2022: How Much Will You Spend On Tea This Year!?

The tradition continues!

Time to track how much you’re spending on tea each year. You can edit a comment to keep track throughout the year, or make a new comment for each month/purchase – totally up to you! A lot of people set a budget/goal for the year or an amount they’d like to stay under per month. Some folk include teaware purchases or costs that go towards one on one swaps or things like travelling tea boxes, and others don’t. There is no wrong way to set your budget or track what you’re spending!

If you’ve seen past years threads and felt awkward joining in mid year, now is a perfect time to join in – and if you’re seeing this in the future and it’s the middle of the year don’t feel like you can’t start mid way through!

So have fun, and lets track our tea spending!

2021: https://steepster.com/discuss/42497-2021-how-much-will-you-spend-on-tea-this-year

2020: https://steepster.com/discuss/38946-2020-how-much-will-you-spend-on-tea-this-year

2019: https://steepster.com/discuss/29706-2019-how-much-will-you-spend-on-tea-this-year

2018 – https://steepster.com/discuss/20676-2018-how-much-will-you-spend-on-tea-this-year

2017 – https://steepster.com/discuss/14961-2017-how-much-will-you-spend-on-tea-this-year

2016 – https://steepster.com/discuss/12376-2016-how-much-will-you-spend-on-tea-this-year

2015 – http://steepster.com/discuss/10160-2015-how-much-will-you-spend-on-tea-this-year

2014 – http://steepster.com/discuss/6837-how-much-did-you-spend-on-tea-in-2014

Also going to cross post this year’s Sipdown Challenge thread as well, as I know that many people’s spending is influenced not just by budget but by sipdowns as well.

https://steepster.com/discuss/43802-2022-sipdown-progress-thread

54 Replies

My personal breakdown from past years:

2021 – $10399.22
2020 – $7920.87
2019 – $4791.51
2018 – $3929.54
2017 – $3805.50
2016 – $2034.13
2015 – $1998.46
2014 – $1466.61

I started 2021 alright but quickly fell off the rails. Probably the biggest factor for the high spending is that, like in 2020, my tea budget absorbed my underutilized extracurricular budget since I wasn’t doing anything within the city due to the pandemic.

I haven’t done the exact breakdown, but I also think that I spent probably close to half of last year’s spending on teaware alone. In addition to expanding my gongfu teaware collection, I got very into handmade pottery and ended up supporting a great deal of indie ceramics artists or local potters. For that reason, I’m actually going to try to track my teaware and my tea spending separately this year to see what the actual breakdown is between the two!

One of my big goals last year was to do less advents and that was a huge failure because I actually did the most I’ve ever done. However, I felt incredibly burnt out by the end of it and have established a strong hardline on what my MAX capacity of advents is. Ideally, this year I’d like to do five or less – which should reduce some end of year spending.

Overall, I’m going to set my goal for the year as…

Spend no more than $6,000 between both tea and teaware purchases with a max spending cap of $500/month.

This is about a 40% reduction from what I spend this year which is steep, but I also think I spent so much in total that even with the reduction it should still give me lots of flexibility throughout the year.

. . .

January Purchases: $405.57
Volition Tea (Tea): $176.57
Purple Cloud Tea House (Teaware) $229.00

February Purchases: $1013.00
Brian Giniewski (Teaware) $78.00
Gina Gertz (Teaware) $171.00
Bitterleaf Tea (Teaware) $163.00
ETTE (Tea) $601.00

March Purchases: $664.00
White2Tea (Tea) $415.00
Saltstone Ceramics (Teaware) $249.00

April Purchases: $332.30
Bitterleaf Tea (Tea & Teaware) $207.30
Dessert By Deb (Tea) $125.00

May Purchases: $367.61
White2Tea (Tea) $184.61
3 Gems Tea (Tea) $70.00
Bird & Blend Tea Co. (Tea) $113.00

June Purchases: $1500.75
Bitterleaf Tea (Tea) $293.64
San Tea (Teaware) $105.00
52Teas (Tea) $150.00
White2Tea (Tea & Teaware) $398.27
Sipsby (Tea & Teaware) $553.84

July Purchases: $430.70
White2Tea (Tea) $154.96
Flyest (Tea) $76.00
Teeccino (Tea) $82.74
Tea Gems (Tea) $117.00

August Purchases: $755.24
52Teas (Tea – 12 Days of Tea) $67.76
Dammann Freres (Tea) $97.10
Joro Studios (Teaware) $124.55
Chroma Tea (Tea) $93.08
Bird & Blend Tea (Tea) $109.58
White2Tea (Tea) $263.17

September Purchases: $513.30
Bitterleaf Tea (Tea & Teaware) $247.00
Adagio Tea (Tea) $191.30
The Tea Practitioner (Tea) $75.00

October Purchases: $973.06
Camellia Sinensis (Tea + Teaware) $40.00
T-Guru (Tea + Teaware) $147.68
Mathilda Lovell Ceramique (Teaware) $25.00
Floral Tea (Tea) $40.00
Bitterleaf Teas (Tea + Teaware) $291.19
Loongese (Teaware) $138.00
Tealyra (Tea) $68.75
Snarky Tea (Tea) $222.44

November Purchases: $1020.00
Dessert By Deb (Tea) $49.00
Purple Cloud Tea House (Teaware) $190.00
Harney & Son (Tea) $212.00
Bitterleaf Tea (Teaware) $222.00
White2Tea (Tea) $347.00

December Purchases: $1487.43
Crafted Leaf Tea (Teaware) $899.00
Tea Thoughts (Teaware) $100.00
Inge Neilsen (Teaware) $167.18
Saltstone Ceramics (Teaware) $321.25

TEA SPENDING TOTAL: $5440.27
TEAWARE SPENDING TOTAL: $4032.69

GRAND TOTAL: $9466.96

Makes total sense to track them separately to me, I don’t even include my teaware spending at all ha ha.

Tiffany :) said

Are you sipping down too this year or just focusing on the cut on spending?

I don’t want to put an insane amount of pressure on myself to finish off the teas I own – but I do want to focus really hard on not bringing in more teas.

Login or sign up to post a message.

I ended 2021 having spent $1,451.33, which is an improvement over 2020 ($3,570.78).

I’m finding myself a bit stressed and overwhelmed by my collection at the moment. I’m moreso trying more to get through things than focusing on enjoying them, so my goal is to just generally cut down on my tea spending and enjoy what I already have. I’m aiming to just spend less than 2021, but ideally under $1000.

Doing pretty well so far!:

January 2022
Mountain Stream Teas- $34.75
Yunnan Sourcing- $85.22
$119.97

February 2022
52Teas- $23
$23

March 2022
Petals and Poison- $76.66
Silk Tea Co- $45

I feel the same way, not necessarily stressed but I’m always drinking teas to get sipdowns and rarely drinking things just because I want to…

Login or sign up to post a message.

As much as it’s impossible, my goal for 2022 spending is YET AGAIN $0. Too much tea!
2019 total: $200
2020 total: $195.57
2021 total: $57.20
2022 total: $86.25 total as of 12/31/22

2022:
Harney – $18.75
Davids – $15
Tealyra – $52.50

Aw but you did so well last year! $57 is basically $0 compared to everyone else’s spending habits, ha ha…

Yeah, I know! But there is still so much tea around here…

Dustin said

That is really impressive! Zero should really be my goal too, but I’ve already blown that. I’m officially out of cupboard space.

WELP, it’s September and I finally spent money on tea this year. I was going to order from Harney anyway AND THEN I SAW THEY HAD A NEW HATTIALLI ASSAM – my favorite tea ever (from Butiki).

Darn it, I was doing well this year, now it’s $86.25 for the year so far – split between 3 orders. sigh. Hopefully NO MORE this year.

Login or sign up to post a message.

I’ve been convinced to join Steepster! My goal this year is to spend as little money on new tea and teaware as I can outside of my tea subscriptions and count down/advent calendars. I’ll be doing a sipdown/no buy on and off all year. I spent way too much last year!

Spending total:$1795.58

January total: $212.35
-Sipsby subscription $15
-White2Tea subscription $29.99
-Sipsby feb subscription $15
-Teathoughts (teaware) $71.37
-Adagio Teas $51
-White2Tea Feb subscription $29.99

February total: $153.11
-Adagio Teas $67
-Tea Thoughts Spring Countdown $56.12
-White2Tea March Subscription $29.99

March total: $191.40
-Adagio Teas $73
-Davids Tea $49.69
-Tea Thoughts (tea adjacent) $38.72
- White2Tea April Subscription $29.99

April total: $407.41
-Adagio Teas $102
-Davids Tea $165.42
-Adagio Teas $110
-White2Tea May Subscription $29.99

May Total: $225.34
- Sipsby Box June $15
- Adagio $54.15
- Southern Breeze $3.48
- tazo $3.48
- White2Tea Club Subscription $29.99
- TeaThoughts Countdown to Summer Box $53.12
- TeaThoughts Tea adjacent $66.12

June Total: $111.49
- Adagio $66.50
- Sipsby Sub Box July $15
- White2Tea Sub Box July $29.99

July Total: $250.28
- Tea Pigs $6.99
- Asheville Tea Company $14.95
- Spice of Life and Variety Teas $70.23
- Tea Thoughts Tea Adjacent $58.12
- Sipsby Box Subscription $15
- White2tea Club Subscription $29.99
- Adagio $55

August Total: $244.20
- Herbal Helpers $1.25
- Tevive $1.25
- Tea Pigs $39.87
- Tea Thoughts (Tea adjacent) $8
- Sipsby Box September $15
- Adagio $55
- White2Tea September Box $29.99
- Tea Thoughts Countdown to Fall box $40.72
- Tea Thoughts Socks $53.12

Hi Marjorie! o/

Hi!! Finally made it over here lol!

Welcome! :)

glad to be here, Kelly!

Login or sign up to post a message.

Dustin said

I don’t even know what my buying/restraining goals are for this year. I did the spreadsheet I wanted to do for last year. I’ve been using tea buying as therapy of sorts when I’m feeling super down and there has been a lot to be down about. It gives me something new to look forward to which might be why I spent more in 2021 then any other year I’ve tracked it.

2018: 740
2019: 848.36
2020: 796.40
2021: 972.92

Jan Total: $187.55
$121.11 Mariage Freres
14.11 Tea Smith
43.13 David’s
9.20 Harney

Feb
$7 Harney’s impulse buy. I don’t even like Harneys. :/

March $33.90 including shipping on David’s Tea

May $21 Tea Embassy

June $37.08 Jasmine Pearl

July $41 3Leaf
$50 Necessiteas

October
34.55 White Pines Estate
12 Gurnnmans

November
Casting Whimsy $40.98
David’s 39.33

December Chroma $38.40

Login or sign up to post a message.

Kaylee said

Thanks for starting this thread Roswell, and for linking to the old ones! I haven’t done this in a few years but I think it would be helpful to try again – last year got kind of out of control, especially as I was stress-buying tea towards the end of the year. I also like Ros’s idea of distinguishing teaware purchases, since we don’t really have any space left for teaware and technically have a soft ban on it.

Previous years’ spending
2014: $965.89
2015: $961.50
2016: $734.75
mid-2017: $581.12 (stopped tracking halfway through the year)

2022 goal
The goal is not to spend over $750, and ideally to stay under $500
I’d also like to not purchase more than 5 new pieces of teaware (including teaware that comes packaged with tea, in countdown boxes, etc.) and work on clearing out teaware I don’t like/don’t use.

Ugh I only made it four days into the new year before cracking and making some small purchases: a sample tin of a custom blend from Adagio and some bubble tea ice cream which I’m conveniently counting as a grocery expense. Nothing big or fancy but it satisfied the “must buy tea” endorphin trigger. So now I’m aiming for a low-spend January rather than a no-spend January. Whoops.

January
Adagio: $4.75
Rù Tea: $10.50
Volition Tea Tiger Box: $74.15
Te Company: $9.00

February
Tea Thoughts Countdown Box: $55.20
Tea Thoughts (teaware): $33.53

…definitely lost track for a while…

June
Harney: $29.22

July
Tea Horse: $60.00
DavidsTea: $65.96

August
Ippodo: $122.17
Flyest: $35.00
52 Teas: $19.00
Te Company: $30.00
DavidsTea: $81.90

September
Bloomingdale’s (teaware): $89.28

…definitely lost track for a bit…

October
Te Company 7th anniversary: $115.42
Flyest: $35
Tea Thoughts: $43.98
Kiani: $102.00
Tea Thoughts Winter Countdown Box: $70.00
Plum Deluxe Advent: $45.00
Dammann Freres (incl. advent calendar): $103.29

November
Teeccino: $47.03
DavidsTea: $30.47
Tea Thoughts: $64.98
DavidsTea: $68.65
Tea Thoughts: $34.98
Clipper Advent: $10
Tea Thoughts: $16

Total: $1,506.46 (higher in reality but there are purchases I didn’t record)

Login or sign up to post a message.

Shae said

Last year was my first to track my tea spending, and I’ve apparently been spending much more than I’d realized! If I were to set a goal this year, I’d say I would probably like to keep it under $1,000. The less the better though, until I can drink through a bunch of my older teas.

2021 Total: 1,004.25 USD

January: 140.74 USD
52Teas: 67.75
Whispering Pines: 32.00
igourmet: 4.99
Cedar Hill Homestead: 36.00

February: Zero!

March: 12.78 USD
The Spice & Tea Exchange: 12.78

April: 217.98 USD (Mostly decaf blends)
Zest Tea: 17.94
Mark T. Wendell: 38.65
Harney & Sons: 22.42
Teeccino: 20.48
Friendship Organics: 10.99
Satori Teas: 41.00
Plum Deluxe: 66.50

May: 109.95 USD
Greenfield: 6.75
Tiesta Tea: 6.40
Mahamosa: 14.49
The Spice & Tea Exchange: 12.78
The Republic of Tea: 18.36
Zest Tea: 51.17

June: 18.00 USD
Far West Tea Traders: 18.00

July: Zero!

August: 37.50 USD
52Teas: 37.50

September: Zero!

October: 10.36 USD
Twinings: 3.37
Vadham: 6.99

November: Zero!

December 180.96 USD
Lupicia: 69.30
Harney & Sons: 22.82
DAVIDsTEA: 88.84

2022 Total: 728.27 USD

Kittenna said

Wow! Zero in Feb – impressive!

Shae said

I was certainly tempted. :D

Login or sign up to post a message.

2016: $252.02
2017: $1455.42
2018: $2000.42
2019: $568.35
2020: $877.36
2021: $472.52

I’m happy with how last year turned out; I set a goal that I wanted spending to be “around where it was back in 2019” and managed to come in a little lower. Since I’m still working on sipdowns for 2018 tea, I want to continue to stay in that “no more than $500 for the year” range.

2022: $422.79

Login or sign up to post a message.

Sil select said

Past few years have shaped up as follows:
2022: 343.84 USD 432.54 CAD
2020: 387.45 USD; 683.35 CAD
2019: 288.89 USD; 120.33 CAD *mat leave
2018: 179.08 USD; 34.89 CAD *pregnant
2017: 317.27 USD 268.58 CAD
2016: 170.69 USD 170.21 CAD
2015: 1075.10 USD 206.21 CAD *paris trip
2014: 1320.42 USD 320.18 CAD

Because my cupboard is heavily under control now – my spending is generally under control as well. I’m back at work now, though I suspect with covid continuation my spending this year will be similar to last year or less. We’ll see though.

January
None

February
52 Teas – 189.09 (less variatea’s)
Tea Runners – 62.44 CAD
Tealyra – 70.26 CAD

March
Camellia Sinesis – 68.85 CAD

April
171.53 USD

May
David’s tea – 12.71 CAD

June
None

July
None

August
None

September
None

October
None

November
Teavivre – 100.34 CAD
Tea Runners – 174.11 CAD
Capital Teas – 269.20

Total: 947.00 CAD; 171.53 USD

Login or sign up to post a message.

Random said

Think I’ll jump in for 2022 as well.
2021 Total – $329.44 USD

I’m not really looking to put a limit on my spending so much as just making sure I am aware of what I am spending.

January
None

February
Davids Tea – $51.10

March/April
None

May – Restocks
Davids Tea – $65.15
Tea Runners – $44.61

June – More restocks
Whispering Pines – $35.00
Tea Runners – $44.82

July
None

August
Harney and Sons – $38.25

September
Davids Tea – $67.36
Harney and Sons – $118.00 (gc)

October/Nov
None

December
Adagio – $44.75
Adagio – $45.75 (gc)
Davids Tea – $25.00 (gc)
Davids Tea – $10.07

Due to a couple significant tea shop specific gift cards this year, I’m breaking things up a little different. Tea purchased with a tea shop specific gift card won’t count in the total for the year. I’ll make a second total for this separately. As I mentioned initially, my goal is to track how much I am spending, not how much I am getting.

2022 Running Total – $443.88
2022 Gift Card Total – $190.75

Login or sign up to post a message.

Login or sign up to leave a comment.