How Much Should You Research Before Buying Something?

A LinkedIn Creator says ten minutes. I once spent four hours on a napkin holder.

I watched a LinkedIn Creator’s GRWM where she mused about how she doesn’t spend more than ten minutes debating whether or not to purchase something no matter the cost. I don’t even think this was the main point of her video, and maybe she was only talking about fashion purchases (?), but this really stuck with me. I sat with this concept and thought, “she’s right, I need to give myself time back and adopt this ten minute buy-or-bye purchase philosophy.”

Then I sat with it some more and I realized we’re measuring completely different things. She’s indexing on price. I’m indexing on how long the thing is going to stay in my head. I research so I can stop noticing things. It’s not always about finding the best thing. Instead, it’s the price I pay to avoid rumination and resentment.

My question is less about what it costs and more about how long will this thing make noise, and how loud will said noise be?

I would agree that things you stop noticing within a week deserve ten minutes. For me those are things like the gallon of milk in my fridge and the construction paper I restocked my daughter’s art supplies with. I would argue that if getting something wrong would bother you for months, then it’s definitely worth the 57 tabs.

My husband and I researched our mattress for weeks and have not thought about it since first laying our pretty little heads on it upon its arrival over two years ago. That is exactly what we paid for.

The automatic blackout shades we installed in my daughter’s room were the same deal until one started squeaking six months in so it’s worth noting that the silence isn’t always permanent.

And then there’s the Alessi napkin holder which involved four hours of research, two customer service emails and one bulk Costco order of napkins. Technically there was never any noise to prevent, well aside from the ripped plastic napkin packaging mocking me from the kitchen counter. I created the noise myself by researching it. I’m still on the fence about the napkin holder which is probably the worst possible outcome considering how much time I invested in figuring out what to buy. That’s the price you pay to play though: four hours can turn a thing you literally never previously thought about into something you avoid eye contact with at the dining table.

In my professional overthinking opinion, things that are worth seriously researching are:

• Anything that you touch or interact with daily, like your mattress or your dining chairs

• Things you install in your home. These things are usually expensive to redo, often resulting in you having to live inside the mistake

• Literally anything irreversible be it a cosmetic procedure or something marked “final sale”

• Things that are annoying when they fail. I don’t necessarily mean the things that break (though yes, those too), but the things that get slightly worse with time like pilling sheets or a vacuum that doesn’t do its job

• Anything that commits you to buying something else forever like an espresso machine or a printer

Things that may not be worth as many tabs (though if I’m being honest I would probably still fire up the tabs):

• Anything that has a generous return policy (can more stores please bring these back?)

• Anything where the replacement timeline is set by a clock vs. quality like a winter jacket your toddler won’t fit into next year

• Things where the gap between “good” and “best” is negligible like a sheet pan or batteries

And in case you’re wondering, no, I will not be adopting the ten minute rule unless I’m grocery shopping on Instacart.