…Or it found me. Either way, it landed me on Greg’s “what the hell were you thinking?” list.  I was embarrassed, for it is not like me to be so reckless, but the truth was a) I wasn’t thinking, and b) I love a great deal (am I sounding a bit like Donald Trump?)

I try never to pay full price for anything.  If I had a million bucks to spend, I would still buy my clothes in consignment, and yes, even thrift shops!  I wear name brand clothes for a fraction of retail, and nobody knew my secret (except I guess the world does now :>}   In fact, the only articles of clothing that I don’t purchase “gently used” are my SHOES!

So, with all of that in mind, and add to it the fact that I have way too much idle time on my hands, while this hip heals, I stumbled upon an online auction called thepropertyroom.com.

Not really sure of its history, but I guess it purports to be a police site, where confiscated goods are sold at pennies on the dollar, to the highest bidder.  You name it, they sell it: jewelry with precious stones, computers & all sorts of tech gadgetry, vehicles, & tools, to name a few.

Well, curiosity piqued, I had to check it out.  The first thing I bid on, a kit to build solar-generated toys for grandson, Riley, I won!  Uh-oh.  I was hooked.  I made the mistake of checking out the “jewelry” category.  Lo & behold, there, ripe for the picking, were a lot of lovely, and unusual sterling silver (.925) pieces. (Sterling silver jewelry is another of my weaknesses, right up there with shoes.)  Telling myself that many of them would make great Christmas presents, I bid on a boat-load of jewelry, never thinking I would be lucky/unlucky enough to score any of those treasures.

There are several caveats to the bidding process.  As with eBay, once you place a bid,, there’s no changing your mind.  Also, they have this deadly feature called a proxy bid, whereby you set the maximum bid you are willing to spend on each item.  If the item never reaches that threshold, and you are the high bidder, you pay the actual bid price, if it is lower than your maximum.  It just frees you up, so you don’t huave to monitor each item, and manually counter every time somebody places a higher bid than yours.  In other words, it is way too easy to score deals.

The biggest problem with “winning” a bid (Greg gets mad every time I use that terminology.  He says “you didn’t win anything; you just bought a bunch of crap!” Yes, but it’s competitive and…addictive..and it’s great stuff!)  is that, no matter how inexpensively you obtain merchandise, the shipping charges are killer.  For instance, I “won” a sterling silver ring with mother of pearl inlay for $1. But add $6.75 in shipping to that item, and suddenly, the cost of that ring spirals out of control.

All told, I purchased 6 pieces of silver jewelry, each packed in a separate box, shipping from the same location, on the same day.  Cha-ching! That’s $40.50 just for delivery of the goods.

In addition to the jewelry which, let’s be honest, I will mostly be keeping for myself because I am heavily invested emotionally in them, I also bid on a no-touch stainless steel soap dispenser, as well as a set of 1500-count queen-sized sheets. I consider those a great deal; the sheets, with shipping, were under $35!

I had a great time getting into “Twubble”, but be assured, that was once-in-lifetime hiccup, that will never, ever be duplicated!  After my bidding experience, I didn’t even look at the emails that they sent to me that showcase new merchandise.  In fact, I unsubscribed from the site yesterday. (And, yes, I felt a twinge when I did it!)

In retrospect, a man I used to work with by the name of Don Caudle, upon hearing us women talk about how much money we had just saved on a lunchtime shopping spree, stated “you would have saved 100% if we just hadn’t gone shopping!”  Surprisingly, that fact never would have occurred to me. It is, however, impossible to argue with his logic.

And so, in closing, you were right, Don!  I hope to avoid future “twubble” by remembering your simple fiscal wisdom.