framework.

Credit: Terry Pratchett’s (1993), Men at Arms

Summary:

The story is detailed in Men at Arms (1993). It goes like this:

“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 kinds of boots Vimes always bought, and wore until the soles were so thin that he could tell where he was in Ankh-Morpork 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 a 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.”

Concept detail:

The idea that the poor man spent twice as much as the rich man became known as “Vimes’ Boots Theory”:

It costs more to be poor.

A rich person can afford high upfront costs for durable, high-quality goods — which saves money in the long run.
A poor person has to buy cheap goods that wear out quickly — costing them more over time, but they can’t afford the upfront cost of quality.

Real world application:

Vimes’ Boots Theory is still used to explain:

• The hidden costs of poverty: cheap cars, cheap appliances, fast fashion.

• Why low-income people pay more for credit (e.g., payday loans).

• Why “poverty traps” persist: short-term survival costs more than long-term investing.