730 things — Day 91 of 365

 I wanted to say something about bidding on eBay.

When I sold my white Birkenstock beach sandals on eBay, I watched the bidding and saw who bought them, and I felt sad for them, because they paid more than they needed to. I noticed that the person did not have a big sale/purchase history, and I think they were not sufficiently experienced to handle the system well.

I like buying on eBay, especially second-hand items from private sellers, because I love that it boosts what I think of as the informal economy. There are many of us who don't enjoy being cogs in anybody's machine, find it hard to fit in to mainstream society, and would rather not be employees of a corporation.

Some people do enjoy that of course — getting ready for work in the morning, dressing in the right clothes, the routine of leaving the house and returning at evening, seeing colleagues at work — it all gives them a sense of purpose and structure and belonging, and they like it. I don't. I prefer to live quietly and reclusively at home. Other people who share a similar temperament to mine have been allowed to be themselves by the advent of eBay; they can make a modest living, or supplement other income strands, by selling pre-loved things. I like that a lot.

While I am enthusiastic about supporting the informal economy, I make a massive amount of fails in my clothing purchases — I change my mind a lot and I live in a tiny room so I haven't space to keep an enormous quarantine stash; and I don't want to anyway. So I try to buy only very low-priced things in the first place. And one of the people who can contribute significantly to keeping that price low is me. Today — in case you don't already know — I'd like to explain how to do it.

Imagine you have found a coat on eBay that's just what you want, on auction at a low start price. There are no bids on it, so you put it on watch and think about it for a few days. It may be that you saw it at midnight while pottering around on the internet, and when you look again in the morning, you think, "Mon Dieu, what was I thinking? I hate it!" Don't bid on anything you've just seen in the middle of the night; you might win it. Midnight shopping is dangerous.

But after about three days, there it still is, and you decide you really want that coat. Say the starting threshold is £7.99. If you want to make sure it stays on eBay and doesn't mysteriously vanish because someone contacted the seller saying, "If you put it on Buy It Now for me at £11.99, I'll buy it" — put a bid on it. Just the starting amount, £7.99. That's all you need to keep it in the auction. 

If other people come along and bid, don't do anything about it. Let yourself be outbid, it doesn't matter. The fewer bids there are, the lower the price stays. Don't push it up. Wait for the end of the auction.

Decide how much you are prepared to pay for that coat. Perhaps you have looked at other coats and the second-hand prices for that sort of thing in that fabric vary between £18.99 and £75.00. You decide how much you are willing to pay. Perhaps you decide you will part with up to £25 and no more — if you spend more, you won't be able to afford groceries or bus fares. So have that in mind. £25.00 tops. 

But — this is important — ask yourself, "So if I put in a maximum bid of £25, and someone wins it at £26, how will I feel? Will I feel upset and disappointed, or think 'Oh, fair do, let it go'?" 

Also bear in mind that people usually put in a max bid at a round figure. If they are prepared to pay £25, that's the max bid they put in. It follows that if £25 is what you'll pay, and you put in a max bid of £25.87 (or £26.87 to be on the safe side) you are much more likely to actually win it. 

You have to decide all this carefully and thoughtfully and honestly, in advance, because everything else happens right on the end of the auction.

When the time of the auction comes, be there on eBay. You need good internet speeds to do this — if your system is slow and buffering, it won't work.

Have the coat that you want on watch, and get ready to bid on it. Don't do anything, regardless of who else is bidding. If the bidding rises and in the last couple of minutes the coat that started at £7.99 is now at £38.99, let it go. You were only willing to part with £25 for it. Let it go. But if it's still down at about £13, get ready.

A minute or so before the auction ends, enter your max bid of £26.87 — enter it, but don't submit it yet. Wait. Have it there up on the screen ready, don't click the 'submit' button yet.

Wait until 10 seconds before the end of the auction. At 9 seconds — or 7 if you have really fast internet speeds — click 'submit'.

At this point, there won't be enough time left for any other bidders to enter a new bid. The automated system will run electronically through the max bids already placed. So you might get it, you might not, but it will give you the best possible chance of winning it within the amount you are willing to pay — and if you are bidding against the unseasoned and unwary, you greatly increase your chances at getting it well within what you've allowed yourself.

If someone else has put in a max bid of, say, £32, you won't win your coat — but it won't matter, because you were only willing to pay £25 anyway, so that's fine.

So, in summary:

• Think about the item carefully for several days. Don't make hasty or impetuous decisions.
• Look at what similar things go for; evaluate the right price — and if loads of people are selling identical garments (same thing from same firm) on eBay, it's probably disappointing, don't buy it.
• Decide what you are happy to pay. If you really want that thing, and there are as yet no bids on it, ensure it stays in the auction by placing the lowest possible bid.  
• If people are already bidding, don't bid, just watch. Don't push up the price by going on bidding in advance.
• Don't put in a round figure as your max bid, add £1.69 or £1.93 or something.
• Enter but don't submit your true max bid a minute or so before the auction ends.
• Submit your bid at 9 seconds before the end of the auction.

If there's anything you don't understand about what I've said here, ask me in the comments. If you didn't know this before and you try it out, come back and let me know how you get on. Good luck!

When you're all done, be kind. Leave only 5-star feedback. If any problems arise, give the seller a chance to sort things out quietly and privately; eBay sellers are very keen to safeguard their 100% 5-star rating. 

Today, what I'm moving on will be some leggings —

— and a piece of lino.

I used to wear leggings a lot back in the 1980s/90s, and they suited me. Having lost weight in this last year, I got some again, thinking I'd once more look good in them. I did, but failed to factor in that in the meantime my vascular system has got old and fragile, and my legs can no longer cope with close-fitting garments that exert pressure at the joints. My ageing body needs all the help it can get, so those leggings went off to the charity shop.

The lino was left over from when we put down flooring in our house after we moved here in 2009. It's been in the attic all that time. I paid for that flooring, so the off-cuts were my responsibility. This was one of two I moved on.