Boots are a good thing to look for in thrift stores.

I got a $220 pair of redwings in good shape for $12.

Sir, please try a good pair of footwear, for your sake! If you need convincing, look up the Boots Theory. Personally, I live in my boots and have worn out many cheap pair. Sometimes 2 a year. Invested a little more, my body was never so happy, and I didn't need to replace them for 4 years. Easy math.

I've tried some other brands of boots, the quality is hit or miss but I've yet to find a brand that had a durability:price ratio better than Doc Martens. I'm sure such a brand exists, but I'd hate to find out how many pairs of boots I go through until I find that brand by trial and error.

I've sworn off sneakers entirely though. Unless you're buying sneakers for a specific athletic purpose, I think sneakers as a default footware is something of a scam. They're all built to fall apart after months, maybe a year or two max. They're usually made with fabric instead of leather, with thin and soft rubber soles. Even the ones made with leather still have thin soles that wear out fast. I've never had nor heard of a pair of sneakers that didn't disintegrate before two years of daily use.

As for the broke, drunk and drugs lifestyle, I think dependable boots are a great choice. Even if nothing else in your life is stable, at least you can rely on your boots.

> Maybe Im missing out but Ive never felt the need to spend so much on shoes.

It’s something you can’t understand unless you actually buy and wear a pair of well-made boots or shoes.

A mall store pair of leather boots might weigh 1-1.5 lbs because it’s made of bad leather, EVA foam, and adhesives. A pair of well made boots, one boot will weigh almost 2 lbs because they use good leather uppers, real rubber or leather soles, a steel shank, and cork footbed.

A $300 pair of boots with last 5x longer than a $100 pair of boots if you take care of them and don’t wear them daily.

I've only dropped $200+ on footwear a few times because those pairs of shoes or boots have not yet worn out. And they're very comfy and look sharp.

Ever hear of the Sam Vimes Boot Theory? Terry Pratchett in the Discworld novel Men at Arms has the Vimes say: "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 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. This was the Captain Samuel Vimes "Boots" theory of socioeconomic unfairness"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boots_theory

Care to enlighten us as to who is now operating the original factory producing less “cool” boots? RedWing has started outsourcing to Cambodia and the quality has dropped significantly. I have been searching for a replacement. White’s are all I have found.

Heh, I can't say I've ever been to a communist reading group. I've had some people tell me that my boots are for communists or for lesbians, but that doesn't bother me. Such associations are silly memes.

You're right that I don't care for the style of their UK made boots. I like their brown burnished leather "crazy horse" boots, or ones styled similar. Their UK made boots seem to all be black, red, white, or brown but suede (which I don't consider durable.) These are bolder / punkish designs which I don't care for.

If you can suggest an American brand that holds up to Doc Martens, maybe I'll buy those in a few years instead. But I think most boots are made in China or some other country with exploitative labor.