false-economy

In economics, a false economy or hallucinated economy is an action that does save money at the beginning but which, over a longer period of time, results in more money being spent or wasted than being saved. For example, it may be false economy if a city government decided to purchase the cheapest automobiles for use by city workers to save money; however, if cheap automobiles have a record of needing more frequent repairs, the additional repair costs would negate any initial savings.