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We all work really hard for our money, and we don’t enjoy that terrible feeling we get when we realize we’ve wasted it on something that’s not worth the money.
Here’s a list of things to avoid, along with a few things humans should stop buying so we can at least act as if we care about what happens to the planet, too.
Win/win, right?
1. It’s an investment.
Most saltwater fish if they aren’t willing to put in the effort, and certain species that just can’t be kept in captivity even with the effort.
90% of saltwater fish you see in the store except for most clowns, some tangs, some seahorses, and I think maybe cardinal fish are all wild caught.
More than any other pet, when you take home a saltwater fish you have purchased a piece of the environment and you should treat it with every bit of respect it deserves.
2. An actual plague.
Other people.
Oldest known codes of law in human history pertain to slave owning. Slavery has been a plague of civilization since the start. The “days since last moment of no-slavery” and “days any human civilization was around” are the same number.
3. What are people thinking?
Pangolins.
They are the most trafficked animal in the world.
Take my word for it—-the pangolins would really appreciate not being seen as weird medicine.
4. Do the right thing.
Not a sexy or flashy response, but no one should be buying a boiler, furnace, or water heater below 90% efficiency.
The ~80% efficiency equipment is ancient technology and you are throwing your money away while also spewing more greenhouse gasses!
5. Everyone would be grateful.
GLITTER. Sparkles, glitter and sequins on everything, especially kids items.
You think it’s hard to get that shit out of your house after craft time?
It’s MICROPLASTIC, and it’s going into our waterways and oceans. Yet the toy stores and clothing stores are adding more sequins and glitter every day. Makes me furious. Just stop buying it!
6. It will break in a few years, though.
Equally not-sexy, but I’ve been getting into Heat Pump appliances lately.
I got a heat pump Hot Water tank a year or two ago. It was a bit more expensive up-front, but is massively more efficient than a conventional water heater.
Next up is my dryer. My current dryer is about 15 years old. Still works reasonably well, but has literally one setting “make it hot.” No fluff cycle, or low heat, or anything remotely fancy. It’s makes hot air; the end.
I’ll probably be replacing it in a year or two and a ventless heat pump dryer is currently on my radar. Not only is the device itself significantly more efficient, but it will let me plug up the vent hole in my wall (hence: ventless) and thus make the general heating and cooling of my house more efficient.
7. Just donate directly.
Merchandise with the pink “for the cure” bows.
8. It just makes you cringe.
Tiny plastic garbage
I see TikToks of people unboxing like these mini-plastic toys (?) of name brand items.
And they will have 100s of them all individually wrapped in multiple layers of packaging just to have tiny replicas of a bottle of windex or lay’s potato chips.
9. It’s all a bunch of b.s.
Detox teas or anything that claims to help rid you of “toxins” in your body. If you can’t do that shit on your own already then you need a kidney or liver transplant, not a tea that a fit mom is trying to sell you.
Also those ads that claim you have an outrageous amount of ‘toxic poop’ inside you. 5, 10, 20+ pounds. It’s absolute poetry that people who are full of shit try to say it’s YOU that’s full of shit.
10. The poor sharks.
Shark fin soup. The fishers only want the fin and throw the shark out to the sea after cutting it since the other body parts have no monetary value, letting the shark to die.
Not to mention I believe shark meat in general is very high in mercury, meaning eating a lot of it is very bad for you.
The real reason though is that the fins are worth so much that taking up room with actual whole sharks just isn’t cost effective.
11. Thankfully Lularoe seems to have died(ish).
Anything involved in an MLM scam. I’m looking at you Young Living Essential Oils.
Good friend of mine got into and she makes these “deep thought” posts on fb about flowers and coffee and whatever else and then ends with the scent she’s currently inhaling.
I wanted to be supportive so I ordered some stuff snd my credit card company refused to process the transaction.
12. It’s almost ironic. Don’t you think?
Online IQ test.
If there was a way to fail an IQ test, paying for one online would be it.
13. We’ve really got to stop.
The older I (44m) get, the more disgusting I find single use plastics and polymers.
I take issue with Japan in particular. It’s a country obsessed with packaging. It seems like every other thing is wrapped in multiple layers of plastic.
I once received a gift of strawberries and – I kid you not – it was encased in plastic. Each fruit was individually wrapped in clear plastic film and rested in a moulded plastic tray which in turn came in a rectangle hard plastic case.
14. I mean, honestly.
Animals they can’t take care of for the rest of their lives.
And if you realize you made a mistake, rehome them! Don’t set them free. Most will wreak havoc on the native ecosystem.
Just look at the Everglades.
15. Haven’t we learned anything?
Puppy mill puppies!
Small pets/birds/reptiles from pet stores too. They come from the equivalent of a puppy mill.
16. Is this still a thing?
Herbalife.
Does anyone else notice that those Herbalife smoothie places keep popping up all over but they are so shady about it.
They look like average mom and pop smoothie places with no Herbalife branding on the outside or any where inside but then they start making your smoothie and bam they pull out the Herbalife powder!
17. This is the actual answer.
So much. Stop buying so much.
You don’t need all that effing stuff.
18. It’s just trash. And that’s where it will end up.
Cheap children’s party favors. We aren’t talking the colorful pencils and paper pads that actually have some use. I’m talking about the non descript plastic forms with popular media stickers and other garbage.
The amount of trash plastic available for this niche is staggering- especially given that most of those toys hold a child’s attention for 2 hours. Also- happy meal toys. Great for a collector, because most of them get thrown out 6 months after being found behind the couch.
Legos are highly resealable/giftable and tradeable. Hot wheels last forever. Most toys have at least a possible second life. But party favor crap- is just crap.
19. Back to the bar.
any kind of shower gel or face wash that has those plastic microbeads in them.
The beads are small enough to get through most filtration systems and are ruinous to marine life
20. But don’t replace it with something else.
Crack. People definitely should stop buying crack.
21. I’ve never thought about this before.
I can’t understand the people that buy holiday decor every single year. Are people buying fake trees and tossing them every year and needing a new one? Same with ornaments and what not.
Obviously people move out of their parents or they need to replace ornaments if they’re broken or something but the amount in stores does not add up to me.
Why so much new stuff every year?
22. Just leave them be.
Generally speaking, wild-caught animals as “pets.”
I had to go to the pet store today to buy some supplies, and was utterly horrified.
Cages of wild-caught lizards, snakes, turtles, frogs and salamanders, many piled on top of each other and writhing around trying to escape. They all looked sick and stressed, and were being sold at “impulse buy” prices.
Unfortunately, none of the species I saw have a “protected” status in this state, and all are considered “fair game.” But that doesn’t make this right.
I can guarantee that 90% of customers in that shop have no idea how to take care of such creatures, and the remaining 10% who do know better than to support their ongoing mass collection.
Unless you work for a professional conservation facility or animal rehabilitation center, please leave wild animals in the wild.
23. It’s poor quality.
Fast fashion.
Sustainable/thrifting isn’t for everyone but there’s no need to buy $300+ dollars off of Shein. It’s garbage and ends up in the dump
24. Adopt don’t shop.
Animals that are so inbred to meet a certain ‘breed standard’ that they are a walking vet bill from birth.
Brachycephalic dog breeds such as French Bulldogs being an example.
25. We hates it.
Microtransactions, especially in sports games.
Cosmetics in a free to play game? I don’t have a problem with that, gotta make money somehow and it doesn’t affect gameplay.
Blatant gambling and pay to win functionality in games like NBA 2K and Madden? Those can eff right off.
MUT (Madden Ultimate Team) is notorious for this. You can either a) make Madden your full time job and spend almost every second of your day grinding for the good players to win or b) buy the coins and buy the good players to win. GTA V shark cards are essentially the same thing.
26. If it seems unnatural, it probably is.
I had a coworker tell me about a teacup kitten the other day. I didn’t even know that existed. She said “they have so many health problems though.. I don’t know why”.
I explained this whole thing to her and she said “eh I don’t care. If it’s something I want I’m gonna get it.” I’m glad she solidified my bad feelings that I got around her
27. I know, I know.
K-Cups
If you have a Keurig, use the reusable K-Cup.
28. If we could stop the old ones from breaking.
A new phone every year.
29. It somehow is.
Any home exercise machine or equipment that requires a subscription to use. You paid 2 grand for a treadmill and then a recurring monthly fee to use it.
How is this business model working?
Literally any hardware that requires a subscription is a plague. Avoid it entirely, it will offer no value with a few exceptions like CCTV that offer decent cloud storage. Even then, I wouldn’t put video of my home into something like that.
30. It’s not as complicated as they want you to think.
If you are a normal, working-class person, you do not need to pay for tax services. Governments and financial institutions (like your bank) provide free software you can use to file your taxes.
Remember that it is a tax return that you are getting, not some bonus reward, so if you don’t have to, it does not make sense to pay to get your own money back
31. How did they become a thing in the first place?
Caskets.
Especially those sealed tight ones… Our dead need to decompose, and they will, but the casket can just explode.
When I’m dead I want to be buried in a blanket and tossed in a hole. Let nature worry about me.
32. It’s really not that hard.
Plastic bottles.
Just buy a water filter and fill up the same bottle
Edit: for people saying just drink tap water, I agree 100%. I’m just saying there are a lot of people who only buy bottled water, drink it, throw it and buy another one. Ridiculously unnecessary. Those plastics are so difficult to recycle, if at all. Most just ends up in landfill anyway.
Trying to convince them to buy a water filter is good middle ground!
My FIL boasts about how eco-conscious he is but still does what I said above. Drives me mental.
33. Or a Pink Lady.
Red Delicious apples. You deserve better than that mushy garbage. Get yourself a Honeycrisp.
Fuji are eating apples. Granny smith are pie apples.
Red delicious are trash apples. Only good for the trash.
They also apparently use to be good back in the day but have been selected for beauty and shelf life and subsequently taste like shit.
Also all apples are just grafts of existing trees. So if you try and plant a honeycrisp apple seed you will just get crabapples or mutant garbage apples.
34. We cant’ stop.
Clothes. I know I don’t need any more, I have way too many as it is and yet I keep buying more and I kinda hate myself for it.
New clothes make me feel so good though.
35. Just bring your own!
Plastic bags.
My father’s village is drowning in plastic bags. They are everywhere! Sometimes they melt in the sun and I don’t even want to know what the consequences are for the environment
36. Do it today.
Please uninstall Yelp off your phone. They are nothing more than extortionists that hold small businesses hostage to bad reviews (real or fake, doesn’t matter). I can’t express how shitty Yelp is as a company. Every time you open their app, you give them support.
As a small business owner, it’s a double edge sword for us.
I could be the hero, die on this hill and take the business down with me. Or, I can continue to amass a large amount of 5 Star reviews and get a ton of business because of it. The majority of my customers are either because word of mouth referral and Yelp. I truly believe if we had bad Yelp reviews, we would have gone out of business years ago.
I’m going to have to strike a few of these things. Oops!
What would you add to this list? Tell us what and why in the comments!
