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Notes -
I had a similar experience recently (as in like, yesterday) trying to get decent cycling shoes. The ones I purchased cold off the internet hurt my feet.
I probably invested 3-4 hours in internet research, another 2 hours calling various bicycle stores, measuring my feet, or trying on shoes, going back and forth on what to get to try and avoid the most expensive option that seemed the likeliest to work.
Ended up pulling the trigger by recognizing I need these things in and on my feet for at least a month prior to the event they're for anyway and got the expensive option I could have just started with.
Incredibly frustrating.
I have to say this was a rare outlier. Normally my stupid rabbit hole efforts are limited to around 2 hours.
I guess part of my motivation had been to discover some delightful solution that improves my life beyond my existing solution / baseline. The problem is delightful solutions are supposed to be uncommon for a well-functioning adult. So the one time that the 2 hour long research pays off handsomely reinforces a craving to invest in additional 2 hour long searches of another high, which inevitably disappoints the majority of the time.
In your case, I'd guess the high is the ability to find a cheap but excellent solution. The feeling of saving money thanks to resourcefulness is often intoxicating.
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