this post was submitted on 05 Jan 2024
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There's a famous example of the poverty trap that uses boots that fall apart every season vs quality boots that last, and I think there is a quality level that is so bad it's more expensive in the long run. So I do buy shoes that cost money. But I'm not buying fashion shoes or luxury brand shoes which I think is what you're saying too.
"The reason that the rich were so rich, Vimes reasoned, was because they managed to spend less money.
Take boots, for example. He earned thirty-eight dollars a month plus allowances. A really good pair of leather boots cost fifty dollars. But an affordable pair of boots, which were sort of OK for a season or two and then leaked like hell when the cardboard gave out, cost about ten dollars. Those were the kind of boots Vimes always bought, and wore until the soles were so thin that he could tell where he was in Ankh-Morpork on a foggy night by the feel of the cobbles.
But the thing was that good boots lasted for years and years. A man who could afford fifty dollars had a pair of boots that’d still be keeping his feet dry in ten years’ time, while the poor man who could only afford cheap boots would have spent a hundred dollars on boots in the same time and would still have wet feet."
Yeah, you don't want top of the line, but you don't want bottom of the barrel, either.
That's exactly my point as well. I've got a pair of shoes that I got for $40 around 5 years ago and I still wear them everywhere.