Are you a "Satisfier" or a "Maximizer"?

I have been reading The Happiness Project and on the chapter about money, I was thrilled to see that there are actual names for Dan and I as it relates to how we go about purchasing items:,

A Satisfier is someone who if they find a product that meets their expectations they will immediately make the decision to buy it and move on - carry on with their day. They typically never have buyer's remorse or second guess their choice.  (This is ME)

 A Maximzer is someone who regardless if they find something that meets their expectations early on in the search they will continue to search and research other similar products so they can feel confident that they are making the right choice.  They always feel there might be something 'better' out there so they need to keep researching/searching just in case!  (This is DAN)

As you can imagine, since we are the exact opposite of this buyer spectrum, this has caused many tense arguments and exasperated sighs as I get frustrated with his lack of decision making and he gets annoyed by my rush to 'get it done" mentality!  

I'm glad that we now know we names for our behavior and that we aren't the only ones!  This certainly helps in our negotiations and understanding of one-another.  There are both positive and negatives to each style and I hope that in the future Dan and I can be more sensitive to this and compromise more.

Case in point - the printer purchase!  Last night, I finally pulled the trigger and said we MUST buy a new printer this weekend.  Our printer has been broken for months and this last attempt to fix it was not successful - so I was DONE!   So off to Best Buy we went.  My goal - get a printer tonight!  Dan's goal - take a look see, search around, research all printers known to man by using his little iphone app (which eliminates the need to visit a million stores - thank goodness!).   Well we both knew our 'intentions' were different going in so we worked out a little compromise.  We quizzed the store clerk about the return policy.  We asked if we bought a printer tonight, took it out of the package, used it, etc.. and wasn't happy with it can we return it?  Answer - yes within 30 days.  Yippie - so the deal was we would walk out of the store with a printer tonight (my goal achieved), but Dan had 30 days to research to his heart content to make sure this choice was the BEST choice in his mind!  I'm happy -  he's happy.....situation resolved :-)....now I wish everything was that easy!