Frugality Tip #4 - Plan to buy it later (and then maybe don't)

                                                                            post from V

I use Amazon.com a lot.  
Or perhaps, I over-utilize the functionality of Amazon.com a lot and under-utilize the buying part, thus making myself a non-ideal customer.  


(I received dented cans in a 12 pack of our favorite beans once and called to complain and got a completely new 12 pack and didn't have to ship the dented ones back, even though only 3 of 12 were dented, whole new 12-pack!   And we got a broken grill part and they sent a NEW GRILL and took the broken one back.  I'm the squeaky wheel, and they oil me real good.  That sounded completely wrong... We also have an Amazon Chase card for 3% back on Amazon.com purchases.  Sadly, does not work for Amazon Fresh so nicely, as it is not "amazon.com".)


One special way I under-utilize the buying part of Amazon is with wish lists.  I like to internet shop. New pots and pans, socks, dresses, everything.  Even though Amazon has almost everything, they don't always have this stuff. So I've added the wish list button from Amazon to my browsers (Google, Safari, Internet Explorer) and whenever I'm on any site at all, from Gucci (ha ha ha) to target.com, I can add an item from that site to my Amazon wish list.
The Amazon Wish List is also more than just the one wish list for holiday and birthday present hopefulness that we're familiar with. Amazon allows secret wish lists visible to only the creator, and a 'shopping list' of things you'd like to buy or regularly buy. Lots of focus on buying buying buying.


Denying yourself something kind of sucks (more on low-carb later?), but delaying it until later, maybe as a reward, doesn't suck, because you can still have it! But later!


So I have a bunch of items on my wish list that I might buy someday. If there's an orange shirt I desperately want now now now, and it's not in the budget, I add it to my secret wish list. If it's something maybe suitable for a holiday gift, I'll move it to the not-secret wish list.


The weird thing about these lists? Is that most of the things I wanted 6 months ago don't seem very useful now. I end up without most of them. And the things that I wanted 6 months ago that I do still want today, I've lived without for 6 months, so they can wait a little longer in most cases. 


Also, by checking in on my wish list when I've been adding items to it like mad, I reinforce the effectiveness of the wish list. I look at the items from a few months ago and delete many, and I see that I don't want most things so much anymore, and besides I have to make way for these NEW SHINY things. It's a bit like a yard sale, but without the pesky 90+% depreciation in between. For me, most of the happiness in new stuff is right before I have it in the checkout line, and right after I've got it. Kind of like this (credit MrMoneyMustache):

But with nearly maximal fun right before I've bought it through shipping. Right before I've bought it correlates nicely, for me, to the moment I add it to my list, and the "shipping" fanciness of new stuff period can happen randomly when I look at the list.  If the item stops being fun-or at least seem useful- to daydream about (like the lottery is fun to dream about), then it falls off the list.


What has stayed on my to buy list?  Things that will last a while, and are mostly useful.
An electric piano (added dec 30, 2010)
New stainless steel pots and pans (april 28, 2011) (shiny!)
A book about knitting hyperbolic shapes (May 15, 2011)
A bicycle (Nov 2011).  Note I already have a bicycle that I don't ride, so really I need to ride that for a while first.


How do you make buying decisions?