Do you get Buyer’s Remorse?

Remember Thursday’s Post about my really sucky week?  Which really wasn't that sucky I was just feeling sorry for myself?  Well our washing machine chose Friday to die.  Not die exactly, more like leak a great deal more than it had been for the last few months. 

Given it had been leaking for a while and was 17 and a half years old we were tossing up whether we should get it repaired.  The first available appointment to get it checked out is next Friday costing about $120 for15 minutes and the house call, then $30 plus for every 15 minutes. Oh and parts. Ouch.  So we figured that the cheapest we could get out of this for was $150 minimum.  So I began researching how much a new washing machine would cost.

So with my ‘short’ list of 9 machines we went browsing after swimming yesterday. We discussed the pros and cons of the various machines and then decided to look at fridges.  Yes, our fridge is still fine but given that people have been saying it was odd that our appliances have lasted survived as long as our marriage (over 15 years but the appliances are older) we decided fridge browsing was a good option too.

There were a few that looked like they would fit in our space so Mr E took photo’s of the signs and we came home.  Having mostly agreed on the washing machine yesterday I did some more research on pricing and then checked out the 3 fridges we liked.  What did we do before we had the internet?  I checked out review sites, and stores pricing all without leaving my home.  How lucky do we have it?

So today we set out to double check the pricing at the stores.  Our first stop netted us the last of the particular washing machine we wanted. Then we discovered that the next model up of the fridge that had the best reviews would still fit in the space we have available.  So armed with my research we negotiated and now have a new washing machine, a fridge on order and a blown up credit card.

Of course, driving home I started rationalising why I made the decision I had. We got a fridge bigger than I had expected and the deal we got was better than I had anticipated. Mr E. says I always suffer from buyers remorse.  He thinks that I don’t like spending money so even getting a good deal makes me re-evaluate what I have done.  I think maybe he is right.

Shopping is so not my thing.  Spending money is not something I’m good at - especially when it involves maxing out the credit card. But we needed a washing machine. Once I’d cleaned out before the old one I discovered it has obviously been leaking way more than I thought.  I hope that this new machine really does make Life Good!

Do you ever feel buyer’s remorse? Is it only related to big ticket items? Or can it also be things like pairs of shoes or handbags if you already have about 20 others?