I am sure others have stated this already, but I'll jump in with my opinion. If you watch the LQS and the on-line stores for the closeout sales, you'll never need to pay full price for fabric. You must have a good eye for what will work together. You can't get "the whole line", when it first comes out, for a bargain price. I know that buying a "line" or "collection" of fabric make it easier to coordinated your quilts colors in a 'Garanimals' kind of way.
Build a stash of fabrics and then grab a pattern or idea and start looking through your stash to see what will work for that project.