How I work it

I was asked a question in comments about ebaying. I have several things I try to do in order to not pay too much for anything.

One thing is a set maximum on the items I look at. It is usually 20 dollars. After setting the max price, I am only shown items for 20 dollars or less. However, this doesn't cover shipping. If I look at an item I really like and am willing to pay a lot I might bid on something with a high shipping cost. However. Most of the time I look at the item and the shipping cost together and ask myself if I am willing to pay that. If the item is won for 6 dollars and the shipping is 14 dollars I am unlikely to even bid on it. I try before I bid to keep to low shipping cost and fairly low item cost. But I always look at both before bidding.

Since I have finally discovered thrifting I am ebaying less. I wanted a plaid shirt and didn't care much what color as long as it was springy. I lucked into a plaid lavender shirt at Goodwill for 3 dollars. Obviously there was no way I would get anything from ebay for that price. Conversely I was able to buy 2 shirts with 2 matching camisoles for 12 dollars plus 6 for shipping. I consider that a bargain because I received 4 shirts in beautiful colors that fit well and feel good for 18 dollars. So it is all in what you are willing to spend.

While I am at it I would like to comment on knock-offs. I was, for a while, buying some knock off handbags from Craigslist. There has been a lot said about how the knock off takes money away from the designer and I thought, I wouldn't buy it at all because I couldn't afford anything but a knock-off. However, I now know the harm hits the designer in another way. There are certain styles of Coach, for instance, that I wouldn't buy because there are so many similar knock-offs. The same for Chanel and Louis Vuitton. Since the knock-offs are so prevalent, I wouldn't buy the real thing because there might be a knock-off of it out there somewhere. I have seen how these imitation bags can really be a problem. But I don't need any more bags anyway unless they ate thrifted.