Opinion: online versus real world shopping

Doing the daily schedule of survival whether sheltered or streeted, I get questions from both sections of how and where I get the stuff I use for my blogging and online content writing. Fact is, I get it wherever I can the cheapest.

On some occasions I've been known to dumpster dive when seeing a computer carcass sticking it's backend out of a box. On other occasions I've come across finds dirt cheap while window shopping. And on one occasion I've gotten things online like with tiger direct coupons.

Now in the grand scheme of things, getting items online CAN be the cheapest and easiest...IF...a person isn't hungry for something. The main factor in all of this is I make a list of things I 'need' as well as 'want' for any time I'm in a position of rummaging anywhere. Grocery shopping is a matter of weekly need, but computer and system upgrading is a matter of 'wants'.

And no, I haven't practiced this much of my life. I found when I 'did' start managing my purchases this way, I was less prone to hoarding unnecessarily. There was a time I kept computer components in a closet, much like the rhetorical example of the bag lady or man/woman pushing an overloaded shopping cart of items they'd never use.