I've been using Aseprite for spriting lately. I used Pyxel Edit before that, and it's still a solid way to do sprites. GIMP totally works too if that's the tool you're used to, but it's not an intuitive program. Buying Photoshop to make pixel sprites would be like buying bottled water to water your lawn. Yeah, it'll work but it's certainly not the best way to go about it. Get something cheaper that's built for it! When I started I used programs that don't exist anymore so I don't think that will be useful to you. There's way better stuff now anyway. I used Graphics Gale for a bit, that one is alright. Some people swear by it, but I found it annoying.
Mostly what I'm talking about is stuff for pixel sprites, but if you're looking into doing something non-pixel like a vector or hand drawn then you'll want to look into different programs. Clip Studio Paint has fantastic drawing tools and can do short animation clips if you get the right version (you only need short for sprites). There's stuff that can animate the objects after they've been drawn like Spline, Spriter, and Dragon Bones. Those aren't necessarily any easier than traditional animation, just different. I know there are other fully featured animation programs but from what I've seen those are very expensive. But really, to do animation the only thing you really need is patience and a program that supports layers.
If you haven't got a lot of drawing skills I recommend doing pixel sprites. That's the default and there would be less of a learning curve to make something nice.
