Shark Tank star Kevin O’Leary blasts ‘idiot’ workers for buying daily coffee

Canadian billionaire Kevin O'Leary has slammed “stupid” workers for “wasting” money on their daily cup of coffee.

The “Shark Tank” investor and businessman, who has an estimated net worth of $593.46 million, didn't mince words when talking about the “dumb things” people spend their money on, in a rant reminiscent of Bernard Salt and Tim Garner's infamous avocado toast comments.

“Stop buying that $5.50 coffee. You have to go to work and then you spend $15 on a sandwich. That's stupid,” O'Leary said in a video posted to Instagram.

“If you make a sandwich at home and take it away it costs 99 cents.

“When you add it up every day, it adds up to a huge amount of money. Especially people in big cities who are starting out and making $60,000 a year, they're wasting about $15,000 a year on nonsense. They need to stop doing that.”

Many people agreed with O'Leary in the comments section, saying cutting back on spending on takeaway coffee and eating out was “common sense.”

“Bringing lunch to work for decades has saved me countless thousands of dollars,” one person wrote.

“100 percent! $10 here, $7 there, another $12 here, another $9 there, the total adds up fast,” commented another. “Before you know it, you're spending $357 a month and a whopping $4,284 a year.”

But others questioned Mr O'Leary's “unrealistic” advice, saying he was ignorant about the real cost of groceries if he thought he could make a sandwich at home for under a dollar.

Australians spend an average of $2,436 on lunch each year, with those working in an office spending $6 ($41) more per week than those working from home, according to McCrindle's Cost of Work survey, but recent data shows many are cutting back on discretionary purchases.

Hybrid working arrangements and the rising cost of living are leading more Australians to forgo takeaway coffee before work, June transaction data from digital payments platform Square revealed.

In Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane, purchases at restaurants between 7am and 11am on weekdays were below pre-pandemic levels.

At the same time, business volumes are increasing during weekend brunch hours, signaling a shift in people's spending priorities.

Square's analysis found that weekday breakfast sales in Melbourne are down more than 5 per cent, but up 4 per cent on Saturdays and Sundays.

The story is similar, though to a lesser extent, in Sydney, where weekday breakfast volumes are down 2.4%, but weekend brunch volumes are up 1.6%.

Colin Burnie, head of business development at Square Australia, told the Guardian that professional venues were trying to adjust by opening later in the evening to take advantage of the after-work economy, closing for an extra day or selling food and other products to boost revenue.

With more people working from home and bringing their own lunches to work, “demand for weekday breakfast appears to be declining,” Barney said.

“It's often said that making breakfast at home or eating cereal at the office is one of the easiest ways to save money,” he noted.

O'Leary's coffee spray is a new Australian Right to Disconnect The law came into effect on August 26th.

The law gives staff working for companies employing 15 or more employees the right to refuse contact outside of working hours and to refuse to monitor, view or respond to communications from their employer or third parties.

The new rules will apply within reason and require you to consider several factors before sending your boss to voicemail, but the end result is that you can now officially ignore any phone call, text, or email that is deemed “unreasonable” contact.

“Why… would someone propose such a stupid idea?” O'Leary asked, and during an appearance on Fox News' “Outnumbered,” he declared that he would “fire” any employees who went into “silence mode” with him.

“What if there's an event at the office and it's closed? Or what if there's an emergency room somewhere and they have to contact them at 2 a.m. because it's going to impact their work?” he said.

“This stuff drives me crazy. It's so stupid. Who could come up with something so stupid?”