Maybe this is a good problem to have, but shopping is more of a chore for me than something fun to do. I’m also a pretty frugal person. For those reasons, it’s pretty hard for me to make big purchases, like furniture or even nicer clothing.
I go to the store, I look at the options and none of them seem exactly perfect, I think about how I could just keep the money for something else, I go home without buying anything. Then it takes a long time before I get up the energy to try again. But once I actually buy the thing, I’m happy and wish I had gotten it sooner.
As an example, I moved about nine months ago and need a couple of arm chairs for my new place. I’ve gone to a few stores, but every time the same pattern repeats itself, and I don’t buy anything. It’s been months! I’m sure I’ll be happy once I have the chairs though.
I don’t have trouble spending money at restaurants or on experiences – those things are fun to me, so I don’t mind spending the money. So, how do I get myself to make big purchases when I don’t find shopping fun?
I think you need to change the goal. Rather than the goal being to purchase the right chair, make the goal into “buying a chair today”. Now your task isn’t to decide on the best chair and to maybe buy no chair if none seem good. Your goal is to have a chair tonight. So at that point if you have seen a few chairs and they all seem equally “fine”, great! In that case pick any of them, they’ll all satisfy the challenge, and go home content!
Only barely related, there’s a Numberphile video you may find interesting about choosing portapotties, but the premise is “how many do I need to look at before committing to this one without seeing the rest”. Again, barely related, but the takeaway is that you don’t necessarily need to see every chair to get a sense of the average chair and then just pick the next one that seems average or better.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts, they’re really helpful! You kind of combined the concept of satisficing from one comment with the deadline suggestion from another comment in a helpful way. I think reframing my goal as you suggest would work for me. I’m definitely looking for the perfect chair right now. Maybe if I was looking for the good enough chair today it would help me pick. I worry about getting buyer’s remorse, but realistically I’ll just be happy to have a chair.