I am too poor to afford cheap ****

Posted by Carl Waddington on July 12, 2008 at 19:39

My boss always quoted the following "I am too poor to afford cheap ****". After 20 or so years it has become one of my favourite sayings and I am trying to find the origin of it. The search of the web has given me nothing except a few comments that it is an "old saying", and a proverb, but nothing of substance.

Can you help?