How expensive is actually expensive?

Year ago, one of my mentors told me the following and I truly believe it is so...

“It’s unwise to pay too much, but it’s worse to pay too little.  When you pay too much, you lose a little money… that is all.  When you pay too little, you sometimes lose everything, because the thing you bought was incapable of doing the thing it was bought to do.  The common law of business balance prohibits paying a little and getting a lot.  It can’t be done.  If you deal with the lowest bidder, it is well to add something for the risk you run, and if you do that… you will have enough to pay for something better.”

                                                                                                                                  John Ruskin