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eBay To The Rescue

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.

How To Buy Things For Less By Playing 'The eBay Game'

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!

Camera Phone as CYA Tool

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 Have Brand Loyalty Sickness?

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.

Get Free Stuff, and Get Rid Of It Too

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.

Got Game Theory?

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.

Just Say "No" and Get a Free Vacation

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.