I have been playing for the past two years and improving slowly. In that time I must have owned 20 different basses, probably owning 6 at any any one time.
My excuse initially was that I considered it an opportunity to try different styles of basses, keep what I like and move on what I didnt. I am terrible in shops, I can always manage to convince myself to buy most things, so I figure buy secondhand and then move on if they dont suit, and consider any loss "rental money". In some cases I have tried similar styles of basses more than once, EB0's, EB3's and Violin basses have all come and gone on more than one ocassion.
I reaslised that having this many basses was daft so in recent months have made an effort to scale down, I now own a Ray34 Natural, a Geddy Lee and two Nanyo Basses. In a bid to scale down further I had tried to move on some of these basses too, but I consider it a lucky escape that they didnt go as I dont think I could replace them and do any better in that price range.
I almost ruined things in the last couple of weeks by buying a Ryder Bass, but I managed to stay calm and walkaway.