Buyer's Remorse: I'm Trying To Avoid It.

We've all experienced buyer's remorse at least once.  And for some us (including me), we've experienced it numerous times.  Buyer's remorse tends occur more frequently when I'm at a sale...especially when I'm at a sale for a particular label/designer that I like.  When I buy at full retail price, I'm much more careful with my purchases.  When I'm at a sale, my brain short circuits and I go into "off-balance sheet accounting" mode, as Sunshine likes to say.  I don't think about how much I'm spending but how much I'm saving.  More importantly, the one critical question that I ask myself when I buy at full retail price is never asked at a sale:  Would I actually wear/use this item?

Since I don't ask this critical question, I have a closet full of clothes/shoes purchased on sale that I don't really wear or have never touched.  The worst buyer's remorse for me isn't when the day after my purchase (or even a week after), I realize that the final sale item doesn't work for me; it's when a year later, I realize that I've never touch that regular sale item and never intend to do so (but it's too later to return it).  That's when I really feel like an idiot for making that purchase.  I could have spent that money on something I really did like and would wear/use.  I only bought that item because it was on sale.

Nowadays, I'm trying to be better when it comes to sales.  I don't like to think of myself as an idiot.  It's hard trying to be better because it seems like everything is on sale.  But I am better at asking myself the critical question before I head to the the checkout counter with a sale item.  Maybe that's why I post sale picks on this blog.  It helps me to stop and think.  Plus, I'm running out of closet/storage space...