I would consider buying fat eighths for projects making small size blocks such as ones in the Dear Jane or Farmer's Wife books.
And I would pre-wash them.
I really don't know what I would do if I was just starting to build a stash - aka hoarding fabric -
As it is, I usually have so many leftovers/scraps from other projects, that deliberately buying small pieces of fabric would be very hard for me to do. Especially when the price per yard would be considerably more than the off-the-bolt price per yard.