E-bayers annonomous

[Belldandy16]

How do you stop the addiction???

Ok so as of right now i have 75 cents in my bank acct. so i NEED to stop buying stuff from ebay and basically take a break from collecting altogether.

Well it was like a daily ritual for me. id check my emails, and either come here or go to ebay to see whats new on there. Last night after watching Suze Orman i decided to myself i have to take a LONG break from collecting and build up my bank acct. (which if i tried REALLY hard, i could save alot of money) but up till now ive been spending all my extra money on cels or whatever on ebay.

I thought beforehand, when i wanted to save money, that i could just go to ebay and "just look"… well whenever i "just look" i eventually buy something. So now i know i just have to stop cold turkey on ebay.
Man thats hard! lol
its like its an addiction or something, ya know?

anyone else ever had this problem?

oh and…

hello.
My name is Bell.
ive been addicted to buying cels for two years now...

[MidniteKitten]

I had this very same problem not too long ago. I was complaining to my mother I no longer had gas, food, etc...but I'd turn around and spend 20$ from the last 100$ I had and go back to complaining. How'd I stop, it took a bit, it wasn't untill I reeeeally was flat broke and actually really did need gas and food that I sold a very dear collectible of mine to keep on living :c Once it'd bee sold it hurt so much, but I really needed those funds. After that I realized that I'm only going to buy when I can actually afford to, if buying means I'm gonna' be skipping a trip to see a friend, or a meal then it's no longer worth it. So basically sometimes it takes reality to be harsh and mean to you to stop. Otherwise you need to will yourself to before you get to the point where your selling off posessions :< Hope that helps!

[cutiebunny]

I fund my overtime money into the hobby. So, if I don't do overtime, I don't spend.

Typically, though, I carry over amounts that I made in terms of overtime. So if I made $200 in overtime one week but only spent $50, then, I carry over that $150 to the next. That way, if I see one of those ubber pricey cels that I absolutely must have(which doesn't happen often), I don't feel so guilty about buying it.

I know it's an example that doesn't work for everyone, though.

[iceman57]

Maybe rename the thread "AA Acetate Anonymous", because I think this applies to all the arts sources

[Sky Rat]

I can DEFINITELY relate. For me, the only way to curb my spending was to cut myself off completely cold turkey. Which is why I was really active in cel collecting from about 2003-2005 and then I just disappeared off the scene until earlier this year. If you let yourself ‘just look’ you’ll almost inevitably find something and it’s a lot harder to resist something you’ve already seen than it is to not look in the first place. I have very little self control once I’ve come across something I want to buy. When I took my break from cel collecting I still acquired a few pieces, but I only bought from dealers in person when I went to cons, rather than letting myself look online on a daily basis.

Even aside from cels I can relate to the ebay addiction…I’ve had my ebay account longer than I’ve had home internet access. I actually got my first checking account because my dad got tired of writing checks for me so I could buy things on ebay (way back in the days before paypal, lol.) My addiction to ebay has waned over the years, but it’s been replaced by an addiction to YJ which is even more expensive.

The other way I’ve coped with spending addictions is by limiting what series I collect from. My spending got really out of control when I tried to collect from every show I was a fan of. I decided to prioritize by only buying art from my favorite one. It’s hard sometimes but I’d rather not have to pass on a good cel from my favorite series because I bought too many cels that were less meaningful to me.

[Shampoo]

Well I cant say I ever had a problem w/
being addicted to spending more than I really can in this hobby
but I can tell ya how I curb my spending when I start
to get over-enthusiastic!

Instead of checking out ebay so much, check out your
cels in the books and just flip thru and admire them.
You'd be surprised how grateful and elated you can get
from just re-evaluating how good it feels to own that cel
you eyeballed, or that sketch you beat all to the punch
to order from so-and-so's update.

As for reserve monies, I kinda do what cutiebunny does.
I do extract out "play" money and set it aside..
This is not to be confused w/ savings, which you should do
anyways (in case of emergency like car repairs etc)
If I'm reaaally good, and save up enough I can buy a big purchse
aka a really pricey cel or nice dress or whatnot.
But if I'm bad, and blew 2 months worth of my play money and MUST
go cold-turkey for that 2 month period. Like I am right now.


I dont look at all at ebay or yhj when I'm cold tiurkey
its too painful to watch what I could potentially be bidding on

[Sky Rat]

I agree with Shampoo’s method. You ought to open a second savings account. Each paycheck put a set amount in each one (a decent amount in the real one and a smaller amount in the one for cels.) Don’t let yourself look on ebay at all until you have a decent amount saved in the cel account, and don’t let yourself draw funds from your regular savings at all.

[Belldandy16]

Thanks so much for the tips, guys!
yeah im going to have to just bite the bullet and go cold turkey. i did go on a cel fast late last year but i eventually saw those "must haves" on ebay and broke my fast before i should have.

so now im totally serious about stopping and saving.

I think i will try having a few savings accounts so i can split the money between play money and savings money. thats a good idea, thanks guys!

[iceman57]

...Or arrange a Belldandy16 Web Auction

[Belldandy16]

im trying to … minus the auction part.
cmon guys buy my stuff.
http://www.anime-beta.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t=26884

[iceman57]

Ha ha

Well coming back on the "addicted Anonymous" or any term that'll fit.
I (hope) that live in a couple with a non collector offers some kind of moderation.

Regarding the facts, I had once my heart that stopped to beat during half a second, my credit card was rejected on payment page while having enough money on my account. Of course a weekend when bank was closed, in fact the bank explained me that the card reached its 30 days payment limit and was rejected by Paypal. I think that warned me a bit about addiction

[miz ducky]

Delete your accounts on auction sites or for the ones you can't delete, have someone you TRULY Trust (like parents if yours are trust worthy) change your passwords so you can't bid.
Then when you have your finances together again you can reopen accounts or get the new password from the person who changed it.
Possibly

[ReiTheJelly]

Delete your accounts on auction sites or for the ones you can't delete, have someone you TRULY Trust (like parents if yours are trust worthy) change your passwords so you can't bid.
Then when you have your finances together again you can reopen accounts or get the new password from the person who changed it.
Possibly

That is an excellent idea. That way, you cannot bid without the approval of a (hopefully) level-headed individual.

[Captain Haddock]

Well Bell for me I can't afford really to buy at the mo so I just plain don't. Don't get me wrong there's plenty out there I like but I just can't right now. I did make about 3 relatively modest cel purchases last year but I used to average about 15 (quite pricey) a year so you can see how much I slowed. I could pile a bit more onto my already reasonably substantial overdraft, but then I'd feel like a bit of a git for saying I'm broke all the time. If however I can get a promotion at work or better still a plain better job then I can think about setting another cel budget again. Until that happens though it's just a cold hard no goer on my part. For you I'd recommend the same, not stop just step back.

[Sylia]

...Or arrange a Belldandy16 Web Auction

LOL! Funny

Hm... if I've just spent a lot of money recently I then have a slowdown. Reasonably speaking, getting too much stuff at once is not good as it doesn't create as much enjoyment for your money as it would if you spread that enjoyment out over time. Well, most of the time anyway I think that's true for me.

On the other hand, sometimes the reason I buy a lot of things I'm after all at once is that it's quite time consuming to search for them and I know later on I will be too busy to look or I'll forget about it and then the thing will be really hard to find later on. I did that with a few CD soundtracks I'd been meaning to buy for years, and finally decidely to buy them last year only to find that in the few months or years I'd been putting it to the back of the list, the CDs had now become extremely rare and worth like $60-$100 each x.x. Total "d'oh!" moment! That happened with a lot of things I'd "been meaning to buy" last year, and so I came into this year *determined* to save a large amount of money from gifts and from selling things I no longer wanted, and put it into getting all these types of things I was after that are going out of print.

It's funny because you end up diverting most of your funds for 'fun stuff' into cels and that kind of collecting, but ironically sometimes the mass-produced things you think you can just buy whenever and so don't need to worry about them are the things that become rarer and more valuable . That was a big lesson for me last year lol.

In terms of being seriously broke though, I'd say collecting anything isn't something you should get into an overdraft over. I know someone who did get into debt from collecting a different type of artwork, and when they finally grew out of it and realised they wanted to move forward in life and do all the other great stuff they wanted to do, such as going back to school, they really couldn't because they had to spend the next 5 years paying the debt off. While it was a good learning experience for them you don't wanna tie up years of your life like that if you can help it. Or think of it this way: money = freedom. That's something that's worth a lot more- when you really crave it the most- than almost *any* material possessions you can acquire.

Lol sorry for the long piece . Good luck with it though. I do understand lol- I was addicted to eBay the first year I tried it, and then addicted to YJ for the first year I tried that XD. It's good that you feel like you want to take control of it; I think it can be a really empowering thing ^^.