Inda, you stole my soapbox!!!! 
I've been screaming about footcare for years! Mainly, because I almost destroyed mine. 
I have narrow heels, but a wide foot. Duck feet!
So, for years, I squeezed my toes into shoes that were too narrow for them. Worse yet, being only 5'1", I LOVED high heels! So, my poor toes got squeezed even further down into the toe of my shoe. It didn't hurt back then, so I didn't realize what kind of damage I was doing to my feet and lower back. I finally did enough damage that the tendons in my feet started knotting up when I took my shoes off at night. Even having a sheet over them was excruciating. Shoeshopping was a nightmare! If the shoes fit in the heel, they squeezed my toes. If they didn't squeeze my toes, the slipped on my heels. And on those very rare occasions when I found a pair that fit at both ends, they never had enough arch support! I'm not prone to temper tantrums, but I can remember throwing a pair of shoes onto the floor in one store because I was so terribly frustrated.
And then I discovered a store called The Ground Floor. And Birkenstocks. Can you imagine what it was like to finally find a pair of shoes that fit. At 40? Only, $150 just didn't fit into my budget. Until Beth, the owner of the store, asked me why I didn't put them on layaway. I asked how long her layaway plan was. She said, "As long as it takes to pay them off." Did I mention that Beth was an angel?
I would go make a payment every Friday. By the time I had them about halfway paid off, we had gotten to be friends and she told me to just take them home. My layaway became a charge account. I discovered something about expensive shoes. They aren't. It's been 10 years. I've had them resoled one time. That cost around $50. So I have put about $200 into those shoes. It comes out to about $20 a year and I am still wearing them.
Shortly after I bought my first pair, a podiatrist came into the store I worked in. He noticed my Birkies and asked how I liked them. I told him how I came to buy them and he laughed. He told me I had just saved myself the cost of a visit to his office, that I had done exactly what he would have recommended. And after 10 years, my toes are straighter. My feet may still hurt after 8 hours of standing on them, but the tendons no longer knot up.
I see all these young women running around in pointy toed, high heeled shoes and I want to grab them and beg them to quit wearing them. It just isn't worth it. I know.