Or maybe I should have titled this thread "I don't need it, but my collection needs it". I am not really talking about being a completist, but rather encountering figures that for one reason or another "should" be in your collection.
I have bought things before because they were on deep sale or clearance before, but they might not have fit into my core themes of collecting given the time and place. A good example of this are the remaining brick and mortar clearance outlets. I bought some Black Series figures because they were, relatively, cheap. Like Archive old Han Solo, Leia Boush, Tarkin and a few others. If I could do it over again, I probably would not have bought them. Same for some MOTU figures. I don't need Skelegod nor Beastman nor Zodac, but they were cheaper/cheapish and I wanted to see how I felt about the line.
I've also been hit, in the past, with the "completist disease", where you have so many of a specific line, that you just keep going, even on fringe figures that deep down, you don't think are as cool. While I'm lightly collecting GI Classified now, I can see how easy it would be for someone collecting that to shift very fast into completist mode.
I've also been in the spot where, maybe some other collectors can relate, where I'm so used to having something "in the air/on the way to me", that it feels odd when there are no more pending packages on the way. IMHO, a lot of spending in this hobby happens with momentum. You can spend A LOT of money, really fast, if you aren't paying attention.
Over time, I've made trades or light sales where I took a loss or took a deal lower than practical market value, because I liked the person or maybe it was someone I tended to trade hobby favors with and we had a lot of goodwill over time or maybe I needed to smooth things out with someone where there was previous conflict, etc, etc. I haven't traded in a long time, but I know I can be a tough negotiator, tons of times I could have done many things better, maybe more diplomatically, and I got to the point where most of my trades, I put in extras on top, just to keep things smoothed out.
I'd say the bulk of most loose parts purchases fit under the category for stuff you probably could live without. Filling a "wants list" for projects you'll never get to in the end.
Two interesting observations from old school guys from the now defunct legacy Warrior Forum ezboard.
1) Hardcase from the Warrior Forum used to always say, very prophetic honestly, that "I have less than what I want. But way more than I'll ever need"
2) A local guy I went to major shows with long long ago, we went to a couple of big shows together in a span of three years. He observed after the second show, he got home and put down a bag full of stuff he bought, spent a good chunk of change too, on top of the bag from the show from several years prior, where he had not touched it all since that time. He said realizing that made him have to question was he in this hobby to just hoard stuff/buy stuff/avoid FOMO or was he actually being active in the this hobby and being in the "present"
If you want to observe some collector "pathology", I'd suggest some light coverage of Uncle Tim's Rants And Reviews. I don't think it's an act ( some YouTubers are just playing a part to try to monetize themselves). He will go into cycles of trying to break his addiction, saying he's out. Then he uploads videos of himself buying literally everything he can find anywhere. I have no ill will towards the guy, because I do from time to time just spin up into "meta" type hobby discussions myself. But he's more of a case where there are clearly some addiction problems at work. I left the hobby for over a decade completely and didn't blink once about it. Not sure Uncle Tim could. Maybe he's a cautionary tale in some ways. Watching about 10 minutes of Uncle Tim kind of makes me reconsider leaving the hobby again for another decade.
