This is the difference between shopping for a "big-ticket" item and a "small-ticket", "consumable", or "repeat purchase" item.
When you shop for a large dollar-value item, you are usually shopping for one of them. The time you spend making decisions on it is amortized over just one item (with possible benefits if you need to trade it in or sell it later). You may even have a budget for shopping advice. For example, I live in a county where the median home price is $ 500,000. In this county, a typical home purchase includes $ 15,000 of shopping assistance for the buyer, $ 15,000 of selling assistance for the seller, $ 9,000 of transaction taxes, and thousands of dollars of inspections and appraisals. Spending an extra $ 10,000 to get the "right" house can be rationalized.
When you shop for a small dollar-value item, you are usually either purchasing it as part of an ongoing stream of purchases, or you are considering starting such a stream of purchases. A record per week is several hundred dollars per year -- enough to pay the incremental mortgage on that extra $ 10,000 you paid for your house. Also, if you notice that a store has poor bargains, you can look for a different store -- this can save you a lot of money in the long run.
Also, you are asking, "Do I really want this item? Is it worth making space to store it (perhaps by getting rid of something else)?" If a typical "good" record is $10 - $15, and you don't think this record even worth $7, then this record might be the one you get rid of to store the next "good" one you find. Thus, you might only get a single playing's pleasure from this one -- so it might not even be worth $ 2 to you, after you consider your constraints. Instead of wasting your money on things that aren't worth keeping (and feeling guilty about throwing them out, or feeling guilty about keeping them around), you can spend your money on "the good stuff".
Notice that investors who purchase homes to rent out act more like repeat purchasers. They often have very clear ideas of what price will "pencil out", and may have business rules of not going above that price.