An Anti- purchase

I buy what I want. Basic rule of American Capitalism, right? I guess it can be interesting to talk about what I don't buy, as well, right? For example- I've bought two guitars since starting this blog, right? Why didn't I buy some other guitars?
Right, well, I didn't buy a Gibson because while the cost is high, the quality control is about as varied as the cheapest guitars- so why spend the extra? Two grand expenditures seem like a heck of a gamble. Likewise, Fender guitars are  more consistent than Gibson, but they're very little better than their much cheaper Squier range- so I would consider a Squier, well before a Fender- however, at the same price point, there are literally dozens of other brands that achieve the same thing as a Squier, so there's no real reason to go with Squier as opposed to Agile, SX, Douglas, Stagg,  Jay Turser etc, etc.
Of course, I could try to find some hand built custom thing, but it's hard to justify paying the same price as a used car, when I could get very near to the same place at the price of a nice night out.
Likewise, there's a lot of "cork sniffery" with buying effect pedals. I believe the "cork sniffer" tag got applied to guys who, much like a buyer of fine wine, spent enormous amounts of cash to buy something with probably less actual use than a much cheaper variation. You don't drink a 6000 dollar bottle of wine, you might sniff the cork. Well, likewise with effects pedals- I've seen, very recently, bids higher than what I paid for my effects pedals on some Devi Ever aborted attempts- I mean three figures for an effect pedal that all it has going for it is that Devi Ever might possibly have touched it. Seriously! They're even clearly labelled as "non functioning". I've also seen high dollar bids on the box or instruction manual for an effect pedal- so, why didn't I buy a Devi Ever, or Earthquaker Devices, or Fultone pedal? Because I'm not interested in sniffing the cork, nor in spending quadruple the amount to get to the same place.
My basic point is that I don't buy stuff without thought, and careful analysis. So, why I'm not some kind of label groupie, or connoisseur should be obvious. Less obvious is why I don't have a bunch of the cheapest  chinese made knockoffs- and the answer to that is simple - most of that stuff won't get me to where I want to go. Example- the Danelectro 600MS delay pedal I got just does not suit my purposes. The decay rate is too short, the depth is too extreme, it just doesn't sound right. So, I've got two of the Donner Yellow Fall echo pedals, and that gets exactly where I want. Costs more, but it was the most direct route to the sound I was after ( somewhere between Geordie and Surf Music)
The same thing goes for other purchases- jeans, Cars, Houses, you name it- I don't buy what I don't want, so one of the keys to this project is getting a clearer idea of what I want- and honing in on exactly that. Whether you do it in a blog, or with your friends, or just in your head- I'd suggest that everybody do that.