at a time each month. It was insane. After the first delivery, my parents begged them to stop. It’s impossible for a family of three to go through 110 apples before they rot and our neighbors stopped answering the door when they saw my parents standing there with bags of apples. It quickly became, ‘Dagnabbit it. Here comes Sandra and this time she has apple pie, apple crisp, frozen apples, apple cores, dried apples, apple chips, those creepy old people dolls with rotten apple faces, apples specifically to put into a pig’s mouth, apple cider, apple juice, apple seeds, apple stems, an apple tree, apple butter, candy apples, bacon wrapped apples, apple sandwiches, apple polenta, apple pancakes, and several empty apple barrels.”
“At First It Was Awesome…”
>>> “I won a lifetime supply of Mars Bars when I was 15. I get a box of 30 delivered every month. For the first six months it was awesome, never had to buy chocolate, had plenty to share with my friends. After a year it was hard to even give them away as everyone was sick of Mars Bars. Now every three months or so I deliver 75 or so to my local food bank. I’m currently living in Thailand, I dread to think how many Mars Bars I’m going to go home too.”
>>> “I won a year supply of Land O Lakes butter last year at a Minnesota Gopher Hockey game. I received 730 sticks of the stuff. Needless to say, our fridge did not have enough room. Being that It was winter I stocked the fridge with what it could handle and placed the rest of the boxes out back in my duck hunting boat. I completely forgot that I put it there, as we never ran out of the original fridge stock. I untapped my boat in the fall this duck season to find nearly the entire bottom of the boat covered in butter. I guess one of our 104 degree days had its way with my prize.”
>>> “My mom won a year supply of Skittles in the form of over a thousand coupons for a free bag, but you could only redeem five coupons a time at any one store. I’ve sat in a Rubbermaid filled with Skittles, made giant balls of compressed Skittles, made it rain Skittles style at my friend’s wedding, thrown up hundreds of rainbows. I still love em.”
>>> “In 1974, my dad was a detective in the vice squad. One night they busted a few guys driving a truck that had many kilos of illegal substances hidden amongst a shipment of razors. After the trial, all the guys in his unit got to take home as many as they wanted. I was born 8 years later and neither he nor I have ever bought razors since. If someone sees me shaving they might ask where I got that 1970s razor. So I tell them: the 1970s.”
They Got All The Junk Food They Could Eat
>>> “In order to celebrate the opening of a new location, our local Hardee’s was giving away a year’s supply of Thickburgers to a lucky individual. My dad won, but it only ended up being only two burgers per week, this equaling only 104 free burgers. Which still isn’t bad. Except for the fact that I live in a family of five, who liked to eat and didn’t live the healthiest of lifestyles. We ate all our free burgers within a week and a half.”
>>> “I won a year’s supply of Kraft mac n cheese for trying to win the contest of getting your face on the box. All I wanted to win was that trip to Sea World, but all I got was an honorable mention, so mac n cheese for a year will suffice.”
>>> “I never got the full story on how they got them, but my grandparents somehow ended up with two dozen or so pallets of Tic Tacs of various flavors. To put this in perspective consider how big those plastic containers Tic Tacs come in are, now consider how many you could fit in a fully stacked pallet and multiply it several times over… yeah. It was pretty awesome until we ran out of orange ones.”
>>> “My brother-in-law won the Chipotle Adventurrito thing and won free burritos for a year. There are 52 coupons for burritos. He’s used some of them but now he uses them as an alternative currency. The homeless man asking for money? Chipotle burrito. Not sure what to do for a casual gift? Chipotle burrito coupon. Want to tip a person without giving money? Here’s a burrito. Guess what I got for Christmas?”
>>> “Not a lifetime supply, but a years supply of free McDonalds. Basically, my family of three won six punch card coupons that each gave us a free value meal once a week. Since my parents are very…excited…about free things, you better believe we were in McDonalds twice a week, every week for that entire year. Not a single fry was to go to waste. I can’t even look at a McDonalds without feeling vaguely nauseous anymore.”
>>> “When we were kids, we were rarely allowed junk food. But my little brother was really sick, and wouldn’t eat; my mom was so desperate to get him to eat something that she told him he could have any food in the world he wanted. He picked Oreos. The one box of Oreos we bought turned out to be the winning box of a ‘year’s supply of Oreos.’ How many, you ask, is a year’s supply of Oreos? I’m glad you asked. It was 365 boxes. As a family of four individuals who did not normally eat junk food, needless to say, this was quite more than one year’s worth of Oreos for us. We kept a couple of boxes and then my parents took the rest to a food bank as they were delivered.”
Gotta Make Due With This Much Product, Right?
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>>> “My wife ended up with crates of (new) Maxi-pads and a lifetime supply of Tums (antacid).
She worked with a market research firm that would give household products to select consumers to gather information on, um, end user’s experiences with the product.
Items like soap, toothpaste, and deodorant were commonly placed. Anyways the firm received way too many sanitary napkins in one study and too many Tums in another. The surplus products are not needed at the end of the study. They typically have no labels so they cannot be sold commercially and the supplier never wants them back. So the staff can take the items home.
My wife, being the thrifty darling she is, grabbed every single crate of pads available since no one else wanted them. The pads filled our basement. It took her many years to get through them all.’
We still have the Tums. Having, at least, several shoe-boxes of Tums truly is a lifetime supply.”
>>> “A friend of mine used to run science fiction conventions. Once word gets out, movie studios send you free promo swag. Normally, it’s like 50 posters, 100 keychains, 200 buttons, or something like that. One day, a Mac truck pulled up and gave him eight pallets of foam ‘novelty flying discs’ for the movie ‘Blade.’
Eight pallets. Each pallet had dozens of boxes, and each box had about 50 of these red, foam, ninja star-like foam disks about the size of a salad plate and about an inch thick. They didn’t fly; they were too thick and too light. It was like throwing a huge potato chip. They were stamped with the movie logo with a crusty ink that flaked off easily.
People thought at first, ‘Oh, cool! Ninja frisbees!’ But then when they didn’t fly and left ink on their hands, they didn’t want them. So my friend was stuck with thousands of these things.
Later, he ended up using it to supplement his attic insulation. I wonder if years from now when someone buys his house, if they will wonder what weird insulation company the previous owner used.”