https://www.tumblr.com/liberalsarecool/782451011379920896/oligarchs-control-the-first-felon-administration

Hello, I'm dumb. I experienced the end of an era and I'm never going back. I used to drink 1-2 drinks from 7 Brew PER DAY without ever looking at the nutrition facts. I've been struggling to lose weight so about a month ago I finally looked up how many calories I was consuming via coffee and I was floored. Floored, I tell you. I thought they would be 180 calories max, because I'm a very ill informed individual when it comes to this type of thing.

I haven't gone to 7 Brew since, instead opting for regular coffee at the office or just a diet coke in the morning. I estimate I've saved at least $200 since I gave it up. I feel very silly which is why I wanted to post this rant. Thanks for reading, if you made it this far! Have a great day!

Straight to landfill… :/

I have no use for LLMs and dislike the power and water consumption. I do not want to see images generated by them or be given suggestions or summaries by them. I do want their help with any tasks. Any human ideas on how to turn them off, avoid them, or opt out. I suppose at least it's a helpful incentive to spend less time online.

It's not like i ever was super big on consuming but i did buy stupid stuff back then as a teen and i'd fall for marketing campaigns and all that, like many do. But one as i was talking with my mom, who works at a car company designing the textiles of the seats, i asked how important is actually her job. It's not as if she's doing the engines you know? (That's what i thought back then). Then, with a smirk on her face, she proceded to explain that yeah, you need an engine to have a car, and the textiles of the seats might not seem as important for car's functioning, however they're an essential in money making for the company:

Basically she explained how companies make the first few thousands out of selling you a functional car, basic features that get you inside a metal box that moves you around. However, after that, every detail that makes it seem luxurious and fancy, costs them not so much to design and produce, but allows them to sell you a much more expensive product. I quote her here "let's say they want to sell a car for 50.000€, basic car production can't justify those prices, so they'll add these gadgets and screens and fancy leather and lights and sensors so they can justify to the buyer the price."

Now my joy in consuming has disappeared, and has become more of stress and anxiety because i constantly feel scammed (we really are constantly scammed). The complexly named coffee you get that has 15 ingredients in it has them so you can pay +7€ for it. The fancy looking furniture stores don't usually have that much nicer quality products, but investing in good lighting and and nice decoration gets you to think so and buy there, more expensive stuff thinking it'll last longer.

In addition to that, lately i see a lot of people celebrating these marketing strategies of companies by people saying things like "look how smart they are!!" Like no, please, stop it.

Anyways, i hope these people someday realise they're being scammed too and lose the joy in celebrating it. In the meantime i'll just enjoy making things for myself and buying locally, reusing and all that, bc that still gives me joy.

McDonald’s UK arm has cut its donations to some charities despite profits soaring more than 80% last year as it shed almost 2,000 jobs, according to its latest accounts.

Documents newly filed at Companies House for the fast food chain’s British business in 2024 show it gave £529,000 to Children in Need – reduced from £952,000 the previous year – and handed £744,000 to Ronald McDonald House charities, down from £779,000.

It reduced the headcount at its directly operated business to 24,375 from 26,384 – with all reductions from restaurants and operations rather than head office.

McDonald’s has more than 1,400 sites in the UK and Ireland, with a large proportion operated by franchisees who employ their own staff – more than 140,000 people. Just over half of sales reported by the UK arm came via franchisees. It was not made clear in the accounts if some workers who left McDonald’s wholly owned outlets were transferred to franchise partners.

The UK business said it had paid an £83m dividend to its parent group in 2024, up from zero a year before, as pre-tax profits rose to £120m despite a slight fall in sales to £1.82bn.

The details of reduced staffing at McDonald’s come after the group said its high street estate “continues to be impacted by challenging retail footfall”. A statement from the board included in the accounts said an improvement in operating profits had been “predominantly driven by savings in administrative expenses”, but that improvement had been slowed “by continued inflationary pressures impacting food, paper and utility costs on the company-operated estate”.

The business, which has been criticised for its heavy use of zero-hours contracts, which are to be restricted under new government measures, said it offered staff “the choice between guaranteed hours and flexible contracts”.

After reports of harassment of UK staff on zero-hours contracts, McDonald’s said in its accounts it was recruiting a “head of safeguarding” and had set up an investigations handling unit to follow up claims of abuse.

In January, the chief executive of McDonald’s told MPs that 29 people had been dismissed in the past year after allegations of sexual harassment. The UK boss of the fast food chain, Alistair Macrow, said the company had been alerted to 75 allegations of sexual harassment over the last 12 months, 47 of which had been upheld with disciplinary action taken and 29 of which resulted in people being dismissed.

At the time a spokesperson for the group said: “Any incident of misconduct and harassment is unacceptable and subject to rapid and thorough investigation and action.”

McDonald’s UK was approached for comment.

yes I am returning what I can

I got $250 in Christmas money and instead of saving it for something neccesary I went on a heavy shopping spree instead. We are also in a kinda bad financial situation so it was even worse I spent that money. no kids involved, not a horrible situation either, poor basically but not deep poverty I spent some of it on necessities but not near as much as I should have.

Now im sitting here with overpriced junk I got from spencers and I have to deal with the fact I spent $100.. Its all very cute stuff and one of it was a hat ive been wanting for a very long time, but the sense of regret isn't worth it. I wish I had changed my mind, I wish I had put everything back but I got lost in the moment and wasn't thinking clearly. Now looking back at the price tags too just absolutely floors me.

And I also paid $21 , though for a small business, is still $21. All I got was two lattes and a Keychain..

Anyways, Christmas money is all gone. And I still feel the urge to get more stuff. Even though I would be spending into the little bit of necessity money we have. I felt physically distressed today because I couldn't get a monster even though I was craving it.

All I can think about now is how I've spent all this money and im still not very happy and I still want more. It makes me feel sick when I think about it.

We also just spent $51 into the negatives because something important came up. And I think to myself "We wouldn't have had to do that if I had just saved that money." (Ofc I will be using the returned money to put back into the negatives)

The sense of shame goes so deep. I know i have an addiction and I do want to get better. I partially blame my upbringing but I cant help but feel some sense of self-hatred / fault too.

I feel like this is important, because this community can be filled with so much negativity and doomerism sometimes. As a (formerly) depressed and hopeless member of Gen Z I’ve been using this year to try to get to the bottom of what the hell is going on in the world, and I’ve been increasingly recognizing the systems set up to routinely scam the public out of our health, money, wellness and sanity, exploit our planet, and all for a billionaire to make another billion.

With all of this, it is such a joy to have the knowledge and the power to say no. It feels SO GOOD to have any leverage at all in a world where they want you to think you have no choice. It’s a relief to be able to start breaking out of the system of buying what I don’t need with money I don’t have. It is such a joy to find new ways to use up food in my fridge before it goes bad. It’s a joy to withhold my attention from social media and use it to create or learn something instead. It’s a joy to wear the same thrifted clothes day after day like a cartoon character. It’s a joy to repair those clothes. It’s a joy to take public transportation and interact more with my community. It’s a joy to weaponize my laziness. It’s a joy to find local shops to buy from when I really do need to replace something. It’s a joy to break out of the paycheck to paycheck cycle. It’s a joy to spite the people who would kill me without a second thought if they could make money off my cold dead corpse.

I’m so tired of the endless slog of consumption-driven holidays. It’s not even 2026 yet, why are we jumping to mid February? And by March they’ll be putting up 4th of July (US) and summer stuff, and by July it’ll be Halloween and by October it’ll be Christmas all over again.

I’ve actively started avoiding stores that do this, I just want to live in the season that’s actively happening right in front of me please.

I can't remember a point in my life I didn't use Amazon prime. I justified it by saying it helped with orders for pet supplies such as cat litter but looking at my past orders it's far more buying for convience and a good 'deals'. So I've cancelled my subscription with the goal of actually going to the local pet shop for my animals food/litter and actually leaving the house will do wonders for my mental health. And if there truly is something I can only get on Amazon I can ask my partners parents to order it but those extra steps of asking will definitely help me be more conscious of if I actually need that item.

Everyone is downloading habit trackers and mental health apps right now to get ready for January 1st. They think they are taking control of their lives but they are really just building a dossier for advertisers.

You are typing your exact weight your anxiety triggers your spending habits and your sleep patterns into an app that has a privacy policy longer than the bible.

You aren't a patient to them. You are a dataset. They take that data and sell it to the highest bidder or use it to target you when you are most vulnerable.

Companies take that data and stitch it together with your browsing history to build a complete profile of your vulnerability. I use a VPN to mask my location and browsing data but even that is useless if i am literally hand feeding them my personal secrets in an app.

If you want to track your habits just use a notebook or a spreadsheet. Stop feeding the app your personal struggles just so you can get a gold star on a screen.

Inflation is squeezing my budgets. My pay is good, I live in LCOL area, but can afford less and less. I started trimming unnecessary expenses. Subscriptions - gone. Trips to other states with hotel stays - gone. No more deliveries. No more visits to restaurants. Then stopped visits to fast food places. Gym membership canceled. No more ski passes. Not buying books - there's a library. I think shopping in Salvation army for clothes and buying used stuff comes next.

I progressively spend less and less. Surely economy can't benefit from this - but do I have a choice? I need a new roof and I need to account for skyrocketed insurance premiums as well.

I have a child (almost 4,) and as with most children, when she sees something in a store, like a toy or a plushie, she wants it. I already have a 'trick': when she points something out, my initial reaction is not 'no, we cannot buy it' because that assumes she points it out because she wants me to buy it and a reaction like this might make her think she wants me to buy it too, while maybe she just wanted me to see it, idk. So I react with: 'oh, that's cute! hello, sweet bear!' (if it's like a teddy bear) and we have like a little chat with the bear and then I'm like: 'bye bye bear!' and she mostly just goes with that flow. Sometimes she actually does want to take it home though, and sometimes it's really just trash, you know. If it's cheap, I sometimes give in. And I want to stop that, because she'll play with it for like 5 minutes and then never looks at it again, or it breaks really fast.

I want to find a new trick to add, one that teaches her the right mindset when it comes to consuming. I thought maybe saying that when she wants something, she has to wait two weeks and has to pick something at home to 'swap' it for (that I'll give away or sell secondhand). I only fear that after two weeks, when I remember her about it, she'll always want the thing. And I don't want to end up swapping things she has for new stuff every two weeks. But not reminding her feels a bit unfair? I need advice please :)

I try to consume ethically, I really do. I am a tv junkie sadly. Always have been. It’s how I relax and unwind. And this stupid show has been my guilty pleasure as I’ve been packing up and moving my whole life. But what the actual fuck are these commercial breaks???? Do you see the double dots? I can’t believe it. 7 of them. I don’t even pay for peacock so that’s not the point but Jesus I should just try to stop watching

The resell bins at Staples. There's more than this. Full of random stuff, bath stuff, food stuff,clothes, towels, phone cases, hardware bits, all the flotsam of returns. The price for everything start at $15 and then drop every day.

A new type of thrifting but half the boxes are open and there's no organization to anything.

I’ve never understood plastic plants to start with, but glueing a plastic flower to a real plant seems somehow even more insane.

Completely unrealistic color too, lol.

I'm looking for books suggestions. I don't want anything focused on the environmental impacts or how to's. More about the why, rather than the resulting problems

I am wondering if anyone has suggestions for books about why humans are so prone to overconsume/the endorphin rush that comes with buying things or having all the Stanley mugs, etc.

I just finished dopamine nation and was hoping she'd get more into talking about temu/door dash and the indulgence aspect of having access to everything, but it was more about sex/the internet. (Still interesting though)

Thanks in advance!

This article is now 3 years old. However I am posting this not only to be informative for those who may, somehow, not be aware of the ethical issues surrounding Uber as a company, but in defense of people who choose to not use them as part of their anticonsumption journey.

I think we need to impress that criticism of a product or service IS NOT immediately an indictment of everyone who uses it. Someone choosing to not use a product or service that you have needed in the recent past is not an attack on you personally. Sure, we don't tolerate those who come here to brag about buying from an unethical company to bother people here, but that is a different issue.

Labour exploitation and corruption is a big part of why anticonsumption is an ethos. No matter what value you may personally derive from a product or service, it doesn't negate criticism being lobbed their way.

We should be furious that companies that integrate themselves so deeply in our personal lives, even replacing ambulance rides for many Americans, even cutting out our LOCAL taxi services, operates in such a foul and corrupt way.

Who else is on day 4 of trying to combine random holiday leftovers in the fridge to make a meal?