Recently, after spending quite some money on ebay for RPG products (way too much, if you ask my significant other) I started reflecting on my shopping behaviour and thought I would really like to know how other people handle their purchases.
In the distant 2E past, I had a quite clearly defined purchase policy: BR products were a must (and this I`ll never regret), then came Core rule expansions and FR products if I had money left over. Other product lines I would ignore.

With d20 and especially my discovery of ebay my gaming library exploded. Suddenly there were many more products I found interesting and ebay made more of them affordable.

I also noted that the wealth of material does not always make things easier for the DM. In 2E times I usually had (at best) one set of rules for any given situation. I would read these rules, tweak them as needed and was ready to go. Now, for instance, I have at least five different sets of d20 naval rules. With reading and comparing them and more often than not still tweaking or synthesizing them, my preparation time is considerably longer than it used to be. In addition, adapting new material, prestige classes etc. I would like to use to a world as clearly defined as BR (in contrast to the Forgotten realms where you easily find a place for everything - at the cost of the believabilty of the setting) can be quite a lot of work, though I still add content rather haphazardly to my campaign.

Well, I guess I could just stop buying products and would still have more material than I could use in a lifetime or two of DMing, but I`m too much of a completist (read: addict) for this.
This sounds a bit like a luxury problem, but I would really like to hear some views on this subject, like:

- How do you decide what to buy and what to pass? Do you have a certain budget, do you use reviews, do you buy from certain publishers only etc.

- And how do use new material in your campaign? Do you have a screening process or use it at whim and how much of the material you own do you really use?

Thanks for the input,

Christoph