eBay

I'm sure many of our loyal readers are familiar w/ eBay, but I know some are not. We didn't really start utilizing it until a few months ago, though I knew about it and had looked for stuff starting a few years ago. But now, it's the first thing we think of when we talk about buying something.

I've sold a few things, mainly to declutter before we moved to M-town. I'm mainly a buyer, though. Doug has gotten a nice set of golf clubs, golf balls, a camping cot for re-enacting, and various other items. I've gotten dishes (for some reason, things seem to break more often when there are young children in the house) and coats/clothes for Noah and Claire.

Looking for clothes can be overwhelming because there is just so much to choose from on eBay. So I decided I would go strictly for the Lands' End stuff. I know the high quality of LE and the styles are usually pretty basic and not too trendy. I especially love their little cotton dresses for Claire. I've gotten several of thoes for $5 including shipping, compared to $20 new (not including tax and shipping). One thing I've noticed is that boys' clothing often is sold in lots (groups of items vs. just one thing), which is fine w/ me. I recently won an 18-piece lot of LE shirts and pants for Noah for less than $30 including shipping. It came last week and most of the items look like they've hardly been worn! I used to buy stuff from LE Overstocks but even that seems expensive now.

eBay is not so cool if you don't have a high-speed internet connection. Pages take way too long to load. But if you do have it, I highly encourage you to check it out! It's probably not as cheap as yard saling (partly because of the shipping) but I'm willing to pay more for the selection and convenience of not having to leave the house. Gas ain't cheap, ya know.