This or That or ?

When you are deciding between buying two things, do you ever consider a third option?

I’m thinking of a very specific third option :

1. Buy item A
2. Buy Item B
3. Don’t buy either A or B

This Monday Money article is about saying no.

When I first went grocery shopping with my wife several years ago, i noticed what i thought was a particular habit.

Right before checking out, she would go through her shopping cart and pick something that she was not going to buy and take it out, put it back on the shelf before she paid for the rest of her stuff.

This practice of saying no to something that she wanted, helped her develop the self discipline to say no to getting everything she wanted.

This was her version of option 3.

I was looking last week for an item for work and spent 20 minutes comparing option A vs. option B.  Neither was exactly what I was looking for and not going to be a solution to the problem I was wanting to solve.  So I walked away and decided to wait.

Over the weekend, I went to a different store and spent less and got exactly what I was looking for. It was considerable less than what I would have spent if I bought from the first store.

Do you ever choose option 3?