July 2025

Work Life Spending

Eating a hole in your wallet

Food habits top survey of wasteful spending

A mericans are eating website, which asked more than 2,000 people to name their wasteful spending habits. Turns out “dollar tacos” are aptly named, as the topped rank love of spendthrifts is “frequently eating out,” which 38% of respondents copped to. But eating out was merely the tip of the iceberg lettuce—third on the list was “frequently buying convenience foods and beverages.” Seems, for many, places like Burger King are home of the whopper to themselves into debt. That was the conclusion from a recent survey conducted by the Motley Fool financial By Jason Walsh

your bank account. Continuing the eating-habits theme, the fourth most common practice among wastrels was “frequently discarding leftovers or expired food.” (What, no one got the recipe for Grandma’s Hodge Podge Casserole?) And at No. 8, “ordering from food-delivery apps.” Wealth blogger Ramit Sethi told the website it’s no surprise that hunger pangs hold such a sway over careless consumers. “It’s about convenience, impulsivity, reward and more,” he said. Spending on food is also hard to track, making its effect on one’s bank account less noticeable. Still, Sethi stressed, food

“is the biggest category where there’s money to free up and redirect into something that matters more.” Other wasteful habits on the list include impulse buying online at No. 2; paying for unused streaming services at No. 5; and purchasing new clothes despite already owning something similar at No. 6. Lottery tickets and tobacco products were 7 and 11, respectively. In all, respondents cited 36 different wasteful spending habits of which at least 3% of them were guilty, which makes No. 15—paying high interest due to debt—hardly much of a surprise.

Wasteful Spending Triggers What makes people spend wastefully? According to the Motley Fool survey, different age groups were driven to waste their money by different triggers. Interestingly, online advertising is highly effective on all demographics. TRIGGERS GEN Z MILLENNIAL GEN X BABY BOOMERS TOTAL Online ads 62% 61% 59% 49% 58% Sales/discounts 53% 60% 54% 63% 57% Subscription service 31% 32% 21% 16% 25% Emotional shopping 41% 28% 13% 4% 21% Peer influence 24% 23% 9% 6% 15%

July 2025

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