Guide to Living Cheap: Shopping on eBay ROCKS!

Being that this website is designed to be a guide to living cheap for average peeps, I would be remiss if I did not talk about using the Web to find butt-kicking deals. There are actually so many ways out there to cut costs, save money and be frugal in today’s climate, especially with the Web at our fingertips, that in my mind you’re a bumbling idiot if you still insist on paying retail for things. It’s really not a secret at all that the Internet is a wonderland of awesome deals on shopping, saving, and so forth; all you really have to do is just commit to doing the research (with a heaping helping of help from Google—yeah, that was a lame phrase) and you’ll be well on your way to saving money and obtaining killer goods at dirt cheap prices.

Anyone who is familiar with shopping online to any degree probably has, at one time or another, been introduced into the world of eBay. For a long time, I steered clear of eBay, because I thought it was just an online yard sale, and I didn’t think that it had much use unless you were trying to sell some rare set of postage stamps that your dear old great Grandmother bequeathed to you in her estate. But come to find out, half the doggone WORLD shops and sells on eBay (okay, that’s a slight exaggeration). The latest numbers I have (which aren’t very recent) report that eBay received over a billion (with a “B”) visits in 2007—that’s a ridiculous amount of traffic. But you can literally find just about ANYTHING on eBay, and even some stuff that you don’t want to ever find at all (such as exotic skeleton thongs or something).

I encourage anyone that hasn’t signed on with eBay to go ahead and do so…there are a ton of websites (including eBay itself) that can teach you exactly how to bid and buy on eBay. A simple Google search will provide all the sites you need to figure it out, and I’m much too un-motivated to look them up for you and put them here. I personally like (and almost always use) the “Buy It Now” feature—I’m just not one for much quibbling about auction prices, and I hate getting out-bid by some last-minute idiot. You can search for whatever you want and sort by price, and let me tell you—you can find some RIDICULOUS deals on the site, just by doing a little research. There are people who are so devoted to living on the cheap that they refuse to shop for clothes and so forth anywhere outside of eBay. I can see why—I’ve seen deals on clothes where people are getting Abercrombie & Fitch sweatshirts for only $8.00 and so forth. Again, with some of this stuff, you have to see it to believe it. One thing to keep in mind: Almost everyone on eBay facilitates purchases via PayPal, so it would be very useful for you to get a PayPal account as well.

There is, however, an even better way to shop on eBay…a way where you can shop and get CASH BACK for shopping on eBay!!! It’s a site called “Big Crumbs”, and they will literally pay you a percentage of cash back (via PayPal) from every purchase that you make on eBay! So think about it: If you’re buying something from eBay and are already getting a sweet deal on it, once you sign up with Big Crumbs, you can get the additional cash back, making your net expense even lower. Good stuff.

So in conclusion, one of the cornerstones of learning how to live cheaply is definitely getting familiar with eBay. As you will see once you get on the site, it’s not all just old junk and used items; there are quite a bit of big-name retailers that have set up a presence on eBay, so many of the items sold there are brand new. I will be going into the other side of eBay, which is selling, in a future post, so you can get more info on how to earn a little extra chingy in the pocket by selling stuff around your house. Rock on, and keep living cheap!