This is what the disagreement is over, though: empirically, do most people taking this route save money, or do they end up spending more money in hopes of long-term savings that do not materialize? It depends strongly on the shoe, wearer, and various failure modes (and how repairable / expensive to repair each of those failure modes is). In my own case, I've generally found that the expensive shoes fail to save money, because even though they're more repairable, the cost of repairs eats up any savings, vs. just treating shoes as a disposable good (might be different if I lived somewhere with lower labor costs; around here even a simple resoling costs $50, and anything more involved starts at $100+). That might still be worth it if you prefer the nice shoes, don't like unnecessarily sending things to landfills, or other reasons, but for me, from a strictly cost standpoint I've found it hard to come out ahead.