Latest news with #wastefulspending
Yahoo
a day ago
- Lifestyle
- Yahoo
5 Tips To Stop Yourself From Buying Into Wasteful Trends Like Labubu Dolls
The buzz around Labubu is real — the gremlin-elf toys with a mysterious (or somewhat threatening) grin have taken the world by storm, with consumers going so far as to break out into fights, per The Guardian, to score particularly coveted examples. Learn More: Find Out: However, it's not just the latest blind box craze that exemplifies wasteful spending. Historically, other brands ranging from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles to Beanie Babies, and from Urban Decay to Hydro Flask, have taken center stage – and the impulsive buying behavior isn't limited to specific labels, either. So if you'd rather pivot away from buying yet another overpriced Labubu doll that will inevitably end up either collecting dust or withering away somewhere in a toy chest or banker's box, these tips could prove valuable. Be More Critical of Consumerism, and Embrace Minimalism Two big asks here, but as Becoming Minimalist's Joshua Becker pointed out, they are fundamental cornerstones in cutting back on wasteful spending. First, with average consumer debt coming in at $105,000 per household in 2025 — at least according to The Motley Fool, a figure which dwarfs Becker's suggested stat of just $8,000 — it may be a matter of common sense to curtail one's additional debt layout for a mass-manufactured trinket, adopting a critical mindset toward overt consumerist behavior. Second, embracing minimalism doesn't have to be an entirely monk-like experience, though it might require a bit of reprogramming. Tune out ads by watching less television, 'compare down' to appreciate what you have (and observe the attitudes of those who are happier with less material clutter), and factor in the time and economic cost of disposing of impulse-purchased items when the luster has worn off. Rethinking Impulse Buying: Three Rules From an Expert Self-styled 'bibliosopher' Stephan Joppich tackled the concept of impulse buying on three different fronts, concisely detailing how to best avoid dropping too much cash on wasteful purchases. Interestingly, he termed his approach 'non-minimalist,' providing contrast with previous takes. Find the need behind impulses: By asking yourself 'How good will it be to have this thing in my life?' Joppich proposes that reckless buys might be avoided, as deeper motivations surface and are properly examined before clicking the buy button. Make space for impulse buys: While superficially counter-intuitive, it may be unrealistic to ask a veteran buyer of Labubu dolls (or one's own favored consumer product) to quit cold turkey. Limiting your impulsive purchases to a time frame, category — or better yet, a budget — could slowly throttle back the behavior. Retroactive intentionality can extend that new-Labubu feeling: Sometimes, so-called wasteful spending can be a vicious cycle. The thrill is gone all too soon, and a new consumer conquest calls out to your credit card. Joppich suggests turning regret into relish by practicing 'retroactive intentionality' — or learning to extract value from whatever you already have. Final Thought 'Next time you make an impulsive purchase, after you've acknowledged the impulsivity, ask yourself: Now that I have this thing I might otherwise not have bought, how can I extract maximal value from it?' says Joppich. More From GOBankingRates 5 Old Navy Items Retirees Need To Buy Ahead of Fall I'm a Retired Boomer: 6 Bills I Canceled This Year That Were a Waste of Money This article originally appeared on 5 Tips To Stop Yourself From Buying Into Wasteful Trends Like Labubu Dolls Solve the daily Crossword
Yahoo
08-07-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
10 Things People Waste the Most Money on in 2025
Wasteful spending is a habit for many Americans, especially among younger generations. According to a recent Motley Fool analysis, Millennials and Gen Z have the highest rates of wasteful spending, and it's costing them serious money. Read More: Be Aware: Here are the top 10 areas where they spend the most unnecessary money. Grabbing lunch on your break, meeting friends for dinner or ordering Uber Eats during a busy week might seem harmless in the moment, but it can get pretty expensive over time — especially since you're often expected to tip 15% to 20% when eating out. Even if you just spend $20 a day on restaurant meals, it could still add up. For example, if you eat out three times a week, that's $240 extra a month and almost $3,000 a year. You don't have to go cold turkey and stop eating out altogether, but try cutting back to just one restaurant meal a week and meal prep the rest. Find Out: With influencers on Instagram and TikTok constantly bombarding you with new trendy 'must-haves,' it can be really hard to resist buying things you didn't plan for. Amazon's free two-day shipping doesn't help either. One minute you're just scrolling, the next you've got three boxes at your door (and you have no clue why you bought any of it). These spur-of-the-moment purchases can blow up your budget, take up space and often end up collecting dust. To break this wasteful habit, try waiting 24 to 48 hours before buying anything you didn't plan for. If you still want it later, go for it. If you realize you don't actually need it, then congrats. You just saved yourself money. Pre-cut fruit, bottled smoothies, frozen meals, and grab-and-go snacks save time, but you're paying for packaging, not just food. These items often cost much more per serving than if you were to make them at home. So, unless you absolutely need to, avoid buying convenience foods and drinks. It makes much more financial sense to just buy the ingredients and prep your own snacks in batches. It's also healthier. More than a quarter of Americans admit to throwing away food on a regular basis, whether that's leftovers that they forgot to eat or fresh produce that spoils before they're even cooked. A simple way to avoid this is by planning meals around what you already have in the fridge and using a first-in, first-out approach so you remember to cook and eat the older foods before they go bad. Streaming subscriptions are one of the easiest things to overspend on because it's easy to forget them. If you barely use these streaming services, you're basically throwing money away. So, make sure to audit your subscriptions every month. Cancel the ones you haven't opened in weeks and rotate based on what you're actually watching. According to the survey, here are the other five things Americans tend to waste their hard-earned money on: Buying new clothes even though they already have similar items (23%) Spending money on lottery tickets (23%) Ordering food delivery (22%) Leaving appliances or utilities running (21%) Buying coffee instead of making it at home (20%) More From GOBankingRates 7 Luxury SUVs That Will Become Affordable in 2025 This article originally appeared on 10 Things People Waste the Most Money on in 2025
Fox News
25-06-2025
- Business
- Fox News
Teen nicknamed 'Big Balls' leaves Trump's cost-cutting team after exposing wasteful spending
A White House official confirmed to Fox News that a teenaged employee with the nickname "Big Balls" has resigned from his post at the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), adding to the recent shakeup within the department. The now-former DOGE employee – whose real name is Edward Coristine – told Fox News Anchor Jesse Watters last month that his nickname originally came from his LinkedIn social media account. "I use it as my LinkedIn username," Coristine told Watters, prompting laughter from the host as well as DOGE leader Elon Musk and the rest of his team at the interview. "Well, people on LinkedIn take themselves super seriously, and they're pretty averse to risk, and I was like, 'Well, I want to be neither of those things.' So, I just, I set it and honestly, I didn't think anybody would notice," the DOGE employee continued, mocking the career-focused social media platform. A 19-year-old college student and software developer, Coristine was criticized by Democrats and liberal media pundits during DOGE's first few weeks of investigating wasteful and fraudulent spending in the federal government. Many were upset about the young, irreverently named government employee being given access to government records to pursue DOGE's work. During his interview with Watters, Coristine said he had been looking through U.S. Treasury Department payment computers and finding a multitude of outgoing payments from the federal government that lacked details about who they were going to and why. "So, one of our initiatives is to root out fraud and waste, and to do that we started looking at the payment computers. And, as mentioned earlier, there's no accounting of what payments actually go to in the payment computer," Coristine said. "You look at a specific line item — $20 million. You're like, 'OK, what is this money going to?' And for the majority of payment systems, it's like, 'Well, we don't really know.'" He continued, saying the system that distributes taxpayer money "literally has no checks and no accountability" to the American taxpayer, adding that it is a "huge vector for fraud, waste, and abuse." Coristine's resignation comes less than a month after Musk departed from the agency. Musk's departure was followed by the departure of several other staffers and special government employees at DOGE, which now includes Coristine. Musk has been heading DOGE since President Donald Trump took office in January. The department was tasked with cutting $2 trillion from the federal government's budget through efforts to slash spending, government programs and federal workforce. While DOGE was tasked with cutting $2 trillion from the budget, its efforts have led to roughly $180 billion in savings due to asset sales, contract cancellations, fraud payment cuts and other ways to eliminate costs, according to an update on DOGE's website. The savings translate to about $1,118 in savings per taxpayer, the website notes.
The Independent
13-06-2025
- Business
- The Independent
Findlay: Tories will save £650m – and use the cash to cut taxes for Scots
Scottish Conservative leader Russell Findlay will promise voters his party can bring down taxes by stopping 'wasteful spending' and making £650 million of savings. He will insist there is a need to 'urgently streamline bloated government' at Holyrood. The party leader will outline plans for a Taxpayer Savings Act, promising this will save £650 million by 'cutting red tape, getting a grip on spending, and harnessing business expertise'. Mr Findlay will also tell the Scottish Conservative Party conference in Edinburgh about plans to establish a Scottish Agency of Value and Efficiency. This would be run by business leaders, he will tell the conference, who would then be 'tasked with wielding a claymore on waste'. The Scottish Tory leader has already accused First Minister John Swinney and his Government of wasting money 'on an industrial scale'. In his keynote speech to the conference – his first since becoming leader north of the border last year – he will say that 'putting a stop to wasteful spending is top of our agenda'. Mr Findlay will tell party supporters: 'We need to urgently streamline bloated government. 'Improving services means treating people's money with respect.' He will say £650 million that could be saved as a result of a Taxpayer Savings Act would be used 'to bring down people's taxes', adding: 'By doing that, we would start to restore trust.' Mr Findlay will also promise the Tories would 'shut down quangos that don't deliver value' and 'tackle the SNP's culture of cronyism through strict new rules on public appointments'. He will pledge a future Conservative government at Holyrood would seek to reduce both the number of ministers and special advisers. He is then expected to say: 'We would introduce a Scottish Agency of Value and Efficiency, run by business leaders. People in the real world who know how to get things done. 'They would be tasked with wielding a claymore on waste.' Another proposal will be for an Accountability and Transparency Index, with Mr Findlay saying this would 'shine a light on every organisation that receives public money, and would begin to dismantle the SNP's toxic era of secrecy'. Scottish public finance minister Ivan McKee said: 'The Scottish Government is making real progress in reforming the public sector: the number of Scottish public bodies under Government control has shrunk from 199 in 2007 to 131. 'However, we know there is more to do, which is why I will soon unveil our public service reform strategy. 'Unfortunately, this work has been made more difficult by the UK Government's decision to pursue Brexit, which in 2023 alone led to an estimated cut in public revenues of about £2.3 billion. 'Most Scottish taxpayers already pay less income tax than they would elsewhere in the UK.'
Daily Mail
10-06-2025
- Politics
- Daily Mail
EXCLUSIVE Outrage as Trump's Education Department forced to pay $7 million per MONTH to 'idle employees'
The Department of Education is reportedly spending $7 million a month on employees who are not even working according to a shocking new report. The department has spent over $21 million on idle employees over the last three months per calculations made by the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) Local 252. Part of the employees collecting checks include those that accepted the Trump 'buyout' at the start of his second term. The Trump administration offered federal workers a chance to voluntarily vacate their government posts while remaining on the payroll for months, with many opting to get checks through September 2025. Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, chair of the Subcommittee on Delivering on Government Efficiency (DOGE) a subcommittee of the House Committee on Oversight and Accountability told the Daily Mail in that 'President Trump gave federal workers an incredible offer—8 months of pay to walk away. Hardly anyone gets that kind of deal.' 'But now, thanks to the courts, $7 million a month is being wasted on idle employees at the Department of Education. If the courts had respected the will of the American people when they voted for DOGE, we wouldn't be in this mess,' Greene continued. 'President Trump ran on cutting waste, fraud, and abuse from the federal government, which included defunding the Department of Education, and that's exactly what Americans voted for.' 'The people want DOGE cuts. The courts are forcing wasteful spending,' Greene concluded. Senator Joni Ernst (R-Iowa), who heads up DOGE government slashing efforts in the Senate told the Daily Mail in a statement that federal employees wasting taxpayer funds in such a manner is a 'complete slap in the face to the hardworking Americans footing the bill.' 'From attending Mardi Gras to engaging in union activities and even appealing creepy personal misconduct violations, federal employees have long abused paid administration leave to escape work,' Ernst stated. 'For years, I have exposed how do-nothing bureaucrats cost taxpayers millions every year. It is a complete slap in the face to the hardworking Americans footing the bill.' 'I am working with the Trump administration to undo the years of backwards bureaucratic policy in Washington to ensure that anyone collecting a taxpayer-funded paycheck is spending their day serving the American people,' Ernst added. Senator Ernst has worked to expose the billion dollar cost of do-nothing bureaucrats in her $2 trillion roadmap for the Trump administration to eliminate waste, fraud and abuse. Trump's education secretary Linda McMahon pushed during her confirmation hearing earlier this year for her Department to be completely shut down, a move in line with promises made by the president on the campaign trail last year. At her February confirmation hearing, McMahon noted that 'in conjunction with [Trump's] fervor to shut down the bureaucracy of the Department of Education, he has also stated that he will work with Congress to make that happen.' Back in February, the Trump administration also moved to decrease the size of the federal government by announcing a voluntary deferred resignation program for federal employees. An estimated 75,000 federal employees across agencies took the differed resignation offer under which they were promised to be paid and provided with benefits until September 30th, 2025 or until they accepted a new job. In March, the Department of Education cut nearly half of its workforce, a total of nearly 1,300 employees. After the reduction in DOE staffing levels was announced, Democrats on the House Committee on Oversight Government Reform and House Committee on Education and Workforce sent a letter to McMahon expressing their disapproval with the move. 'The approximately 1,300 employees who you wish to leave the Department are dedicated public servants who have devoted their careers to serving their country and ensuring that all students are able to learn and to thrive, regardless of race, gender, disability, or zip code,' the Democrats noted. 'Discarding thousands of civil servants without regard for their job performance is an attack on those hardworking and passionate individuals as well as our government and the critical services it provides,' they continued.
