To Keep or Not to Keep?

Many Neopians struggle with the concept of saving items. Being able to detect when the price of an item will skyrocket or fall is almost impossible. Figuring out whether you want to keep doubles of an item for safe keeping or to use the spare is just as hard. Having to part with an item which you find unconditionally beautiful or eye-catching is harder yet. You would think villains never existed up to this point.

This is where I come in. Not literally, of course. I’m here to help you fight off the common problems and to learn how to deal with your internal indecisions. To begin with, I will show you the three most common types of users you can stumble across (yourself included).

1) The Hoarders: Hoarders are generally users who do just what the name implies: they hoard items. Every single item that comes their way is stashed into their pockets, run swiftly to the Safety Deposit Box and slammed into it with and secured with every lock imaginable. The objects usually never see the light of day again. But as things happen, they naturally are the first to pull up at the neoboards with a shiny new Packrat avatar.

2) The Spenders: Spenders are those users who are what nightmares are made of for the Hoarders. Spenders don’t keep their items at all; rather, they sell them as fast as they can in order to achieve the most profit (totally ironic to the name) or use the items quickly for reasons unknown except to their own minds.

3) The Thinkers: Thinkers are less aligned to either hoarding or spending. When they come across items of value, they will whack them into the SDB either for more inflation or sell them before they deflate. Ordinary items are barely noticed, yet they know what to do with those as well. Strangely logical at times, they are often the first to notice when prices change and act appropriately.

So those are the three main types of users in Neopia. I admit, while I was a newbie, I was a hoarder. My SDB was swamped with pages and pages of mostly useless items – I just couldn’t bear to part with any of them.

But gradually, with a little practice, I had slowly become a Thinker. Well, sort of. I personally think that Thinkers is probably what you should aim to be. You begin to rapidly lose count of your items if you hoard, and ridding yourself of all your items in one go is just a waste – especially when an item becomes an avatar item and its value goes up.

So how do you tell what to keep and what not to keep?

Before we start on deciding on the financial profits of your items, consider this: Which of your items have a high chance of having some later value? Which of your items are few in numbers and considered rare? And no, no matter how “Mega Rare” your piece of Carrot and Pea Omelette is, to be frank, no one cares. So don’t go hyperventilating with excitement if you happen to stumble upon one for 1 NP in the shop wizard.

To make this slightly easier on you, I’ll break down some of the categories of items you may have and exactly how much you should keep.

Foods

Foods include things like fruits, vegetables, smoothies and other foods found in general stores. Your average foods are often found in stock and searching for them in the shop wizard is like deciding which way you want to look at the sky – no matter which direction you choose, you’ll find some.

Don’t really need help here. You should be able to tell the rarity of a food by looking at its estimated price. However, it’s always good to keep a little food on you anyway. In all my time buying foods for no reason, I have found that the more appealing a food looks, the more Neopoints it’s worth. This, I stress, is not always the case. Really depends on your point of view.

Clothing

Most unwearable clothing is not worth very much. Except for the few which can earn avatars. This was the day in which you would stock up your SDBs’ with these sorts of frilly decorations, hoping beyond hope that one day they will become wearable.

Well, I’m going to have to burst your bubble. If you have been doing that, it’s pretty much useless now. There is a special range of wearable clothing and those are worth a lot more money than your average top and pants.

Medicine

No matter what you think, feeding your pets until they are bloated with green apples will not in fact keep the doctor away. Your pets are prone to any disease and sure, apples are tempting, but they really just don’t cut it.

About half of the medicines available are relatively cheap in price. These you can most definitely tell if they’re expensive or not. In this case, the expensive medicines DO look more eye-catching, but you really should hope that you wouldn’t need to buy one.

Toys

Toys are probably one of the most stocked of your items, eh? Plushies are by far the cutest toys on the site. It’s hard to resist them. They’re all pretty much the same price, so I wouldn’t worry too much.

Toys, excluding the rare magical ones, are pretty cheap and affordable. I wouldn’t mind stocking up on heaps of those, but seriously, think; are you really going to even use half of them?

Now that you have a firmer understanding on the different items available, I’ll just show you a few rules that I have followed for quite some time but am sharing with you now.

Rule 1: Eye-catching things tend to be expensive.

Not always the case, but I’m pretty much spot-on with this rule. I would do price checks on an item, though, if I were you.

Rule 2: If you hoard every single item in the whole of Neopia, you’re probably not going to use them ever again.

Who buys a load of items, sticks them in a SDB and just sits there, looking at them? Not many people. So I wouldn’t bother waste all that NP if I were you.

Rule 3: Keep a little, give a little.

It’s always nice to have a big backup supply of food, but really, it’s not necessary. There’s a place called the Neolodge and seriously, it can feed your pet for up to 28 days for a minimum charge of 140 NP. Of course, keep a little on you but if you feel nice, donate the rest.

Rule 4: Procrastination will get you nowhere.

If you think that keeping an apple in your SDB forever and not doing anything is going to sprout you a million NP, think again. You need to check prices and keep up with how things are moving in the market. By doing this, you never know; maybe one day, your apple might be worth more than you expect.

To wrap up this little article on how to decide whether to ditch an item or to keep it, I have compiled a little FAQ section with questions that I had often pondered myself when I was younger but am able to answer now.

Q: Should I keep this item because maybe the price will inflate?

It truly depends. Like I said before, it depends on what the item is. If it’s an everyday object like an apple, the chances of it inflating aren’t very great. If it’s one of those items which you see every now and again, perhaps it’s worth investing.

Q: Should I keep this item because maybe it’ll become an avatar item?

Now this is a tricky one. Because TNT is so sneaky, we can’t really have any clue of what to expect avatar-wise. This means there is no way of telling if your item is going to become the next ZDAP or FQD. I was lucky once and it turned out that both my orange cap and E-Z See Crystal Ball became avatar items.

Q: This looks nice. I think I should keep it... But it doesn’t do anything.

Well, that’s an exception. A little indulgence never hurt anybody, right? Keep the item if you really like it but don’t make it a habit. You never know, perhaps even an invisible pile of dung may seem like the most beautiful thing to you one day.

Q: Why shouldn’t I hoard my items? Then I’ll be so loaded!

About that. Hoarding items is good for the Packrat avatar but do you really want to sort through over 50 pages of items looking for an item which you can’t name because there are so many items that you’ve forgotten its name? Er, no.

Q: Oh my! One of my items has become an avatar item! The price has inflated so I should sell it while I can. But I want to keep it!

I honestly can’t believe I ever thought of this question. It’s pretty simple. If you want the NP, sell. If you really want the item, keep. Generally, I would sell it. If the price deflates again, you could buy it back cheaper than how much you received selling it. It’s a win-win situation.

Q: It annoys me, having to sell my items. What if I need it later?

Leave the item in your SDB. Write the name of it on a piece of paper. Hide the paper. Wait for ‘later’. Think of the item. Do you still remember the item? What it was? What you needed it for? If no, then sell the thing. You won’t even notice it's gone. If you remembered, well... I can’t really help you there if you’re going to have nightmares about it at night.

Q: I have a feeling that my green apple will be worth millions in a week.

Well, I think I’ve made enough references to apples today, don’t you think?

I hope this little guide has helped you. Maybe it has helped you to become the Thinker that you knew you always had in you. ;)