Buying shoes in the days of rampant inflation

Inflation has always been a part of life, but usually it's gradual, unlike today when a nincompoop like Imran Khan has been thrust upon the country to ruin our lives. So, for old geezers like myself, it's painful to buy new clothes or shoes, especially when one has more than enough already. I don't understand why young people of today spend as if there's no tomorrow. But then, right up to middle age, I too was a spendthrift and wastrel. But of course, it was different then, there was always enough left over at the end of the month to save for use on rainy days.

When I was 34, I went into business with a man who was fifteen years my senior. I immediately noticed that he spent only when it was absolutely necessary. It was rather embarrassing for me to go to government departments and meetings with a shabbily dressed man whose clothes and shoes were torn. I tried hard to convince him to invest in new clothes and buy another pair of shoes. One day he agreed to go shopping with me and we decided to meet in the evening outside that famous mosque in Saddar (where the marriages of most Memons were solemnized in those days). He didn't turn up, and the next day I asked him point blank why he was such a miser. He grinned sheepishly and said he had five unmarried children and he needed to save to spend on their weddings (which were still more than five years in the future). I knew then that he wouldn't change even after all of them had been married off, and I was right.

Now that I'm in my seventies, my children wonder why I don't spend on new clothes and shoes. Sometimes they themselves buy stuff for me (like an Ipad and Kindle), and they have bought watches, shirts and shoes for me when they have travelled to Europe and the States. I tell them I want to save as much as I can for a possible emergency operation (medicare is very expensive, there was no health insurance in the country until a few years back). But the main reason is that I simply don't have the heart to spend so much on things which were available so cheaply only a couple of years ago. 

But today, I bought a pair of shoes for Rs. 3,000 (the last time I bought shoes from the same place two years back, I had paid the same amount, but this time they had a clearance sale, and the shoes were available at about half the normal price). I might add that I didn't really need a new pair, the three pairs I have are still in very good condition.