Words from a fabric addicted woman...
I mostly bought fabric that was on sale and I have been quilting seriously, on and off, since the late 70's. Even in my down years of not quilting very much, I still bought fabric. I would always tell my husband, when he would complain about my ever-growing fabric pile/stash, that when I retired I would have my own store of fabric to choose from.
I am now retired and fabric is priced pretty much out of my budget, I do have my own store of fabric and supplies that I can shop in for free. I have always shopped the sales and used coupons to get things at a better price. That means that I have a stash of sewing needles, cutting blades, rulers, thread (as long as it doesn't rot), books, patterns and pretty much whatever else I need to keep me quilting for years to come. My biggest problem will be to say, "NO!" to myself when I am tempted to purchase more stuff. The way I see it is that it will be a challenge for me to go through all of my stuff before I die. Of course, I will need to buy incidentals along the way, like a blending fabric or batting, but that shouldn't be too much for my budget, especially if when I need it I can wait to buy it on sale.
The matter of having fabric that I can only say to myself when I see it is, "What the heck was I thinking?", these will be cut up and put into a scrap quilt. Like several people have said, "if it is cut small enough, you won't even see it," which is very, very true. Fortunately, I love scrap quilts and would rather do something that has random colors in the quilt than a set of the same colors to be used over and over. Others will be used in some craft like pincushions, or cut up to be used as binding or if it isn't too bad it will be used as a backing. Remember, most all quilts need some ugly sister fabrics so that the pretty fabrics look even prettier.
Well, that my story and I'm sticking to it...