As the economy slips into recession, consumers are fighting back — using the internet to stave off the financial blues.

Auction sites selling unsold high-street goods have had a 300% rise in hits over the past 12 months. Others that offer cheaper ways to sell a house, the ability to “rent” a luxury lifestyle and make money from unwanted goods or a hobby are also booming.

This growing bid to save — and make money — comes amid deepening economic gloom. On Friday, data showed the economy contracted by 0.5% in the third quarter.

The Ernst & Young Item Club said it was possible the second quarter’s flat gross domestic product growth could be revised downward — plunging the UK into a technical recession (typically defined as two consecutive quarters of contracting GDP).

Michael Phillips of the comparison site Broadband Choices said: “As people stay at home to cut down on costs, it’s inevitable they’ll be making use of the internet to find the best ways to save and make money."

Over the past 12 months, online searches for the term “second hand” has increased by 22% while “DIY” and “how to” queries increased by 25%, according to internet monitoring firm Hitwise. And while high-street sales have fallen 1.5% in the past year, online sales are up an estimated 10%, the British Retail Consortium said. Online spending is expected to rise to 10% of total retail sales by 2010.

Here, we look at some of the online winners of the credit crunch:

Make an income on the side

Higher utility bills, food and mortgage costs mean many households need to find ways to boost their incomes.

Peopleperhour.com brings together those seeking extra work with small and medium-sized firms looking for short-term employees for particular projects.

Since March, the site has seen a 150% increase in membership to 12,500.

Employers post jobs and specify how much they are willing to pay. Potential employees then bid for the jobs, saying for how much they are willing to carry out the work. At the end of the “auction” the employer decides who to take on.

Recently posted jobs include writing letters, translating documents, data entry and computer programming. Rates range from £15 to £25 an hour or a fixed fee of £300 to £500 depending on the job. Peopleperhour takes 10% of any gross income made.

Get over 90% off your next house purchase

Fancy buying a £550,000 house for £20,000 or less? How about a 50-gram gold bar for £100? A new type of online auction offers bidders the chance to buy properties at a fraction of the market value.

Humraz.com sells virtual “seats” for its auctions. The price of each seat is determined by the value of the lot, so the greater the value, the higher the cost. With a house sale, a seat could cost around £100, while an auction for a 50-gram bar of gold costs only £12. Auctions are held only when enough seats have been sold to cover the costs and overheads, such as tax and profit margins. This means the seller is able to get a minimum guaranteed price. The site is currently advertising a five-bedroom property in Essex, valued at £515,000 — the first property it has tried to sell this way. So far, 4,000 seats at £97 each have been sold. The auction will start when 7,500 are sold.

Sam Donaldson, who is selling the Essex home, said: “We wanted to sell through an estate agent but due to the credit crunch the house is worth less. Using Humraz, we can get the price we want and the buyer gets a house for a fraction of the price.”

Inquiries from people wishing to sell their property through Humraz have increased to 200 a week, up from just a handful five months ago.

Unlike a traditional auction, the person who offers the lowest unique bid wins.

The disadvantage is that you may be waiting several months before the auction is held. The 4,000 seats for the Essex property took three months to sell — so it could be another couple of months before the auction starts.

Reduce Britain’s mobile mountain — and make money

British consumers are sitting on £1.4 billion worth of old mobile phones, according to the comparison site moneysupermarket.com.

People discard more than 25m handsets every year, while another 90m lie unused.

However, you can sell old handsets online. Companies such as Gooseberry (findyourgooseberry.com) buys handsets and refurbishes them before selling them on to countries such as China.

Last week Gooseberry launched a price promise offering to pay 5% more if a customer can get a better deal elsewhere.

It will buy any handset, provided it turns on and has an undamaged screen.

Phones are exchanged for cash or a number of “gooseberries” which can then be traded for goods. For example a Nokia N75 in working condition can be traded in for £51.98 or 104 gooseberries, which could be exchanged for an MP3 player. You can also bank points for use at a later date.

Rent a luxury lifestyle

It’s not just homebuyers who are putting off buying and renting instead. More people are now renting goods and services — everything from handbags to luxury cars and jewellery.

Erento.co.uk has seen a 20% jump to 92,000 visitors a month since September. Designer handbags can be hired for £10 a week, from designer names such as Balenciaga, Burberry, Christian Dior, Dolce & Gabbana, Louis Vuitton and Prada.

DIY tools are also proving popular rental items, as people turn to home improvements instead of moving house.

Earn from your hobby

If you think you have an eye for a good picture, you could supplement your income through photography. Alamy.com, a stock photography website with an archive of 13m images, sells pictures that are regularly featured in newspapers and magazines, as well as product advertisements.

Unlike many of its competitors, Alamy welcomes contributions from amateurs. It has seen a 40% increase in registrations in the past 12 months.

Alan Oliver, aged 50 from Glasgow, for example, has earned £4,500 through Alamy in the past year from his action sports and family photos. Nick Greaves, 53, from Scarborough, said he earns some £200 a month from his photos of wildlife.

Those interested can submit pictures online. The pictures have to have at least a six-megapixel resolution. It is free to contribute, although Alamy will take a hefty 35% commission on every picture sold.

If you are more of a brush-and-paint artist you could turn to newbloodart.com — a website that helps up-and-coming artists publicise their work in virtual online galleries. The site selects artworks from fine-art degree shows and art fairs across the country, but artists themselves can approach the site. Traditional galleries take between 50% and 60% of any sale, but Newbloodart charges 35% commission.

Sell your unwanted music

Many of us have stacks of old CDs that we are unlikely to play again. A growing number of people are now selling them on.

Each year more than £21m worth of CDs are thrown away in the UK, according to musicmagpie.com. The website pays between 25p and £3 each for CDs that users send in via its free trade-in service. It then sells them on its website.

Users type in the barcode number of the CDs they want to sell and the site makes a cash offer for each one. If you accept the offer, you are sent prepaid padded envelopes to send in your CDs. A cheque is issued within seven days of receipt.

Musicmagpie has paid out £242,000 to its 4,000 registered users since its launch last month. That figure is growing by over 1% a day. Craig Dawson, head of operations, said: “Unlike auction sites, users can get cash for as many of their old CDs as they want without the hassle and cost of selling each individually.”

Get a cheap loan

The cost of loans continues to soar, especially for lower, short-term advances. The average rate for a £1,000 loan over one year is 20.3% — 6.8% higher than a year ago, according to Moneyfacts.co.uk. Some people are turning to credit cards: over 1m homeowners are using credit cards to pay their mortgages and other household bills, according to uswitch.com, another personal-finance website.

However, Borro.com, an online pawnbroker that opened in August, offers short-term loans secured against personal assets such as jewellery, watches, gold and other valuables. The loan can be paid off whenever the customer chooses during the six-month term of the contract and the valuables they pledged are then returned.

Borro will lend up to 40% of the value of items pledged and charges interest at 6% a month or 4% for loans of £1,000 or more.

If you can’t repay the loan after six months, you can extend the term for a further six months, provided you can pay the interest. If not, Borro will sell the items and pay any surplus — after covering the loan and interest — back to the customer.

Loans of £100 to £100,000 are available.

Net a money-saving offer

Since the onset of the credit crunch, a raft of special offers have been posted online to persuade cash-strapped consumers to spend.

Financedaily.co.uk scours the web each week looking for the best online and high- street deals. Offers listed include two-for-one deals on eating out, free computer and phone goods, money-off shopping vouchers and information on where to shop for the best sales and latest price reductions.

Last week, for example, you could get five plates free at Yo Sushi if you eat between Sunday and Thursday and buy ten plates. Debenhams and HMV have a sale with up to 70% off ticket prices, while the AA is offering a 30% discount on home insurance.

Snap up online bargains

An increasing number of businesses are turning to online sales agents to sell their surplus goods to ease the pain of falling high-street sales.

Flogit4u.com, an auction site that helps its clients to achieve top prices on eBay, has benefited from a 300% rise in customers in the past 12 months. It now has more than 10,000 individual and corporate accounts. Last week it offered a pair of Versace earrings for £225 — less than a quarter of the high-street cost.

Get cash back

Although retailers are offering online and high-street discounts, you can make bigger savings by using cashback websites. Sites such as Quidco.com and Greasypalm.com pay online shoppers a percentage as cash back each time they buy a product through the site. Using Quidco you can get 7% cashback by shopping in HMV, 5% from Marks & Spencer and 4% from Debenhams.

Net Earner

Logging on to get extra cash

JAN NICHOLLS, 57, who lives in Acle, Norfolk, recently took to the internet to find ways to boost her pension.

The former deputy headmistress took early retirement in summer 2007.

‘I was okay on my pension for six months, but then the credit crunch hit and everything started to become more expensive — food, fuel, the mortgage. I needed to find some extra sources of income to keep things manageable.’

She decided, about four weeks ago, to use the website peopleperhour.com after it was recommended to her by a friend.

She now supplements her income with additional work. Jan recently completed a job posted by a doctor who wanted a document to be rewritten and polished for his website.

She says she will continue to bid for work, and has already put her name down for eight other projects.

‘Hopefully I’ll get a few more things to do. It’s not a huge amount, but it certainly helps.’

Clicking with property

My home's for sale on the web

SAM DONALDSON from Essex, pictured with her son Taylor, 10, is selling their five- bedroom house using a ‘reverse auction’ at humraz.com.

‘We initially had three valuations by estate agents which we were quite happy with. But with the credit crunch and all the fees involved selling through estate agents, we realised we wouldn’t get the price we wanted,’ she said.

By placing the house on the auction website, she is guaranteed to receive the £515,000 she is asking for.

The auction will start when 7,500 ‘seats’ are sold for £97 each to cover the cost of the property as well as overheads, tax and the website’s fees. So far, 4,000 have been sold.

Instead of potential buyers bidding for the property, the bidder with the lowest unique bid gets the house — even if that’s just 1p.

Donaldson, 45, an orthopedic technician, said her husband, David, 50, who works for the Ministry of Defence, found out about the site by browsing online. She added: ‘The process was simple and easy.’.

Ticket to ride

Driven online

EDWARD COWEN, a property developer from St Albans, is a supercar fanatic — but was recently forced to take steps to cut costs. He sold his £130,000 Lamborghini in February as it cost him almost £50,000 a year in running costs and depreciation.

Cowen, 30, pictured with his girlfriend, Niki Handley, 28, and their daughter, Jessica, two, now uses Erento — a renting website — to find the best deals on renting cars. He said it will save him £30,000 or so a year.

‘Driving fast cars is my hobby. This way, I get to drive the cars I want, but at a much lower cost.’