The thing is that when you buy high quality boots, or knives, or whatever, they last a lifetime. When you buy low quality instead, you have to replace the item every couple of years and it ends up costing you considerably more overall.

I’m aware. It’s the Sam Vimes Boots theory of socioeconomic unfairness, named after a character in a Discworld novel who explains the concept even better than you just did.

Take your time, and build up a collection of high quality items that will last you forever.

That’s just it, though, I can’t. The socioeconomic unfairness part of the Boots theory is that poor people never have enough money available at once to buy the more expensive item that costs less in the long run.

To be able to save money by buying the good stuff that lasts a long time, you need a lot of money. Being poor means not having a lot of money and thus we have to to pay what’s known by some as the poverty tax by buying the cheap crap that ends up costing more in the long run.