Oh, happy day! My very first eBay purchase has walked back into my life and made me as giddy as a schoolgirl.
 
Originally thought to be lost (presumably last winter when we moved into the Rockstar House), I stumbled upon my gloriously inexpensive ($8 – beat that!) and fabulously glam stilletos (my heart weeps with the fact that they’re too big to actually wear out of the house) while searching for – of all things – the carrying strap for my yoga mat.
 
Yes, I really am that disorganized. Ask LX (my fiancé) about the pile of clean clothes that lives (albeit, in different incarnations) on the armchair in our bedroom, or the boxes that I’ve yet to unpack but proclaim weekly that I “really need to do something about.”
 
Who cares! Behold… aren’t they lovely?
 

 
You may now return to your regularly scheduled lives.
 

~ Both a jaunty guitar ballad from the early ’90s (thank you, Tracy Chapman) and an effective blog header ~
 
We’re fortunate in that we’re no longer (boy are we no longer!) in our 20s and just starting out in life. We do already have our careers established. And we’re lucky enough to both have parents who are happily willing to contribute to our wedding coffers. Having said that, we also just bought our beautiful Rockstar House – a cute little townhouse in downtown Toronto. Yes, we are mortgaged and our asses officially belong to the bank. 

Our/The Bank's Rooftop Patio.

We are not financially strapped. And we’d like to keep it that way. Now, don’t get me wrong – we are by no means livin’ large. We can’t drop coin on new furniture, a new car or a whirlwind vacation without serious number crunching, planning, discussion & saving. We’ve simply gotten over that hurdle of living paycheque to paycheque. Isn’t that what your 30s are for?
 
This is why I’m an eBay Bride. Living in downtown Toronto is not cheap. We are not wealthy. We’re like most folks I know who choose to live in an urban centre – we get by. Oh yeah… and, as I’ve already mentioned, I’m a Cheap Bitch (perhaps I should trademark that). I like to spend less than ‘the next guy’. I enjoy the thrill of a bargain. I totally get off on paying less than you do for something we both want and/or need.
 
So, again I reiterate my confession: I’m Lisa… and I’m an eBay Bride.

So how did this quest begin? Well, I’m about to be a bride (obviously). And I’m notoriously… erm… frugal? Cash conscious? Eff it – I’m a cheap bitch. Oh, I can spend the hell out of other people’s cash. But, when it comes to my own purse strings, let’s just say that Girl Guide badge in knot tying has come in quite handy.
 
But I digress.
 
I’m loathe to admit that I fall into that most stereotypical of clichés where women are concerned – I love to shop. I’ve also got a nerd streak in me a mile long that keeps me tethered to my computer for long stretches of time. So the concept of the two of these earthly delights combined as one had me giddy even before my first visit. I could shop AND still be sitting in front of my computer? Dear lord – this was better than man landing on the moon. Okay, not really, but it was really REALLY good.
 

A Boba Fett watch – one of my earliest eBay purchases; a birthday gift to my fiancé.

And, just to keep the clichés a-rollin’, my very first purchase via that bastion of treasure & wonder was a pair of shoes; a sassy-as-hell pair of black stilettos that have since wandered off (pun entirely intended) in to the wild blue yonder. Now, ordinarily, a pair of missing shoes (especially a really sexy pair) would be cause for some seriously colourful language and more than a little angst. But the fact that I paid a mere $8 for those beauties has kept me in off the ledge and I’ve since gone on to many more glorious purchases. I’ve discovered clothing, jewelry, shoes, tech, camera gear… everything you can imagine (and a few my imagination never would have conjured and I’d really rather I hadn’t discovered) right at your fingertips – literally.
 
Ah eBay – retail therapy in the comfort of your own home. Genius.