My first knife was a tiny Imperial slip joint (smaller than a peanut) that I paid $0.25 for when I was about 7 years old. As kids, we bought our own stuff with our own money. Dad did not provide knives, guns, or any of the stuff that kids liked at the time. BB gun? Saved up and bought one myself..... Fishing rod? Same deal.
I'm sure you look back at the cheaper knives and smile now. Many folks here do a thumbs down to cheap knives. I might well have had to wait for years if I had to buy a good knife (good meaning costly for my financial situation) as a kid. There is a major place for inexpensive and cheap knives and there always will.I remember getting my first knife from a Fingerhut catalogue from the 88cent pages, along with a bag of marbles and a tiny "solar" keychain light. This was back in the early 80s. It was a Buck-style lockback. Cheap steel, but it awakened the knife need in me. Second was a "Rambo-style" survival knife with the hollow handle and stuff it came with. I spent a whole $12 for it and it truly was a good deal.
My first $30+ folder was a boker subcom. I remember thinking "how much more than $15 can be put in to a knife?" I remember it had AUS8, which along with 440 steel was the only good steel I knew about. I'd have judged the heck outta my future self for spending $100+.Pretty sure it was some POS from a home improvement store. I think it came in a multi-pack of equally garbage knives. I had a modest but poor-quality collection when I was 13-15.
More accurately, though, the first knife I bought with my own money was an Ozark Trail knife whose rapid decline in physical integrity was a major contributing factor that lead me to look for better construction and thus more expensive knives. My first dip into quality knives was the ludicrously expensive $30 Cold Steel Counter-Point II, which made 22-year-old me feel like the most tactical of operators.
I can't remember my first knife ever, but I remember owning a bunch of SAK's as a kid and also a couple of Rambo knives. I remember my favorite knife I had as a kid was a Puma that I was given for doing some work for a family friend. I thought that thing was so cool.
As an adult, before I was heavily into knives I would just use a flat box cutter or whatever cheap Gerber peaked my interest at Target or WM.
The first "nice" knife I bought was the HK Benchmade Snody design. This is the knife that started the obsession and is still probably my favorite Benchmade to this day. This was early in the HK line, before they got the memo that the HK knives were supposed to be a less refined budget line. This thing is amongst the smoothest AXIS locks I have owned, is balanced so that the blade practically falls opened and closed when you depress the lock, with ergonomics similar to a Griptilian, but with the satisfying thwack of a steel frame. I no longer carry it but I keep one on my desk as a letter opener/fidget device, and it has become the standard by which I have judged all subsequent AXIS lock purchases (many of which have not lived up).
Off topic: Nice watch. I've tried that one on more than once, just never pulled the trigger. One of my favorite handguns too.