Wikipedia

Adjacent ideas like "buy cheap, buy twice" or "you get what you pay for" are older, and I imagine the idea behind it is quite a lot older (for example, the wiki article mentions The Ragged-Trousered Philanthropist from 1910).

There's some record in the late 1800s of "the poor" in the UK living hour-to-hour or day-to-day (rather than week-to-week these days) and only being able to buy things on the day when absolutely needed, i.e. going to the shop to buy "one spoonful of tea leaves" twice a day. I'd imagine that, like the boots, that's a lot more expensive than something which lasts longer - and I'd imagine the idea and complaint existed at the time - but nobody cared enough to write it down, because they were poor people, and "it was their own fault", and "they keep spending it on luxuries like thimbles", and they "deserve it because they have lower moral fibre" and "most of them are thieves anyway" etc.

PTerry just put it together in a way that was so clear and eloquent (like his one about crabs in a bucket).