At least you aren't the only one who passed the $50 limit... I yielded to the temptation and got Majesty 2 and Massive Assault (they had the most decent discounts from my wishlisted stuff that was on discount, and I got the checkout price somewhat lowered by using the 0.10 eurocents regional credit I got by purchasing The Wolf Among Us). I thus got Xenonauts too. (Btw, checking the game's store page and a relevant gogmix -I get the old GOG cover for use in the game cataloging program I use from GOGmixes-, I see that the target audience of Xenonauts creators was mostly precisely those who hadn't played XCOM before, so I'll probably like that game!).
Plus, the mean price for each game I just got (including Xenonauts) thus became about 2.5 euros, which seems to my mind much better - I do such mind tricks as calculating mean prices of stuff I get and "transferring" in my mind part of the more expensive game's price to a cheaper one (e.g. if I get a $3.99 and a $1.99 game, I get my mind to think I'd be the same if I had got 2 $2.99 games, but that usually works when one of the games seems like a great deal to me, so that I'd be willing to pay more to get it!) in order to not have buyer's regret.
At least, if the rest of the sale's going to be repeats (as many fear), I can hopefully focus on downloading the stuff I got and actually playing some of them!

Hmm. I am personally helped by few conditions which helped me cease my desire to buy on this Summer sale:
1. Not so good internet. Limited quota, and not so fast download speed (usually just around 150 KB/s).
2. Recent weakening of my country's currency (IDR) to US$

So far I only bought Jade Empire, Valdis Story, and Postal 2. I bought Jade Empire because in the past I played the game and finished it, but it was pirated game (that time it is very difficult and very expensive to get original game in my country). I bought it because of... I feel guilty, I guess. I feel that I should buy the original as it is more accessible -even from my country now. I bought many games before also because of this reason.

For Valdis Story it was because in my wishlist and caught my interest since long ago. And I found the price is just right. For Postal 2, well... it is $0.99. I thought it won't really hurt much and I am really curious about the game. I think that's it. My total spent in this summer sale is $7.77. The rest is I was just prying into giveaway thread and got 2 games from kind people here on GOG.

I was about to buy BlazeBlue, but my first condition (the internet) really halted me to buy it. The download size is 8 GB. That would really eat my internet quota. This condition really helps me to ignore many games that have titanic download size (Witcher 3 for example).

And about the recent weakening of my currency to US$, it helped when I was about to buy Ys Foundation pack. It just simply too expensive for me right now. Heck, even $10 price tag is already too much for me before the recent currency weakening. Now $6 price tag is already too much for me.

Also, I have another reason that also helped me to not buy game. This reason also made me to remove some games from my wishlist recently. The reason is : "I don't have time to play this game. I need to allocate my time for other more productive activities". It helps for me.

But, you know, with all of those reason and conditions I am also still struggling with this GAS (Game Acquisition Syndrome). But, at least they really helped me to not buy games impulsively in the past 2 years. My tendency to buy on GOG or the one that provide DRM-Free installer also helps me (I usually ignore Steam sale or any bundle that only provide Steam keys)

Another way to stop buying games from my personal experience was : When you about to buy a game, find any reason that would make you feel bad if you buy that game. Sometimes I thought of : "It is better if I use this amount of money for charity".

I mean, you can use the money to buy a game for giveaway (a kind of charity I guess), but why not give the money for charity organization such as Charity Water or perhaps other charity organizations nearby your neighborhood.

I think that was all from me. Happy struggling !

I considered it a win that I kept my spending under $10 (admittedly barely) despite the temptation to buy about 8 other games.

On the bright side, hopefully I'm now better-steeled against spending anything in the steam sale (next week?). There's only a few games they have that I want that gog doesn't anyway, and I doubt they're going to suddenly offer Xulima at 75% off or Freedom Planet at 90% or anything crazy-unexpected.

But.... The Precious!

http://memegenerator.net/instance2/197784

My update...

I've bought Act of War (because i really want it), was gifted SW Galactic Battlegrounds by a really awesome guy, manage to grab a Xenonauts key from someone that exposed the key on a thread to whoever wanted it (thank you person that i can't remember and can't find the thread) and Battle Realms was offered by gog.

Three games that i really wanted and now i have it on gog.

Other than that i only bought the Weekly Humble bundle because i really wanted Close Combat: GtC and it's a game that never gets discounts on Steam but i'll be honest, i've felt some regret because i basically paid $10 for it (well and for Qvadriga + Battle Academy) and i really didn't want to spent that much because of my backlog.

Tomorrow starts the Steam sales and i have 30€ on my Steam wallet (from gifts and selling stuff) and the only game that i'm thinking of buying is Garry's mod (x4, me and friends), as for the rest i'll wait to see if some of the games that i have on my wishlist gets a 75%, even so, if it's one of those that is likely to appear on a console then i won't even buy it since i rather play it there and it will probably appear on the ps+.

At this point i realize that a huge backlog + bundles + sales + ps plus turn me into a cheap bastard and i'm ok with it. Am i cured? :p

Not buying cheap games would drive me nuts. I have OCD and I am a gaming hoarder. Though I'm not one of those that have to have every game on every platform. I buy games on all platform and not just Steam.

I gotta buy them all. I see something at $1.99 and I find my self with like 25 games in the checkout.

It's nice to see this self help tool available for those that need it. Me, I don't need it. I'm curing myself with the 1,348 step plan. Buy 1,347 games and then just stop.

If that doesn't work out so well, maybe I'll come back. Or maybe I'll try the 23,432 step plan. I've heard good things about that one.

Check the list, see game that i didnt know i wanted until now its only a few dollers..10 games later..

I can attest that this strategy work!

I shall investigate this further.

Resisted two more games.

First was Toki Tori 2+. My 5 year old saw that on the Steam store (it's on sale for $1.49) and wanted to try it. We played the demo a little and he liked the game, but before the end of the demo he was already letting me do all the puzzle solving and ended up wanting to move to another game.

Then there was a Bundle Stars bundle with A Bird Story, and I figured that was a good one to check out. The bundle costs only $1.99 and I could gift other games. Ended up convincing myself that I should play To The Moon first anyway.

I only Buy games I MUST have therefore there is No problem

I resisted buying the Hardcore roleplay bundle so I'm on a good track am I? And as soon as the sale completes I stop altogheter until the next sale...