The Advantages of Being a Pack Rat

First, everyone knows about the pack rat avatar, right? All you have to do is collect 1000 different items in your safety deposit box and voila, you have your very own avatar. Not only will this avatar help you on your quest to receive a prize for having the most avatars, but it will also let you show off your pack rat pride to all of the other people on Neopets. Does 1000 items seem pretty easy to you? Well, let me tell you that it's not. I have been working for a long time on it, and I'm still not there, but in the process, I have accumulated some pretty cool items. See, there's another advantage already.

When you randomly search for items to put in your deposit box, you can come across some awesome items that you didn’t even know existed. I have come across some great pieces of furniture that I just had to have (probably more evidence of my pack rat behavior), and some cool sponsored items as well. Not only do you come across great items, but more than likely, if you had never heard of them, then they are probably older items that are going to be a lot cheaper than the things that just came out last week.

Not only does being a pack rat get you an avatar, but if you are dead set on keeping things for years, when you finally do clean out your deposit box, you will make a load of NP in your shop. I have a technique of doing just this, which goes as follows:

1. Pick an item that you like that is relatively cheap. Your idea of cheap and my idea of cheap can be something completely different, and that’s totally fine. If you have a lot of money lying around, then you can buy things that cost 200, or 300, or even up to 500 a piece (I wouldn’t recommend going any higher than that). But normally, I like to buy items that are around 100 NP apiece. It can be anything...For example; my new item that I have recently started to collect is the Brightvale Berry. Whatever item you pick may seem useless to you now, but if you save up for long enough, it can turn out to be really advantageous.

2. Let it sit. Let the collection of the item sit in your deposit box long enough for you to have forgotten completely about it, and by the time you remember it, the item may be rare enough to really have gone up in price, and then you can sell all but one or two and really watch the NP pour in. My item that is “sitting” right now is the Chocolate Coated Mint Bar. I started out buying them at around 5 NP apiece and now they are around 40 NP each, so if I were to sell them, I would have 9 times the amount of NP that I started with! I have done this with Asparagus pies. They were given out in large amounts many months ago and I took the opportunity to buy about 25 of them for around 100 NP a piece. If you search for an asparagus pie now, they each go for about 2000 NP! If I sold just 10 of those 25 pies I would receive 20,000 NP, making a total profit of around 19,000 NP!

It may seem time consuming, and it is, but in the long run, if you chose 4 or 5 items at once to collect, it would really make it worth your while. Sure, it is a gamble in that you don't know if an item is going to go up in price, but think about it this way, even if the item is still cheap after 6 months or so, you really aren't out of much NP to begin with. Other items I have tried this with and have succeeded are The Faerie Queen Burrito, and the Taco Hot Dog.

One of the main places to look for to buy items from is the advent calendar...Items are given out in such bulk, that you can find them for really cheap just a few days after their cycle in the calendar is over. These are especially good to collect if they are food items. By the time you want to sell your collection of AC items, thousands of them will have been fed to pets making their rarity jump to the sky.

Another category of items to purchase from is books, and it should be obvious to everyone as to why. If you look at the Neopia Encyclopedia A – E, which used to be given out free in newbie packs, its price has now skyrocketed. Just think if you had bought 25 of those books when they were 30 NP apiece. Try a little bit of anything and everything, and I guarantee, you will be rolling in dough long before you can regret making the mass purchase in the first place. And besides, by the time you can figure out whether or not an item will be successful, you will have already earned back the money you spent playing games and such, so in reality it is a win-win situation.