If I were to attempt to re-buy any large portion of my tools all at once, I'd consider it an absurd amount to spend.

But over a lifetime of things breaking, you'll get a lot of large quotes for professional repairs, or replacement of a much bigger part than what actually broke.

When the washer fluid sprayer on my old Tacoma failed due to decades of a wire rubbing against a sharp metal edge, I was quoted $300 for the whole harness, and 2 hours of labour at $100 an hour.

Suddenly, the $120 soldering iron didn't seem so expensive.

tldr: I'm only 30 and own thousands of dollars worth of tools, but at no point have I ever spent more than the quote to fix the problem at hand.