This is a subject I've been thinking a great deal about in recent years. Back in the early 00's, like many people, I was a somewhat avid DVD collector. For about eight years I would regularly buy movies and receive them as gifts, then put them up in the bookcase with my collection. I'd say all totaled I have about 300 movies and about 100 boxed sets of TV shows (individual seasons or a few full series collections).

Eventually, like many, I figured out that I don't watch these movies. Of those 300 films, I'd estimate that I've seen no more than 40 of them more than one time, 20 more than twice, 10 more than three times, and so on.

So that's a lot of wasted money on those shelves. As a result, my purchasing behavior has changed drastically in the last few years. When bluray was settled as the standard, I swore that I would not own another movie unless:

a) it was one of my favorite movies
b) it was a movie that really showed off HD (I bought Sunshine, for example, because of this)

Even under these rules, I haven't bought many blurays because I know I won't watch them many times. Plus, HD isn't as novel as it used to be, so rule b) isn't as applicable anymore.

Now, I'm far happier renting, and I've saved a great deal of money. This is even with renting HDX movies via vudu, which typically run $6. I'd have to watch a movie like that three times to make owning it more cost effective. The way I look at it, even if I watch one movie five times, there's plenty more I'll only watch once, so I'm still ahead of the game if I rent it every time.

With all that said, I'm curious what kind of behavior you all have observed of yourself:

(In this poll, "now don't" should say "now buy few." It looks like I can't edit a poll...)