GroovyMojo.com

Let me tell you from personal experience, eBay can bail you out of a financial jam.

A few years ago I found myself out of work and not able to make house or car payments, so in desperation I pulled out my flatbed scanner and some old postcards, scanned the postcards, and put them up for auction on eBay. I was hoping to make at least $300. To my surprise, I raked in far more than that — enough money to keep my house out of foreclosure, and saved my car from the repo man.

The best things to sell on eBay are items that you already own, because — obviously — that will give you the highest profit margin. Everyone has stuff in boxes, somewhere, that they haven’t looked at in years. The question is, can you live without it? And will someone else want it?

If it’s small, lightweight, and collectible, the answer is probably YES.

Small and lightweight are logical factors. Most items sold via eBay will have to go through the mail. The buyer will have to add the shipping costs in with what they’re willing to pay you, and the higher the shipping, the less they will be willing to bid. Vintage items such as old postcards, vinyl records, and books are highly portable. Another factor is, how sturdy is the item? If it’s fragile, it will cost more to ship because you’ll have to package it better. The bottom line is, it’s easier to sell a book than a set of china on eBay. Save the old china for a garage sale, or Craigslist.com.

The other key is demand. Is your stack of items rather rare? Is there a hardcore group of people out there obsessively collecting them? If the answer is yes, then you may be sitting on a gold mine you didn’t even know you had.

Personally, I had three gold mines: antique postcards, old vinyl records in pristine condition, and old hardbound books by the science fiction writer Philip K. Dick. I’d been collecting Dick’s works for 20 years, and several of the books netted hundreds of dollars a piece. I was sad to see them go, but then again, they helped keep a roof over my head and a car in the garage for nearly 7 months.

Other items that seem to sell well are antique clocks, watches, memorabilia, jewelry, toys, and/or just about anything that’s portable and collectible. Also, oddly enough, clothes sell very well on eBay, especially things like Levi jeans. I know someone in California who brings in a good extra income just by picking up old clothes at garage sales and selling them on eBay.

So, ask yourself, what gold mine do you have hidden in the back of your closet?

This is a reprint of an older article of mine, brought to the top because … well, lets face it.  It’s relevant.  Looks like hard times may well be ahead for a lot of us.

My younger daughter’s computer bit the dust this week, and so Friday I bought her a new one on eBay.

My winning bid: $20.50

It’s not the absolute best computer in the world but it’s perfectly good for a young teen who’s not into gaming, and it’s better than the one that just died. A Pentium 4 running at 1.6 GHz will work fine syncing with her iPod, doing homework, and playing YouTube videos. I’d found a deal locally on the exact same computer, refurbished, for $200. But on eBay — even after shipping — I paid less than $60.

Inexpensive eBay shopping is a lot like playing a game. There are hundreds of different ways to do it, but this is the way I’ve settled on. It combines the best results with the most fun.

First of all, you need to find items you’re interested in where the auction ends outside of peak bidding times. My favorite time is before 8 AM on a weekday, while a good chunk of the continent is more preoccupied with getting to work on time than bidding against you.

I find an item I want, I decide how much I’m willing to pay for it (including shipping) and I bid accordingly. But I don’t bid up front, I wait until the last second.

Some people call this “sniping” a bid and they will hate you for it. I can live with that. Especially if I end up getting a good deal.

I bring up the same auction in two separate windows. In one, I place my bid amount … bidding the highest amount I’m willing to go … but I haven’t clicked the button to make the bid final. The button that commits you to the bid.

In the other window I view the item during the last few minutes of the auction, clicking refresh to watch the time left and how the bidding is going. Sometimes there is a lot of activity right at the very end of the bid which will put it completely out of your price range.

So, the clock ticks down, and there’s maybe 15 seconds left until the auction is over. In the case of this computer, the highest bid is still a very low $18.50. I’ve set my bid amount to $45 in the other window, and when it reaches the 15 second mark I pop over to that other window and click the button to actually place my bid. My bid pops up in the last several seconds of the auction, not giving anyone enough time to raise their bids against it.

Someone else bid a maximum of $20.00. Since my maximum bid was $45, I easily beat that person’s $20 — raising the incremental bid to $20.50 in my favor.

So, I won.

If I had bid my $45 even minutes in advance, it would have given others time to bid against me and keep raising their bid until theirs went higher than mine. Before I started bidding this way, I always seemed to lose an auction by pennies. Why? Because someone else was sniping against me.

Now, there is always a chance that — using this auction as an example — someone else had already bid an amount higher than mine. So the guy who originally bid $18.50, say his highest bid amount was $100, then my bid would have gone in at the last minute but still lost, and he would have won the auction at $45.50.

If that happens, laugh and shrug it off, and go to the next item. If there’s anything you can count on with eBay, there is always the next item. And it is most definitely a game.

Do you have a favorite method in your own eBay madness?

UPDATE: The computer arrived in perfect condition, I set it up, loaded the operating system and software, and then copied over all the information I managed to save from her old dying computer. It runs fast, and she’s very happy with it. I’m now thinking about buying one for myself!

Right up front I have to tell you that this is not legal advice, this is just the experience of one person doing his own divorce. I have to tell you this up front because, especially in Texas, even distributing forms and instructions can be construed as legal counsel. That threatens the sanctity of the lawyer’s domain (and their income) so they come after you with all the fury of someone defending their own children.

Woe to anyone charged with offering legal advice without a license. Remember, most judges were also lawyers. They protect their own, and in my opinion, that’s the sole reason law seems so complicated. However, it’s not that complicated.

If you can keep a to-do list and fill out forms, you have the skills necessary to do your own divorce. When I first started the process I thought I was getting myself in way over my head, but after following through and looking back, it turned out to be nothing. It was simple. My ex and I saved ourselves thousands upon thousands of dollars.

For it to work you need one thing: the ability to agree with your soon to be ex. If you two are so angry at each other you can’t agree on anything, and your goal is revenge instead of the basic separation of your lives, then get a lawyer. You can’t do a do-it-yourself divorce if you can’t agree on the terms of the divorce.

A divorce is nothing more than an agreement in writing that follows legal guidelines. You agree on who gets what, who pays what, who sees the kids and when, and then a judge gives a stamp of approval. That’s all a divorce is. That, and a stack of legal forms. Those you get from the Internet. If you go to Google or Yahoo and search Texas Divorce (replace your own state, of course) up will pop a plethora of ads and links for legal forms services.

For some of them, you pay around $300 and then talk to a paralegal on the telephone. They ask you questions and fill the forms out, then send the forms to you. What I did, I paid less and answered the questions online. They plugged my answers into standard legal forms that were in Microsoft Word format, which they emailed to me. What I ended up with was a set of instructions, and these forms:

• Original Petition for Divorce
• Waiver Of Citation
• Final Decree of Divorce
• Prove Up Script

With the exception of the Waver of Citation, none of these look like regular everyday forms. In other words, they don’t look like a credit application. It’s more like script that reads, “This is who we are,” and “this is what we want,” and “this is how we’d like to do it.”

That’s the key right there. Using the guidelines of the instructions that should come with your forms, figure out between the two of you exactly who gets what, who pays what, and how. When you have this worked out, you can proceed with form filling and filing.

The Original Petition is the one you actually file with the court. For me, it was a simple matter of taking several copies down to the local county clerk, forking over some money, and having them stamp them and assign a case number. I believe at this point you can opt to pay the court to have your spouse served with the papers — most people do that — but because my ex was in on all this and she was in agreement with the terms, I sent her a copy personally along with a Waver of Citation.

The Waver of Citation, if you can get your spouse to sign it and return it to you, tells the court that your soon-to-be-ex agrees with everything that is in the divorce, does not intend to challenge any of it, and in fact may opt not to even appear in court.

Next comes the cooling off period, designed to make you think about what you’re doing, and possibly to change your mind and stay together. This waiting period varies by state. Also, if there’s children involved, you may be required to attend a class for how to deal with children during a divorce. If you have children and you care about them, I highly recommend you attend this type of class even if it’s not mandatory. There are a lot of behaviors which to you may seem natural or even healthy, but which will mess your children up or even turn them against you. Take the class, read a book, do something.

Also during this waiting period, it’s time to go over the details of The Final Decree. You see, in the Original Petition, you’re declaring to the court that you intend to divorce. The Final Decree spells out the terms of the divorce.

That was the biggest surprise to me in this whole process — I’d wrongly assumed the court would dictate to us how the divorce would be. No, it’s you who decide the details, you write the decree. It’s YOUR divorce. You have to follow the guidelines, and the document service will have created a rather generic version for you, but it’s up to you and your spouse to add the details.

The document service should have also created for you a Prove Up Script. You may or may not have to modify this to fit your details, but make sure this is done and you’ve read it over out loud until you’re comfortable with it. This is what you will stand up and read before the judge, the formal request for the divorce.

When the waiting period is up, you contact the court and schedule a trial. I found I could do that over the Internet by filling in a form. In your case, it may be that you have to call, or perhaps even go down to the courthouse.

After you’ve got it scheduled, and the big day arrives, dress nicely and show up to the courthouse with copies of your Final Decree and your Waver of Citation (and/or whatever other documents are required for your state), and also bring that Prove Up Script. In the court, you’ll sit and wait while other business is attended to, and when it’s your turn you approach the bench, read your script, and hand over your papers. If all goes well, and all your paperwork is in order, the judge grants the divorce right then and there, stamps it, and it’s done.

I spent less than $500 for mine.

Good luck!

Using the little camera in your phone (or in my case, my Sony PDA) can keep you from getting ripped off. If the camera has a date imprinting feature, make sure it’s on by default.

When renting a car, take pictures of it before you drive it for the first time, especially paying attention to any scratches or dings. Then take pictures right before you turn it back in. This way if they try to claim you damaged the car, you’ll have proof that you didn’t.

Do the same for your own car before you hand the keys over for valet parking. When you get the car back, walk around it once before you get inside, and if you see anything suspicious - anything at all - take a picture of it. You can always compare the photos later, and if you do find a scratch or ding, you have evidence to back up your claim.

Here’s an example that worked for me personally: I suspected a place I used to take my car in for an oil change wasn’t actually replacing my oil filter (I already knew for a fact that they weren’t doing some of the other things they were supposed to do). So I opened the hood and took a picture of the oil filter the day before taking it in for service. Then, after taking it in for the change, I opened the hood right there in the parking lot and took a new picture of the oil filter. The picture was identical to the one I took the day before.

The service manager was on the defensive, but couldn’t explain away the pictures. So he sent my car back into the shop and had them do it all over again, on top of refunding my money.

These are just a few of the ways you can use that ever-present little camera to cover your butt. Any time you’re responsible for the condition of something, or someone else is responsible for something of yours, a few quick little snapshots can save you significant trouble or money. Think of it as insurance that you don’t have to pay for.

Do you buy Coca-Cola and only Coca-Cola?  Do you, in fact, buy collectible plates, clocks, toy cars, or the like with the company’s brand name on it?  Will you buy Coca-Cola even when it costs more than a competitor’s cola that tastes just as good?

No?  Then how about products from Pepsi?  Or Harley Davidson, for that matter?  Or Google?  Or any specific brand?

Do you tend to stick with one company because you know and trust them, even to the point where you don’t even look at a competing brand?

If so, you may have Brand Loyalty Sickness.

You must understand that companies pay an insane amount of money to infect you with this sickness.  You’ll find it in their corporate goals anywhere you look.  “Build customer loyalty.”  A brand with strong customer loyalty is like a rich silver mine, and it’s great for them.

Not for you, however.  This you must also come to understand and accept.  Brand loyalty is bad for you and it’s bad for our economy.

Our Capitalist society is a Darwinian dog-eat-dog arena where only the best and most innovative will survive.  The end result is that you should get the best products for the best price.

Should.

Not always, though, because instead of putting their emphasis on making their products better and more affordable, some companies focus on keeping their customers — YOU — brainwashed into opting out of the game altogether.  If they can only convince you that their brand is the best, and that you need not try any other brand because you already know theirs is better, then what motive will they ever have to improve?  They don’t need to.  They’ve already turned you into their reliable old cash cow.  They’ve successfully infected you with the sickness.

I call it a sickness because that’s what it is.  It cripples your ability to make informed choices.  It costs you money.  It dulls the senses by putting you into a predictable routine.  Large corporations take advantage of you.

I’m not saying that you, say, drink Pepsi even if you don’t like it as much as Coke.  But if you won’t even try Pepsi because it’s not Coke, that’s when you have a problem.  The best thing for you, me, and everyone else is to sample and choose regardless of brand.  This even helps the brand you feel loyalty toward, because it forces them to innovate and improve.

So don’t be a mind-controlled brand-loyal herd animal!  Run with the wolves!  Cull the flock!  Improve the system, save yourself money, and end up with better products.

Got an old washer and dryer that still works, but you don’t know what to do with them? Or are you just starting out and could really use a washer and dryer, but can’t afford them? Or, how about a refrigerator? Or a computer? Or a bed?

How about clothes for that washer and dryer? Yes, it’s all there.

Go to Freecycle.org and sign up to your local group. People are giving away just about anything you can imagine. I’ve seen cars and houses given away for free. It’s amazing.

And to think, this grassroots movement started in my old hometown of Tucson, Arizona. The idea is to promote waste reduction and to keep our landscapes from being taken over by landfills. “One person’s trash can truly be another’s treasure!”

It’s true.

Leave it to Hollywood to do something so unexpected as to popularize a brilliant idea that otherwise would never have been mainstreamed.

Until a few years ago, I’d never heard of John Nash. Then the movie A Beautiful Mind came out, featuring the most unlikely of characters — a schizophrenic mathematician — and it introduced to the general public John Nash’s revolutionary game theory for economics. It did this in a spectacular way — by illustrating its use in a bar, and how it could help him and his fellow college students pick up women.

Now, the example in the movie is flawed, because it doesn’t consider the women as part of the players in the “game.” They are merely portrayed as the prizes won through cooperation between competitors. Still, the point comes across loud and clear: the best strategy is to do what’s good for you AND the others in the contest.

Apparently this works in both economics and in dating. But the point is, this little tidbit of a brilliant idea has been gestating in the minds of everyone who’s watched the movie, myself included, and I’ve found myself making day-to-day life decisions based on the principals of Nash’s game theory. Why? Because it works.

In everything, do what’s best for yourself AND those around you. Not just for you, and not just for them. Everyone.

How could something so simple be so brilliant? I guess it took a genius to prove it mathematically before anyone would pay attention to it.

Bookcrossing.com is a place to find books that have been read and then released into the wild. You go to the website, look up your local area, and find books that have been released by Bookcrossing members. Then it’s like a treasure hunt … will the book still be there when you arrive? Did someone beat you to it? If not, and you’ve found the book, you read it, then go back online and write what you thought of it. Then it’s your turn to go put it somewhere, and let everyone on Bookcrossing know where you’ve put it.

You can sign up for alerts whenever a book has been released in your area. Then the race is on!

If you want lots of extra good karma, take some books of your own, enter them into the Bookcrossing system, and release them as well. Afterwards you can see where your book has been, and who read it, and what they thought of it.

There are numerous timeshare places which offer free or considerably reduced hotel rates, cruises, free merchandise, etc., just for listening to a sales pitch. As I originally wrote this, in fact, I was staying for two nights at a luxury hotel right on San Antonio’s beautiful Riverwalk courtesy of just such a deal. I could look out the window and see the Alamo.

The secret is to remember that, no matter how appealing and affordable they make it sound - and believe me, they will make it sound like you’d be an idiot to pass it up - if you sit down and do the math on a spreadsheet, you’ll find you won’t be any better off than if you simply saved your money and went on your vacation the normal way. So don’t believe the hype, stick to your guns, and at the end of the sales pitch tell them the one thing they don’t have a magic answer for: “I don’t like it.” When they ask you why, (and they will, over and over again) repeat these words: “It’s not for me.” Why? “Because it’s not.” Offer no other explanation! Keep repeating the same thing until they give up.

That’s what an old girlfriend of mine and I did, and earned two nights in the hotel I where I originally wrote this article (along with two free dinners, and three free nights in any one of several luxury hotels all across the country). It’s not completely free — I mean, you do have to endure the sales pitch — but it’s a much better deal than what they’re trying to sell you.

The best way to sell something on eBay is to provide your bidders with a good picture.

The best pictures for selling on eBay are not the ones that are the most artistic, or most professional - indeed, too slick a photograph can be detrimental. You’re not going for a professional presentation. The point of the photo is not to show what a great photographer you are, or how professional your sales machine is.

eBay is built on one honest person selling an item to another honest person.

Period.

The whole purpose of the photograph is to inspire TRUST. Nothing else. That’s it.

The photographs of your item should clearly show the condition of the item that a person is bidding on. The photograph and the description in the text need to match perfectly. To do this, you need to show it in a comfortable setting, like on a wood table or propped up on a clean carpeted stairway, preferably with natural lighting so that you don’t have to use a flash, and close up so that it’s easy to see.

You don’t need a photography studio or a professional looking background, but a good tripod is helpful if your lighting is low. Use a couple desk lamps, positioned to the side so that they don’t create glare on shiny surfaces, and avoid using a flash for the same reason.

Get in close. Focus sharply. Make sure your item is clean.

Close up, with warm colors, the warm glow of a incandescent light - all these make your photograph look like a home photo, a snapshot of family members - it’s friendly and natural. It inspires trust. You’re just an honest person selling a few precious things that you don’t need any more. This will run contrary to what you’ve probably read elsewhere, but from personal experience as an eBay buyer, seller, and a former professional photographer, I’ve found that a slick, perfect photo that looks like it came right out of a catalog actually erodes trust, makes them question if it’s really the item that’s for sale, and can give them the impression that you’re running a business that’s only purpose is to make money.

Even if that’s what you really are, that’s not how you want to seem. Salespeople, you see, don’t inspire trust. Your friendly neighbor who lives three doors down, who always lets you borrow his lawnmower, is what inspires trust. And that’s what you’re “shooting” for.