Welcome to Cheaper Than Therapy, a newsletter by Shani Silver.
At the start of 2025, I began to document all my purchases in a spreadsheet. I knew this was going to be a very different year economically speaking, and between the end of my podcast and the start of fascism, I knew this was a year to get really intentional about spending (and not spending) money. I don’t document regularly consumed purchases like coffee, contact lenses, and incense (it’s my one luxury, leave me be), and instead I focus specifically on non-consumable, optional purchases like clothing, accessories, and new beauty products which don’t count as consumable because when the fuck do I ever finish them? I also started keeping a list of everything I thrifted in 2025, in the hopes that this list would be longer than the list of new purchases, but so far that’s not going well. Womp.
The biggest benefit of this spreadsheet is that it’s really helping me not buy stuff, and nothing else ever really has. For extra fun yes this is how I have fun I also keep a list of everything I want to buy, too—and have for years. This gives me time to sit with the idea of a purchase and determine if it’s really a need or just a want, and if it’s a want, is it a want that’s got some longevity to it? More often than not, when I revisit the bigger-ticket items, I don’t really want them anymore, showing me the benefit of patience. I’m really proud of all the ways I’ve cut back in 2025, and while I wish things didn’t have to feel so strict, we are where we are. That being said, I have not bought some pretty cool shit this summer, and I thought you might like to see it.