I have always bought fabric cheaply as I find it as I decided I'd do a form of "pioneer quilting" called thrift store fabric only. SO I bought what seemed to me to be good quality quilting fabric. I got to the point where I don't go shopping at thrift stores so much and I'm starting to use my stash. I just made a large lap quilt entirely from on hand fabric. I am also working on WIP by using what I have. However, I also have a couple of paper pieced projects in mind that I want to try and am buying pieces of fabric for that mostly half yd or smaller, and all on sale. So you could call that spec buying, I guess. My stash is no where near the size of many and if I had the energy to rearrange the furniture and get my fabric on all the comic book boards, well, maybe I would get to quilt a bit more.