Summer 2004:
I am not going to the Olympics.
I am devastated.
I am also living in dorms with my friends and teammates that are going to the Olympics.
And training at the same lake with them.
And eating at the same breakfast table.
I cannot escape my failure.
I can, however, try and buy my way out of the deep disappointment.
How? With eBay. My sister introduces me to eBay when she sells her old rowing clothing on it to drum up a bit of cash. She helps me do the same.
The thrill and excitement of selling things in the online marketplace is soon replaced with the thrill and excitement of buying things.
Coach sandals, bikinis, shoes and shoes and more shoes arrive for me daily.
None of it takes away the pain of my narrow miss at going to the Olympics. I know this and yet, I keep buying.
Twelve years later I think I am immune to shopping for sport. I’m wrong.
A few weekends ago I looked through our stash of baby clothing. We had just a half dozen pieces in the newborn and 0-3 month size. Most of what we used with Henry in the beginning were hand-me-downs from my brother and sister-in-law. They were fantastic but didn’t have a lot of life left in them after we used them.
Though I was hopeful we would have a second child, I donated and sold a lot of our baby clothing instead of storing it. I realized as we pared down in the fall of 2010 that I couldn’t plan for every eventuality in life and that included having a second baby that was the same gender, birth month and had the same growth pattern as our first.
We needed six to eight sleepers or gowns in newborn and 0-3 month size along with a few hats. A quick look in the charity shops here left me empty handed so I turned to my old friend eBay.
Oh, eBay. You sure are fun. I was quickly in the swing of things creating watch lists and finding auctions that ended in the early evening so I would be at the computer ready to outbid someone with 10 seconds left in the listing.
If you’ve ever had a shopping romance with eBay you understand how exciting it can be to pip another bidder at the very last second. It’s fun. It’s exciting. It can also be addictive.
I quickly found myself feeling competitive about buying things.
It is so easy to fall back into old patterns. While I shop a lot less now this little brush with competitive shopping showed me I’m not cured of it. It showed me that my habits, not going into stores to browse and keeping lists of things we want to buy, really do help.
When the dust settled I had a half dozen pieces that will be great for our new baby and that I got at a fraction of what they would cost new.
Yes, it was fun to shop. I not only had a little thrill with the eBay bidding process and the hunting down of auctions that fit what I was looking for, I enjoyed getting these things for our new baby. I enjoyed thinking about a folded up little newborn wearing the soft little gown or staying warm with the sweet little hat.
The difference between now and a few years ago is that a few years ago I would have kept buying. We would have had enough sleepers and onesies for triplets. A lot of them would be things I bought because they were a fantastic deal – not because I really liked them.
This time it was different.
Once the last packaged arrived in the mail I emptied out my watch list, left feedback for the sellers and checked ‘buy baby clothes’ off our list.
Any other reformed impulse shoppers still dabble in eBay, big sales or those daily deal emails? Have you found it easier to just buy what you actually need instead of whatever the deal is?
I am a mother, wife and writer from Vancouver, Canada, currently living in the 
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