Well, I'm in college, so I really don't have time to participate, so, here's my thoughts on finding the cash prizes sooner.
A) have two browsers open, probably side by side. The first one is the hint, the second is your search.
B) Customize your search - search only through "BUY IT NOW" listings.
C) I don't know if this has any effect on buy it now auctions, but set min number of bids to 0 and max to 1 ( i dare hope that the buy it nows with more than 1 in stock will be weeded out by this...)
So... I hope that helped...
