Classified site Preloved.co.uk recently asked over 3,000 members of the public about their second-hand buying and selling habits. Some 92% of the respondents said that they’d prefer to sell online than at a car-boot sale, which means there should be plenty out there for second-hand bargain hunters like myself.

But it doesn’t just start and end with the almighty Ebay. There are loads of great second-hand sites to be explored, with more innovative ones setting up all the time.

Here are a few of my favourites:

Wardrobesurgeon.com: Wardrobesurgeon was set up by Huddersfield fashion design graduate Kirsty Spencer earlier this year, to sell a mix of second-hand clothing and original items made from recycled fabrics. Prices on the site start from £5 and you can pick up skirts, playsuits, tops, jackets, accessories and even some very cute and funky sock animals. There’s also a made-to-order section on the site and a sale section in which everything is under £20. Oh, and it also has an interesting blog focused on ethical fashion. 

Oxfam.org.uk: If you’re not a fan of rooting around in charity shops, you can now buy second-hand clothes at Oxfam online. The site lists thousands of items, all with images, which you can search through by price, condition, brand and size. All items are priced as they would be in the high-street charity shops - and the delivery’s free! The site also lists a number of wedding dresses, new and second-hand, which carry a £25 recorded delivery charge.

Preloved.co.uk: Preloved is a free classified site with a local focus. Once you become a member it will prioritise adverts in your area. The site is good for second-hand labels and many sellers are open to offers. While some items are pick-up only, most sellers will post. Preloved also lists wedding dresses and maternity clothes.

Poshswaps.com: Launched in April 2009, Poshswaps brings the increasingly popular clothes swapping model to the web. The site lets you buy, sell or swap second-hand, vintage, recycled and re-worked items, and while it doesn’t have a vast amount of listing at the moment, it’s early days. To swap an item, you list the item along with an image, details about it and what it’s worth, and then state what you are looking to swap it with. Prices start from £5 and the site also lists wedding dresses and children’s clothes.

Gumtree.co.uk: Bringing local buy and sell classifieds online, Gumtree lists items by city pages. The site is good if you’re looking locally for bulkier items such as shoes, coats and second-hand wedding dresses, as you won’t have to fork out for expensive postage and packaging costs. It’s also great for children’s clothes - you can often pick up bundles as parents have a clear-out.  As it’s local, you also have the bonus of being able to look at an item before you hand over any money.

Ebay.co.uk: We can’t have a guide to second-hand online clothes shopping without mentioning the mother of all web-based auction sites. Ebay claims more than 14 million active users and a global customer base of over 233 million. The site has gone from strength the strength but, as sellers become more search-term savvy, finding what you’re looking for doesn’t get much easier. I love that the site has a great item display - you need only hover over a listing to see an image of the item - and that the ratings system lets you chose to do business only with sellers who have a proven five-star track record.

Maternity and wedding dresses
I felt that sites focused on driving down the costs of two of the most important and expensive events in one’s life - weddings and pregnancies - deserved a section of their own, so here are a few of best sites for finding second-hand wedding dresses and maternity wear:

Sellmyweddingdress.co.uk:  I bought my wedding dress from this site at the bargain price of £250 so I’m a bit biased towards it. Sellmyweddingdress features listings of new and second-hand dresses, which you can search by size, designer and price. It is recommended that you try on the wedding dress before you hand over any money, so look for listings in your local area unless you’re prepared to travel far and wide.

Almostnewweddingdresses.co.uk: A similar set-up to the above, but with slightly fewer items for sale. However, this site does have the bonus of a ‘location’ search function.

Thedressmarket.net: The Dress Market’s wedding dresses section is slightly more expensive than the other sites I’ve looked at, and it doesn’t have a price search function. However, you can search by location.

Bloomingbumps.co.uk: Maternity clothes re-seller Bloomingbumps’ clothes start from £5. You can search by brand and designer, and all clothes are freshly-laundered before they are dispatched. The site also sells maternity swimwear and bridal gowns, although there were none of the latter listed when I scoped out the site.

Mothers2b.co.uk: Sells new and second-hand clothing with prices generally in the £10 - £50 mark.

Maternityexchange.co.uk: This site, selling new, second-hand and clearance maternity wear, is currently being updated and promises that “full shopping features will be available soon” - complete with maternity wedding dresses. One to check back on…

In case you were wondering, I did give in to temptation while researching this article - I bought a lovely second-hand black and white shirt dress for £5. And I also have my eye on a very cute sock bunny as a Christmas present for my nephew, and perhaps one for myself…

IMAGE by Flick user ClAiudia*~Assad

In that spirit, we’ve been asking friends to commit to an energy challenge - big or small - for the month of October. We hope that the by looking at individual habits, routines and appliances, we can glean some useful insights and help work out what changes really do make a difference to our energy use, and whether it’s possible to live with bigger changes than just turning the thermostat down a notch.

So who’s doing what?

Simon is already living without a fridge.

Tamsin H is forsaking her domestic washing machine and using the launderette.

Lee has pledged not to turn on the central heating*.

Bridgetta is giving up her tumble dryer.

Paul is waving goodbye to his treasured baths and taking only showers.

Magico is giving up meat and dairy.

Sam is abandoning the bus and getting to work under his own steam (he’ll be using Tom as his mentor, no doubt).

I’m giving up the use of my car for getting to work, and will be attempting to cadge lifts, cycle and walk instead.

Inveterate elevator-users Dean, Ellie and Caroline have pledged not to use the lift at Living Towers, but to familiarise themselves with the mysteries of the stairwell.

Find out how we do

We’ll be blogging the progress of our intrepid challengers and putting together a video showing some of the high and lows, in collaboration with the Low Carbon Households project - where more than 30 families have been measuring their homes’ energy use for the last six months.

And from time to time, we’ll also be turning to our energy-saving expert friends at Lewes District Council, Earthpill and the Energy Saving Trust for their advice and opinions on our efforts.

Got advice for us? Want to join in? Why not email editor@living.morethan.com or leave a comment below. And remember you can follow the action and talk to us on Twitter.

* Lee may not be at home for all of October, and hence has kindly agreed to extend his challenge into November. Brrr.

Plasma ball image by Flickr user naughty architect

GM electricity meter by Flickr user Clearly Ambiguous

Still, it’s hard to avoid a nagging suspicion that I’m not doing this properly - it just feels too easy. Vegetables last for ages if you don’t buy too many of them, it’s easy to get indestructible goods in cans or jars, and a pint of milk lasts almost exactly as long as it takes to use it. Plus I’m still spending rather a lot of time at my partner’s flat, if I’m honest.

This last is both cheating, and an extra challenge. I’m not cooking at home as much as I normally would be, so that’s saving a lot of hassle, but without the fridge it’s proving hard to cut waste down to an absolute minimum: small amounts of milk keep going unfinished (along with the odd bit of bread and salad) when I go away for a day or two.

When I’m around, it turns out that the main problem really is one of convenience and comfort. With no fridge, beers, juice and milk are warm, and leftovers have to be eaten in less than a day or not at all. Worse, I’m normally in the habit of cooking up huge vats of food and freezing the extra for when I’m feeling too lazy to cook. Without home-cooked food in the freezer, I’m relying on ready sauces a bit more than I’d like.

So, with only 11 days left to go, I’m already looking forward to the convenience of a new fridge, if not the expense of buying one. In the meantime, I’m amusing myself by compiling lists of my favourite non-refrigeration-requiring things:

10 Rice and pasta…
9 ..and jars of curry and pasta sauce.
8 Potatoes - especially big fat ones for baking on a cool evening.
7 Bell peppers.
6 Butter - this one’s a bit of a surprise when you’re used to keeping spread or spreadable butter in the fridge, but good old-fashioned salted butter keeps for two weeks (so far).
5 Courgettes - I’m beginning to suspect that these are, in fact, indestructible, and that should there ever be a nuclear war they’ll be what all the cockroaches are eating.
4 Bread - I know this is obvious, but I’ve been buying sliced bread and freezing it for years, as I mostly only make toast. I’d completely forgotten that it can last a week in a cool enough room, and that they make smaller loaves just for people like me.
3 Aubergines - they don’t keep, but I enjoy watching them rot, for I know them to be evil.
2 Chocolate.
1 Red wine.

Estethica, the British Fashion Council’s eco-sustainable initiative is now in its seventh season. There are nine new designers joining for this week’s shows, bringing the total to 28 from the opening season’s 13.

This year’s most innovative exhibitors include:

Pachacuti - Founder Carry Somers established her fair-trade clothing, accessories and Panama hat company in 1992 after a visit to Ecuador. Having been shocked at the un-fair trading practices, she gave two co-operatives the money to buy raw materials in bulk and started to create designs for her products.

Despite an initial set-back, when armed robbers stole much of the cash intended for the next collection, Pachacuti now has a shop and two websites, and wholesales to over 200 retailers around the world. The company’s signature classic Panama hat is made from native toquilla palm and is made through environmentally-friendly processes which mean that it can be composted when it reaches the end of its long life.

The North Circular - Founded by top models Lily Cole and Katherine Poulton, Central St Martin’s graduate Alice Ashby and founder of ethical fashion company Izzy Lane, Isobel Davies, The North Circular launches in October with the tag-line ‘Knitted by grannies, supported by supermodels’.

The new design house uses wool from organic-fed sheep at Izzy Lane’s Sheep Sanctuary, spun and dyed naturally within a 120-mile radius of the sheep shed, and the expertise of UK local cottage industry. Buyers will be able to choose from 16 designs and five seasonal colours, with four styles able to be minimized for children.

Ajna - Created by Beryl Man, former knitwear design director at Donna Karen, Ajna uses environmentally-friendly materials such as organic cotton, hemp silk, biodegradable viscose, bamboo and banana leaves and organic wool to create timeless knits crafted by fair-trade initiatives in Peru, Nepal, Bolivia and India.

Fifi Bijoux - This British jewellery brand create luxury accessories using materials sourced from ethical suppliers. Director and designer Vivien Johnston says that all the gold and gems used in the exclusive creations come from mines that are fair-trade and community owned.

Beyond Skin - The popular vegan shoe boutique, that creates fashion-forward designs with materials such as synthetic leather, polyesters and recycled rubber, are regular exhibitors at Estethica and is this year launching an accessories line, to include belts and bags.

Bird Textiles - Bird became Australia’s first climate-neutral business in 2004 and has since won a number of other green accolades, including being featured in Time Magazine as one of three significant sustainable fashion brands in Australasia. Bird’s fabrics are made from fair-trade, organic materials, are hand-printed using water-based dyes and are manufactured using solar power. Buyers choose their fabric and the seasonal style they would like to wear it in. 

Title image by courtesy of Bird Textiles.

And so it is that Friday found me and my dad watching a collection of priceless vintage motors hammering it around a vintage circuit in the Sussex countryside. Thoroughly enjoyable it was, too, particularly as this year marks the Mini’s 50th birthday, celebrated at the weekend with a two-part one-make race series.

But a recent crash test conducted in America reminds me that the Mini, like my beloved VW, really does belong to a different era when it comes to safety.

The test in question, conducted by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS), pitted a 1959 Chevrolet Bel Air against a 2009 Chevrolet Mailbu in an offset frontal collision. And the result isn’t pretty for either car.

But the most shocking part is the IIHS assessment of what would have happened to two drivers involved in such an accident: the driver of the 2009 Malibu would be nursing “slight knee injury”.

The older car’s driver would be dead.

(via Jalopnik)

In March thieves kicked down my front door and walked away with two laptops, three houses on Tom’s street have been burgled this year and just last week police caught a man red-handed leaving our colleague Mark’s house with a swag bag.

The latter incident, however, wasn’t technically a break-in. It’s thought that 36% of burglaries are crimes of opportunity, with burglars letting themselves in through unlocked doors and windows. This was one of those occasions, as Mark explains:  

Latch-a-daisical?

I have a three-bed house and have a tenant living with me. He went home for lunch one day last week and was greeted by four or five plain clothes police officers standing by the back gate.

All my stuff has been returned now and the guy has been charged. He was apparently wanted on a string of offences and is going to crown court for sentencing soon.

A new Insurance Industry Guide to Home Security has just been published by the Association of British Insurers and the Home Office.

IMAGE by Flickr user Frostey

How often does my chimney need sweeping?

• The short answer is once a year - at least. It depends on how much you use your fire and the type of fuel that you burn. Smokeless fuel will cause the least build-up of soot and creosote residue, and anthracite coal is also a fairly clean burner. If you use softer bituminous coal you are likely to need your chimney swept a couple of times a year.

Does my chimney need sweeping more often if I have a wood-burning stove?

• Not necessarily. Again, it depends on the type of wood you are burning - whether it’s in an open fire, or in your stove. Freshly cut softwood causes a quicker build-up of residues than harder, older wood. If you are burning softwood you’ll probably need your chimney cleaned four times a year.

What time of year should my chimney be swept?

• Most experts agree the best - and safest - time to clean your chimney is before you start using it in earnest each winter.

Why is it necessary to have my chimney swept?

• Two main reasons here - firstly to prevent fires (of the calamitous, rather than the cosy, toe-warming variety), and to avoid carbon monoxide poisoning.

Can I do it myself?

Well, it’s certainly possible, though likely to be time consuming, and messy. If you don’t mind a challenge, here are some practical pointers. But if you’d rather leave it to the experts, brush up with the National Association of Chimney Sweeps.

FIREPLACE IMAGE by Flickr user timbrauhn
CHIMNEY IMAGE by Flickr user ndrwfgg

Apparently sharing a bed with a partner often leads to a poor night’s sleep. Research by his colleagues in the Unit has shown that whilst many people think they get a better night’s sleep with their better half snoring beside them, the evidence suggests otherwise. A study compared how well couples slept when they shared a bed versus sleeping separately. Based on 40 couples, they found that when couples shared a bed and one of them moved in his or her sleep, there was a 50% chance that their slumbering partner would be disturbed as a result.

“We all know what it’s like to have a cuddle and then say ‘I’m going to sleep now’ and go to the opposite side of the bed. So why not just toddle off down the landing?” says Dr Stanley, who leads by example and sleeps separately from his wife.

Now, I bet you’re thinking I’m about to launch into a diatribe about how ridiculous this suggestion is. But I’m not. I totally agree. Yes, I am prepared to say out loud that frequently I prefer to sleep separately from my wife. I’ve always been a really light sleeper. I wear earplugs, but nonetheless I often wake in the night - quite probably because she’s turned over and woken me as a result. And I just can’t get back to sleep. The solution, sleep next door in the spare room.

All that space to stretch out, a nice cool duvet; it’s an absolute joy. But it feels like a forbidden luxury, a naughty indulgence.

I know my wife would far prefer it if I didn’t sleep in a different bed. But I don’t understand. Why is it a big deal? It’s not as if we’re doing anything when we’re sleeping. Indeed, she sleeps so soundly she often doesn’t even realise I’m not there.

So why do I feel guilty about doing it? I have this sensation that people will see me as unromantic, and question whether our marriage will last the duration. And I really resent this feeling. But, given the choice, during the busy weekday nights when we both have lots on the next day and both need a decent night’s sleep I’d happily ‘do a Dr Stanley‘ and grab my duvet and toddle down the corridor. The alternative is dealing with me in a sleep-deprived state and that’s no fun for anyone - me included.

So what do you think? Am I weird? Am I failing in my conjugal obligations? Would you secretly quite like to sleep alone?

IMAGE: by flickr user stuartpilbrow

2. Play against nations with less prestigious cricketing histories. This is not failsafe, and England may need to aim lower still. I’d advise the ECB to start negotiations with Andorra or Vatican City.

3. Stop playing Tests. It’s not so much the physical exertion as the psychological torpor of series like those against the Windies earlier this year. We managed to rouse ourselves sufficiently to nab back the Ashes - but since then we’ve relapsed.

4. Stuff the team with one-day specialists. Bring in Owais Shah, Luke Wright, Adil Rashid. Persist with Ravi Bopara if we must! Perhaps Tim Bresnan would be worth a go, and Eoin Morgan. Come on selectors, think outside the box!

Wait - you did that already? Wow.

5. Stop playing Aus. We’re in a series of seven one-dayers. Seven. It’s like being smacked in the chops and presenting your chin six more times. I vote that in future we agree to one Twenty20, which will probably be rained off anyway, and then concentrate on the Ashes. Which, obviously, should only be played in England.

6. Drop Strauss. His consistently good-but-not-match-winning stints at the top of the order only accentuate the dissapointments that follow, inflicting long-term psychological damage to the morale of the team. Let’s at least start with someone that dispells any hope early on in the game. Or ask Bopara and Prior to show him how it’s done. Then we can build from rock bottom.

7. One-hand, one bounce This much-maligned rule would be a boon to England, if applied fairly, i.e. only when England is fielding. However, this may not be enough on its own. So -

8. Dump the floodlights for the second innings; England get nightvision goggles.

9. Mark Ramprakash

TOP IMAGE Copyright David Jones/PA Wire.
SECOND IMAGE Copyright Gareth Copley/PA Wire

But if it’s been easy going so far, there’s a reason - I’ve hardly been at my flat since my fridge expired in a puddle this time last week. Last weekend was the wonderful End of the Road Festival at Larmer Tree Gardens, where - and my friends immediately rumbled me - I used the surprisingly effective fridge in my camper van. I’ve been away two nights this week, too.

While much of the fridge/freezer’s contents had to be thrown out by the time I came back, some have held off microbial assault for a surprisingly long time. Take the two loaves of bread I had in the freezer. One of them came with me to the festival, came back again, and was still edible the last time I looked.

So what have I actually learned so far?

Life is quieter without the buzzing of a fridge and, with their magic ‘making things cold power’ disabled, they’re just rather big and pointless boxes to put things in. Bright morning sunlight has put me off leaving food on my east-facing balcony overnight, so I’ve been reduced to buying single pints of milk and placing them in a cool bag, in the fridge, and hoping copious insulation will keep them useable for a couple of days.

So far I’ve only wasted a half-pint of milk, if you don’t count everything I had to throw when the fridge broke. I’ll be spending far more time at home over the next week - I hope that with careful shopping and eating not much else will get thrown out.