15 June 2008

AFTER A LONG ABSENCE...

Yep, I've taken some time to actually do a post. I have been pretty busy with work, but...I have also been involved with some other activities...heheh.

I've discovered eBay! Oh, have I discovered eBay...and my bank account is suffering mightily.

To start at the beginning. After I finished working at the Eye Centre in April, I looked around my place and decided it needed some changing. Things like a new lounge, new entertainment centre, new tv, etc...you know, just some small bits and pieces.

Soooo...I went and priced things. First off, the lounge...and had to come home and revive with a strong black coffee, followed by a couple of glasses of wine with Jane and Fred, to get over the shock of the price of these things.

I was telling Suzie (Younger Daughter, aka Flossy) about it and she gave me a weird look and asked why I hadn't tried eBay. (I dunno, why hadn't I tried eBay?) I tried eBay. The first item I saw was a lovely shabby chic chest of drawers. Oooh, ideal for my bedroom. I mean, why stop at one room? So, first of all I Watched This Item...it had a few days to go before the end of bidding. Then I pounced and put a $100 bid in.

Now if you don't know anything about eBay, you bid the highest you are prepared to go. F'rinstance, the starting bid was say, $10. Someone bumped it up to $20. But if you really, really want it, like I did, then you bid what you a prepared to pay. This bid does not show up on the buyer's site. But if someone came along and bid $30, they would be told they had been outbid and to bid again. Usually all the action happens in the last minute or so. If there had been a few seconds more left, I'd have lost it. As it was I ended up buying it for $93. But my heart was in my mouth because I wasn't sure if I was going to get it or not. However, all's well that ends well and all I had to do was drive to the Gold Coast and pick it up. Which I did and it is now firmly ensconced in my bedroom (see photo below) full of my clothes.

However, before I went on to big items, I tried something small and bought The Travelling Wilbury's CD for $28 including postage. I thought this was a pretty good buy as someone else had one on auction and when I looked at it, it was up to $45! I know it's a collector's item now what with Roy Orbison and George Harrison having shuffled off their respective mortal coils, but I still was not prepared to spend $45...and that's what it was only up to at that time.

The next item I bought was a camera...a Kodak 10x zoom with all the bells and whistles. I had priced these and they were up to $500 new. I got mine for $127.00

Then, I decided I'd had enough practice and started looking at lounges. This took 2 or 3 weeks as I'm pretty fussy and I also knew what I wanted and wasn't prepared to compromise. Then, a couple of weeks ago...bingo! I found it. It was blue, the exact shade I wanted, was a three seater lounge with two recliners (see photos below). I have wanted a recliner for years and years. Now was my chance. It was in beautiful condition so I put in my highest bid of $600. I had also priced these...around the $3,000 range. It was originally listed at $400. Then someone put in a bid which took it to $455. I ended up getting it for that price...no one else was interested.

The next item was a pair of wrought iron and wood bedsides for $35 (see photo). As my bedhead is wrought iron and wood, these go perfectly and they were in mint condition.

So that's the end of my eBay bidding...so far. However, I also bought a new LCD tv and a new vacuum cleaner as the ones I had were old and ready to kark it. Actually the vacuum cleaner had died. I also bought a little 82 litre upright freezer and now I can take advantage of specials at the supermarket and have somewhere to store them.

Now, that I have decided to pull my horns in for a while...the heater has died and it was bloody cold last night! So, up to Good Guys today to get another.

There you have it, that's what I've been up to for the last oouple of weeks.

I also have lots of news about Mitzi, which I'll put on her blog, Mitzi's & Bella's Purrings. I'll try not leave it too long until I post again. But this retirement business takes up a lot of my time!


My lovely set of drawers.


My new lounge and...

one of the pair of recliners

One of the bedsides. I will get a couple of nice lamps for these, but not just yet. My bank account needs to recover from the sudden loss of funds. So when the next transfusion has been done, then I will start looking.

I'm now going to catch up on you all. I hope it's not fatal...for you, that is.

17 comments:

Gattina said...

Welcome back ! I thought you were sick or your back hurting like last time, but you made high life as a freshly baked pensioner ! That's very nice because when I retired I was sitting there not knowing what to do with myself and finally got depressed. It took me almost 3 years to reorganize my life !
I never bought anything on ebay because I was afraid of bidding online, but the way you explain it seems correct. I thought I had to sit there whole day and bid !

Lee said...

It looks like you and I had a blogging epiphany at the same time, Robyn!

Wow! You have been busy depleting that savings account of yours - great purchases, though!!!

Peter said...

Hi Robyn, long time no hear, well apart from the odd joke or fwd, good ebaying there, you mentioned an entertainment centre too, if you haven't done anything about that hold fire till I get home... probably next week, I may have what you want... I mean that in the nicest possible way!

Jellyhead said...

Oh wow, you've gone e-Bay crazy!
Sounds like you got some great deals, and they look beautiful. Makes me think I should use e-Bay more (so far I have only ventured as far as buying some Lego people for my son!)

Hope you've had a lovely weekend Robyn. Great to hear from you again :)

Walker said...

THose are great buys.
I discovered Ebay years ago and have pillaged it for just as long but I am carefull to and price things before I make bids.

Its nice to see a post from you.
I was wondering if you had run away with some sailer :)

Merle said...

Dear Robyn ~~ You did very well on
e bay and got some lovely things.
I have never tried it on my own. My granddaughter helped me years ago.
Glad you got the chicken soup out of the freezer for dinner. Glad you got a laugh out of the hair dryer joke.
All good here, but cold nights, days not so bad YET. Take care, my friend
Love, Merle.

Jeanette said...

Hi Robyn,. Gee you have got some great EBay buys there , love the colour of your lounge suite. Ive not tryed using Ebay but my kids just love buying and selling on ebay....

rel said...

Robyn,
Welcome back!
E-bay, no don't be mentioning E-bay.
My wife retired in April also and she discovered E-bay. :( Oh woe is me!!!
All that aside, you made some marvelous deals.

We had a saying when we were stationed in Korea in the early 70's and were able to purchase items from the Pacific Exchange at a significant savings: We're going broke saving money.
rel

srp said...

My mom has done a bit of eBay shopping and it can be addictive. I am trying to outfit my daughter who just graduated from college and is going off to grad school.... have you ever tried Craig's List in your area?

http://www.craigslist.org/about/sites.html

Karen said...

It's so good to see you back Robyn. I think it would be a fatal mistake for me to go on ebay as I hate shopping with a passion and that would suit me far too well. At least with my aversion to going to the shops, I save a lot of money.

Glad to see you are enjoying your retirement even if your bank account isn't :)

Anonymous said...

Great to see you back and thanks for taking your time to visit too!

Sounds like you've had a busy but good time and the pics of the furniture was really great - thanks for sharing!

Ramblins of a middle-aged goddess said...

I for one am glad to see you back. I have missed hearing from you and coming to see what you are up too. I think I have been coming to your site for a long time now so great to see you BACK!!
Boy you did a very good job with ebay shopping!! I love your buys. I have been wondering about your kitty!! I will have to go check out this site. Keep writing. Miss you.
Sandy

Liz Hinds said...

Welcome back!

I thought I had it bad when I spent pounds at ebay on books on jigsaws. But I'm not in your league! They do look like bargains though. I fancy a recliner. I always like to have my feet up when I'm relaxing.

I've been trying to find a wrought iron bedhead on ebay but without success so far. Actually I haven't looked for a while ...

Mountain Mama said...

You certainly did learn about e-bay!
I love the blue lounge and chair.
I have done a little e-bay shopping but not for furniture items.
There's something contagious about the bidding I think. I haven't done that in quite a while but there are a few things I could look for.....
Blessings

Andree said...

AHA! There you are. I love the stuff you got. I was thinking it was shipped to you! LOL. I don't think I could drive to get anything here. But you got good stuff and it looks so comfortable. Now keep blogging, Robyn!!

Anonymous said...

Hello Sunshine!
Thanks for the howdy the other day. It's always great to hear from you. Please tell Suzie that I miss her and would love to hear from her. I am thinking that my package did'nt get to her... so perhaps I will try again with the other address I have. I want to find out about placing Izzy Bee into a netball squad and think she would be great to squish info out of. Love all your ebay purchases... just beware of all the con artists out there.
Much love, Nickers xox.

Anonymous said...

ps. I will post a letter this time... just in case!