I finished STALKER: SOC a few days ago and there was something that really bothered me. I remember starting the game selling anything that could be sold because I wanted to get better weapons than the crappy starting pistol and sawed off shottie. However, I was finding new weapons quite easily and same across a lot of the unique weapons too. No problem, I'll just use money for armour. However, as I was doing missions and checking out stashes as I passed them, replacing worn armour wasn't a problem either. I was keeping all the ammo, artifacts, medkits, food, grenades etc I found and after finishing the game, I only bought the following things

2 bottles of vodka and a medkit (right at the start of the game)
A fort 12 pistol
A Chaser 13 shotgun
A 500 Ruble bribe to the military guarding the bridge
Snitches 3 bits of info

The 2 weapons were a waste as I found uniques shortly after and the vodka wasn't needed as I had a few antirad meds but held on to them cos I though they would be rare. Even with my wasted money, my total expenditure didn't even exceed 30,000 RU yet I had over 300,000 RU when I finished the game. All that time wasted lugging garbage around to trade for money I never used............

Just curious, in your first playthough of SOC, what did you use your money for?