OK, I may eventually tell you ways to save money in the rest of your life, but this guide is designed to give you some new tools to save money on eBay. Unfortunately, there is nothing magic here, maybe just a few things you haven't thought of, or ways to apply things you haven't yet tried.

The most obvious way to save money is to buy less. It is important for me to remember this because NOT BUYING a $5,000  watch will save me much more than buying the watch for only $4,000. So the first rule must be Buy Less.

And, hey, you don't get a feedback rating of nearly 1000 (all from sellers) by following this rule, so please remember I  am the one who needs  to follow it the most. But I have several  items that I would rather not have bought over the years. Maybe some of these other rules would have helped me avoid those mistakes. Maybe they will help you. I hope so.

One very good rule is to be sure the item is what it appears to be and what you think it is, and, most importantly What You Want. This includes fakes, of course, but it also includes things that are honestly described by someone who does not use the descriptive terms the way you do.  If you are looking for a seersucker suit, you may stumble across a pincord suit or a poplin one described as seersucker by someone who doesn't have a clear idea of the difference.  Looking at the pictures usually helps, but sometimes you need to ask questions. A  seller (or the seller's cheap camera) may not be able to show you exactly what her  "tweed looking" suit  actually looks like, but, when she tells you it is summer weight you can pretty much assume it isn't wool tweed.  And there is a little bit of reading between the lines to be done. A snob about some things will find after a while that people who don't share his or her snobbery about items will probably not be selling those items.  Of course, there are a lot of items offered by sellers who do not know what they have, but when someone offers a "Havell Audubon" print, Audubon collectors have learned to expect a certain price range. If the item is much less, or the seller clearly doesn't know enough to tell you the things that will authenticate it, hey, it probably is NOT a mid 19th century hand-colored engraving. The $25 you don't spend finding that out will go a little further towards the $2500 or $25,000 you will need when one does come along.

That leads us to the Rule We All Hate To Believe: If it's too good to be true, it really IS too good. Even if it isn't, you are better off with your money in your pocket than having paid ten percent of the actual value to learn for sure. This simple, but unexciting rule will keep you away from fakes, scams, and doomed restoration projects. It will keep you away from amazing ridiculous success, too, but that success is  amazing and ridiculous for a reason- it is rarer than it would seem. Better to be safe a hundred times than lucky once. And, if you follow this rule MOST OF THE TME, you can afford to break it on the occasions when you just can't help it. And maybe you will be lucky.

Next, be selective and do your homework. Before you bid on anything, spend a half hour or so learning how many similar items have sold recently, and at what prices. You can do this with the "advanced search" feature by searching ended items only. Luck is the residue of design. A simple, but important  way to make this work is DON'T WAIT UNTIL THE LAST MINUTE TO LOOK.

But that brings us to another important point.  While you should look at an item more than once, with plenty of time to decide whether or not you really want or need it and how much it is worth to you,  it is in your best interest to wait as long as possible to actually bid.  A good friend of mine never bids on anything until the day it ends. He will watch and search, but he won't bid until the last day.  That way, he doesn't fall in love with the three dollar sweater that  ends up costing him  fifty. He looks at it again on the last day (preferably in the last half hour) and he forms his opinions based on  the bidding at the end, which is the only bidding that matters.

I am not sniper, not really. I don't use sniper software at least, though I will try to slip my bid in at the 15 or 20 second mark sometimes. But the real advantage the automated  sniper enjoys is that he or she can  "Set it and forget it", placing a bid at a cool remove and then letting the rational machine do its work.  No craziness about "just five dollars more", no grudging admission that you have become besotted with this item and somebody else just cost you a week's pay indulging that attraction.  You simply decide what you want to pay, add in a margin of reasonable overage to be sure, then you go on with your life. You either end up with an item at a price you expected to pay or you end up with your money in your own pocket. There can be no doubt : sniper software will save you money.

Let me stress, all of  this will take some of the excitement out of the auction process. But if you want excitement, you are going to have to pay for it. If you want to buy stuff instead of entertainment, then these rules will give you more money to buy it with. You can follow them ten percent of the time or you can follow them a hundred prercent of the time. The more you follow them, the better the results. But now and then you may find them just too difficult to follow. The good news is that the rest of the time, when you HAVE followed them,  you have been accumulating a cushion to allow for the occasional indulgence.

So, let's recap:
1) Buy less in general
2) Be sure of what the item is
3) Remember if it's too good to be true, it usually is.
4) Be sure of the item's value to you and its demand in the marketplace
5) Research in advance and bid at the last minute- Look early and Bid late
6) Be as detached as possible.
7) Following these rules most of the time will make it more affordable to break them now and then.

Now, I am sure there are some readers who are thinking "If EVERYBODY did that, nobody would make any money." Well, I am pretty sure we can agree that EVERYBODY is not going to do that, so do not worry. Plenty of people will make plenty of money off impulsive, poorly informed buyers. But let us, you and I, make sure that we aren't the easy pickings. Let us be the smart exceptions that make everybody else a little bit jealous. And, as I say, if we are like that most of the time, we can slip up now and then without breaking the bank.
 
And that is also how we will become sellers.

I hope that you have found this little guide to be helpful.  Please take a  moment to vote yes on its helpfulness. And do be sure to see the surprising array of other topics (from movies to being famous) that I can advise you on by clicking "see all reviews and guides by this writer."

Thanks and Good Luck

Wentworth Tradd