Another reason I prefer to invest in clothes/shoes/items I will use and depend on is for the quality I can be assured of. I have jeans that I paid about $100 for, and they are still in use after 5 years. Jeans I pay $20 for come and go very quickly. Same with shoes, I bought myself reebok tennis shoes over 7 years ago for about $50, a lot of money at that time for a poor missionary, but I used them for about 7 years. I just replaced them with some sketchers.