Money Post August 16, 2006

This site’s post about frivolous spending has me thinking about my answer to that question. I think the last frivolous spend I made was bidding on something on EBay. Typically eBay is good for finding rare or obscure stuff that I am looking for but at times its just a cash eating machine. You see things that you think are interesting and fit with what you’ve been looking for, but if you’re not sure you will win the bid you bid on a few. And then you see related things or stuff you were looking for last week and bid on that too. The cost of the item isn’t usually bad, its the shipping they charge. Most sellers try and make money on the shipping costs also and pad the shipping price. So you always have to add 10 or 15 bucks to the price of the item to ship it, and then it wasn’t any cheaper than buying it new in a store. After all is said and done it adds up quick. The only think that saves me is that I get outbid a lot and I don’t re-bid. So a lot of what I bid on initially I don’t win or buy. Basically though, eBay is on my do not visit list most of the time because its a giant cash eating machine.