Millionaire Kevin O’Leary slams ‘idiot' workers wasting money on coffee: ‘$15,000 a year on stupid stuff’

Shark Tank millionaire Kevin O'Leary shared his advice for people wanting to save money. (Source: Getty)

A businessman and multi-millionaire has told people wanting to save money they should stop wasting money on coffee and “pissing away” cash on “stupid stuff”. Shark Tank star Kevin O’Leary shared the divisive comments online, leaving a bitter taste in some people’s mouths.

O’Leary - with an estimated net worth of US$400 million - is known as someone who doesn’t mince his words. This week, he blasted Australia’s new right to disconnect laws as “stupid” and insisted he would fire workers who went “silent mode” on him. Now, the Canadian is sharing his views on workers buying coffee and eating out.

“Stop buying coffee for $5.50. You got to work and spend $15 on a sandwich, what are you an idiot? It costs you 99 cents to make a sandwich at home and bring it with you,” he said.

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“You start to add that up everyday, it’s a ton of money. Most people, particularly working in metropolitan cities that are just starting out in their job making their first $60,000, piss away about $15,000 a year on stupid stuff. And that’s what they should stop doing.”

It might remind you of the old advice for Millennials to give up smashed avocado toast brunches if they want to buy a house, put forward by The Australian columnist Bernard Salt a couple of years ago.

“I have seen young people order smashed avocado with crumbled feta on five-grain toasted bread at $22 a pop and more,” he wrote.

“I can afford to eat this for lunch because I am middle-aged and have raised my family. But how can young people afford to eat like this? Shouldn't they be economising by eating at home?

“How often are they eating out? Twenty-two dollars several times a week could go towards a deposit on a house.”

STOP wasting money on $5.50 coffee and $15 sandwiches. Pack a sandwich, skip the fancy latte, and watch your savings pile up. Do you agree? pic.twitter.com/zyJVerW2CJ

— Kevin O'Leary aka Mr. Wonderful (@kevinolearytv) January 26, 2024

‘Out of touch’: People divided over comments

O’Leary shared a video of the advice online and some people thought it was “great advice” and “common sense” to cut back on discretionary things like coffee and eating out.

“100 per cent! $10 here, $7 there, another $12 here & another $9 there sure adds up quickly. Before you know it you’re spending $357 every month totalling a whopping $4,284 per year,” one said.

“Bringing my lunch to work for decades saved me countless thousands of dollars,” another claimed.

McCrindle research found Aussie workers were spending an average of $2,436 on lunches, with those working from the office spending more at $41 per week compared to remote workers at $35 per week.

Others weren’t too happy with O'Leary's words of wisdom, with some calling it “out of touch” and others saying it still would take years to save up enough for a home.

“99 cents for a sandwich at home. This guy doesn’t know how much his groceries cost,” one said.

“No one got wealthy by saving an extra $5/day. They do it by making a lot of money,” another said.

How much would you save if you gave up coffee?

The price of an average coffee in Australia has been slowly increasing in recent years as expenses rise.

But if you were to purchase a $5 coffee and $15 sandwich each and every workday, then you’d be spending $100 a week and $7,300 each year.

But most Aussies don’t eat and drink out every day and might only do it once or twice week, or maybe once every fortnight. By this metric, Aussies would be spending $1,040, $2,080 or $520 on the luxury.

The average Aussie home is $802,357, according to CoreLogic, so you’d need to save up around $160,500 for a 20 per cent deposit. That’s nearly 22 years’ worth of coffee and sandwiches for those workers buying up each day.

People should 'just budget' for the ‘little luxury’

Mortgage broker Cherisse Morgan said the idea that you need to stop buying coffee if you want to buy a home was generally out of touch unless you were going overboard.

“If you’re doing that every day, a couple of times a day and spending $30, $40 or $50 a day, then obviously it does add up over the course of a week and over the course of a year,” she told Yahoo Finance.

“If you’re just buying a coffee every day, that’s nothing multiplied for a small little luxury. You’ve still got to allow yourself to have those things and just budget it. It’s all about budgeting and setting that in there so you can allow yourself to have that.”

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