So you’ve swapped dinners in expensive restaurants for a life of simpler Lidl luxuries. Your mortgage repayments have come down and now, for the first time this year, it looks like your job might — just might — be secure. So how do you celebrate? Well, if you’re me, you buy a Mercedes. There’s only so much recession misery one man can take. At least, that’s how I justified it to myself, withdrawing £4,000 — in cash — from my savings last month to buy the car of my dreams (a Mercedes CLK 320 if you’re interested).

In your case, it might be a speedboat, a Cartier watch, an old master, a lusted-after Fendi handbag or a pair of vintage Jimmy Choos. Either way, there are bargains to be had out there and it’s the perfect time to grab a little recession luxury. Enough of make do and mend; it’s time for a little make do and spend.

“Everyone’s looking to make a bit of extra cash at the moment,” says eBay’s style specialist Carey Maguire. “And eBay is seeing a lot of people selling luxury items they no longer need, to help during the recession. There has never been a better time for savvy shoppers to snap up luxury items at bargain prices.” Right now, there are Porsches for sale on autotrader.co.uk, previously loved Jimmy Choos on eBay (sales up 126% in the past month; average price £75.88, compared with about £400 new) and a pre-owned Christian Dior patent bag (£500 new; mint-condition second-hand, £250) on bagnificent.co.uk.

Mary Portas’s recent series Mary Queen of Charity Shops attempted to do for charity shops what she had previously done for Harvey Nicks. According to her: “Any luxury that’s well made is worth buying second-hand. Vintage Patek Philippe watches are actually worth more than new ones because they’re so well made. In fact, we’re moving away from everything having to be new to be sexy. Of course, I’ve had stick about it, because people say, ‘Does recycling for Mary mean wearing her Louis Vuitton scarf twice?’ Well, actually, yes, it does. And a lot more than that. I just think it’s vulgar to buy new things all the time.”

The luxury-car market is a spectacular example of how much prices have crashed. “The average price of a used car is now about 20% lower than it was at the start of the year,” says Dominic Collins of Auto Trader. “Today, we have 25 Ferraris under £20k on the website, but the real bargains are a three-year-old Porsche 911 or Maserati for about £35,000. New, these cars would cost you anywhere between £70,000 and £100,000.”

Property is, of course, also at a low (although it may have a way to go yet). But, even if you’re not moving, why not crunch-luxe the pad you’re in? “Antique furniture is about 50% cheaper than it has been for the past decade,” says Nick Carter of Lots Road auction house in Chelsea. “And the art market is flat — a definite buyer’s market — but go for old masters, or Miro prints, for instance, which are very cheap at the moment.”

On eBay, sales of fine jewellery have risen by 116% in the past two months, and the price of diamonds over two carats in size has fallen dramatically since the credit crunch began. “For the last five years, stones of that size were outperforming the stock market dramatically, but now you can spend 30% less than you would a year ago,” says Mark Walker of the online diamond retailer and consultant icecool.co.uk.

Perhaps the most important thing of all to remember is the bargaining power that cash gives you in a market where people need to make money fast. My Mercedes wasn’t advertised for four grand, it was on for five (about £1,500 less than it would have been last year), but it was amazing how quickly the price dropped when I put a stack of cash on the table.

Haggle like you’ve never haggled before, and feel no guilt — just because someone else’s downsizing has the potential to be your recession retail therapy is not a cause for angst. As one American commentator said after a recent auction in Florida of artworks belonging to victims of the Madoff swindle: “Oh dear, am I meant to feel sorry for them because they’re down to their last Picasso? Puh-lease!”

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