A budget can help you plan for expenses and provide insight into your spending habits, making it easier for you to achieve financial goals, such as building an emergency fund, paying down debt or saving for a down payment on a home.
First, make a list of your income and expenses. Determine how much money you have to spend each month and compare it with how much you pay for various bills and items during that same period. In your expenses, be sure to account for paying back any debts. Like many people, you may not know where all your money goes after covering obvious living expenses such as rent or a mortgage, car payments and utilities. It is important to put your income, expenses and debt down in writing to help yourself track your spending behaviour.
Everyone needs a purpose for their personal budget, and if you have unsecured debt, such as loans or outstanding credit card balances, your first priority should be paying it down. If you’re aware of your spending habits, have set your money-saving goals and know how long it will take to pay down any unsecured debts, your short- and long-term financial goals will feel more achievable. There are a lot of online budgeting tools out there to help make this process easier, including Credit Canada’s all-in-one, free Budget Planner + Expense Tracker. This tool will let you know when you are over or under budget, and how your spending compares to general spending guidelines so you can easily make adjustments.
3. Remember to set money aside each month
Whether you’re saving for retirement, an emergency fund or a vacation, putting aside money every month helps you tackle expenses without sacrificing your debt payment obligations.
Every time you get paid, take a small percentage and put that money into a savings account, like a tax-free savings account (TFSA) or high-interest savings account. Aim to set aside between 5% and 10% of your monthly income to put towards savings. However, this number can vary based on individual financial situations. Your bank or financial institution can help you set up automatic withdrawals to take money out of your chequing account and put it into a savings account every time you get paid.
4. Review your credit card and bank statements
Looking to reduce your expenses in 2024? Be sure to review your credit card and bank statements each month. By knowing where your money is going, you’ll be able to recognize where you can cut back.
Auto-payments are a helpful setup for many to stay on top of their bills. However, you may end up paying for something you don’t use anymore, like a streaming service or gym membership. Be sure to evaluate your auto-payments and cancel any services you no longer need. For those services that you’re keeping, give some thought to how much of an increase to expect in 2024. By reducing or decreasing your expenses, you’ll be able to boost your savings and/or pay off debt sooner, which means you have a better plan for your financial goals.
5. Explore debt solutions with Credit Canada
Even if you pay your credit card balances on time or don’t carry a lot of debt to begin with, there are steps you might not have thought about that can help reduce your debt load faster in 2024. For example, if you’re expecting a raise or you received a year-end bonus, consider using that extra income to pay any outstanding balances. Start with those that have the highest interest rates and work your way down. Then, think about consolidating any remaining unsecured debts, which may help you swap varying interest rates on multiple loans, credit lines or cards for a potentially lower rate on a single loan.
We independently select these products—if you buy from one of our links, we may earn a commission. All prices were accurate at the time of publishing.
If anything can bring about decision fatigue, it’s the holidays. This is why I recommend choosing a “signature wine” for the season that you use for neighborhood parties, last-minute gifts, New Year’s Eve mingling, and drinking out of a reindeer mug at 1 a.m. on Christmas Eve while wrapping all the gifts you procrastinated for weeks. This year my go-to has been Cleto Chiarli Brut de Noir Rosé, a fun, punchy pink bubbly from Italy’s Emilia-Romagna region.
What’s So Great About Cleto Chiarli Brut de Noir Rosé?
When people shop for wine, they often feel under informed, intimidated, and pressed for time (51% of Americans open a bottle of wine within three days of purchasing it). This leads people to grab something that looks familiar, like Champagne or Prosecco from a famous brand. So lesser-known regions and styles of wine that don’t have that immediate shelf appeal are often amazing values.
The wine-growing regions in Emilia-Romagna that make Lambrusco are one such area — especially because even people who do know about Lambrusco often have a negative association with it. (This region became known for sweet, one-note sparkling reds in the early 1980s.) But these regions and their signature grape varieties (there are a few different Lambrusco varieties) make a whole range of delicious sparkling wines, from bone-dry to sweet and from dark purple-red to rosé or even white.
Cleto Chiarli is one of the oldest and most established Lambrusco producers in Modena, the commune in Emilia-Romagna famous for its balsamic vinegar, and its Brut de Noir Rosé is full of zingy fruit flavors like tart cherry, raspberry, and watermelon. The texture is almost a bit creamy, and the finish is clean and mouthwatering.
Like Prosecco, it’s made using the charmat method, which tends to bring out bright, fresh, crowd-pleasing flavors. It’s made with 85% Lambrusco Grasparossa, the boldest of the Lambrusco varieties, so just a short amount of skin contact is enough to give the wine a bright pink color and lots of flavor, while the balance is Pinot Noir that brings a little acidity and aromatic intrigue to the party — and at under $20, you can afford to stock up! (Maybe just don’t mention the Lambrusco bit to older relatives unless you want that Riunite jingle stuck in your head until New Year’s.)
What’s the Best Way to Drink Cleto Chiarli’s Brut de Noir Rosé?
While this sparkling rosé is great on its own, like other wines from this part of Italy, it shines with food as well. (Emilia-Romagna is known for cured meats, Parmigiano Reggiano, and rich pasta dishes.) It’s got a little more body and tang than a lot of other sparkling rosés I’ve tried, so it’s great as an aperitif or stand-alone glass of bubbly; it would also be amazing with a charcuterie board or any of those delicious cheese-heavy appetizers we tend to make around this time of year (think: Aunt Kim’s port wine cheese ball or sweet and savory baked Brie).
BRUSSELS — In early August, Bulgarian officials spotted something they weren’t sure was legal.
Barrels of Russian oil were arriving in the country priced above a $60 limit allies had adopted to sap Moscow of critical revenue for its war in Ukraine.
Bulgaria was in an unusual position among its partners. It had been given an exemption to European Union sanctions barring most imports of Russian oil, ostensibly to ensure the country wouldn’t face acute energy shortages even though the EU’s broader policy aimed to crush Russia’s main cash artery following its full-scale assault on Kyiv.
But could Bulgaria still import Russian oil if it was above the price cap? Customs officials in Sofia wanted to know for sure, so they reached out to EU officials asking for “clarification,” according to a private email exchange dated August 4 and seen by POLITICO.
The answer: Let it in.
“Crude oil imported based on these derogations does not need to be at or below $60 per barrel,” came the EU’s reply.
Green light in hand, Bulgaria proceeded to import Russian crude exclusively above the price cap from August until October, according to confidential customs data seen by POLITICO. The shipments were worth an estimated €640 million, according to calculations by the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA) think tank. The cash went to Russian energy firms, which pay the taxes helping fill the Kremlin’s war chest.
The sanctions gap is emblematic of the broader flaws that have corroded the EU’s attempt to stymie the billions Russia earns from energy exports. Roughly a year after adopting the initial penalties, legal loopholes have combined with poor enforcement and a mushrooming parallel trade to keep Moscow’s fossil fuel revenues flowing, and feeding almost half of Vladimir Putin’s war-hungry budget.
Russian oil is likely winding up as fuel in Europe via new routes. Enforcement across the Continent is scattered and reliant on inconsistent data. And a whole new black market has sprung up to insure, ship and hide Russia’s fuel as it travels the world.
The sanctions, in other words, have come up short. Russia’s oil export earnings have dropped just 14 percent since the restrictions were imposed. And in October, Russia’s fossil fuel revenues hit an 18-month high.
It also appears the EU has run out of steam to do much about it. The latest EU sanctions package, set to be finalized at a leaders’ summit this week, is mostly focused on administrative tweaks that experts say will do little to curb widespread evasion. Absent are any efforts to drop the level of the oil price cap further.
“The whole sanction mechanism works only if you keep adopting on a regular basis decisions that close loopholes and impose new sanctions,” Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba told POLITICO. “Every actor in the world has the capacity to adapt.”
The Bulgarian oversight
The reason behind Bulgaria’s price cap loophole is arguably a clerical oversight.
When the EU wrote the G7 nations’ price cap into law, officials expressly forbade EU shipping firms and insurance companies from trafficking Russian oil above the $60 threshold to non-EU countries. The aim was to squeeze the Kremlin’s revenues while keeping global oil flows steady.
But officials never thought to impose similar rules on shipments to EU countries, partly because Brussels had banned Russian seaborne crude oil imports that same day.
Except for Bulgaria.
The backdoor has meant millions in extra revenue for Moscow. According to CREA, Russian oil export earnings from Bulgarian sales between August to October — a third of which came from sales above the price cap — raised around €430 million in direct taxes for the Kremlin. All Russian-origin shipments delivered during this time — priced between $69 and $89 per barrel — relied on Western help, including from Greek ship operators and British and Norwegian insurers.
And it was all technically legal.
The situation “reveals that Bulgaria has aided Russia to exploit this glaring loophole to maximize the Kremlin’s budget revenues from these oil sales without any apparent benefits for Bulgarian consumers,” said Martin Vladimirov, a senior analyst at the Sofia-based Center for the Study of Democracy (CSD) think tank, which has studied the issue.
More broadly, Bulgaria’s exemption from the Russian oil ban has been lining the pockets of both Russia’s largest private oil firm, Lukoil, which dominates Bulgaria’s fuel production with its sprawling Black Sea refinery, and the Kremlin itself.
More broadly, Lukoil’s crude oil imports to Bulgaria raked in over €2 billion in export revenues for Russia since the sanctions went into effect in February, according to a new CREA and CSD analysis. And the Kremlin has made €1 billion in direct taxes from the sales, POLITICO revealed last month.
There is now mounting pressure to mend these money-making fissures.
Bulgaria has vowed to cut short its opt-out from the Russian oil ban by six months, provisionally moving the deadline up to March.
And Kiril Petkov, the former prime minister who leads one of two parties controlling Bulgaria’s current governing coalition, told POLITICO the price cap workaround should “absolutely” be closed too. He vowed to pressure the government and ask the European Commission, the EU’s executive in Brussels, to do so, while insisting that Bulgaria is accelerating its efforts to shake off its Russian energy ties, unlike nearby countries like Slovakia.
Bulgaria proceeded to import Russian crude exclusively above the price cap from August until October, according to confidential customs data seen by POLITICO | Robert Ghement/EPA-EFE
“We do not like the $60 loophole that was created by the EU Commission derogation,” Petkov said. “We don’t want Putin to receive any euro that he doesn’t have to.”
The Bulgarian case “highlights one of the many loopholes that make sanctions less effective at lowering Russian export earnings used to finance the Kremlin’s war chest,” according to Isaac Levi, who leads CREA’s Russia-Europe team.
Bulgaria’s finance ministry and Lukoil didn’t respond to requests for comment.
‘Not all rainbows and unicorns’
A major challenge is poor monitoring and enforcement.
In October, a report commissioned by the European Parliament found EU sanctions enforcement is “scattered” across over 160 local authorities, while capitals have “dissimilar implementation systems” that include “wide discrepancies” in penalties for violations.
That assumes you can find a breach to begin with. Even those involved in shipping oil get only limited access to information on trades, according to Viktor Katona, chief crude analyst at the Kpler market intelligence firm.
Insurers, for example, rely on a single document from firms buying and selling oil cargoes pledging the sale is not above $60 per barrel, which amounts to a “declaration of faith,” he said.
The EU’s upcoming 12th package of sanctions is trying to crack down on this problem with new rules forcing traders to actually itemize specific costs. The goal is to prevent buyers from purchasing Russian oil above the limit and then hiding the extra costs as insurance or transport fees. But few in the industry have high hopes the added paperwork will stop the workaround.
Several EU countries with large shipping industries are also reluctant to tighten the price cap, making things even trickier. During the latest round of sanctions, Cyprus, Malta and Greece once again raised concerns over calls to strengthen the restrictions, according to two EU diplomats, who like others in the story were granted anonymity to speak freely.
A diplomat from a major maritime EU nation said stricter sanctions would only push Russia to use more non-Western operators to ship oil. Instead, the diplomat argued, the focus should be on broadening the countries adhering to the price cap. Currently, the G7, the EU and Australia are on board.
“It would be stupid to push for price caps, and then other shipping registers do not abide by it because they are not EU members,” the diplomat said, adding that “all that will be achieved is the total destruction of the shipping industry.”
Meanwhile, EU countries are still allowing Russian oil cargoes to cross their waters on their way elsewhere.
CREA research on behalf of POLITICO found that 822 ships transporting Moscow’s crude transferred their cargo to another ship in EU territorial waters — the majority in Greek, but also Maltese, Spanish, Romanian and Italian waters — since the oil sanctions kicked off last December. The volumes were equivalent to 400,000 barrels per day.
A Commission spokesperson defended the EU sanctions, noting Russia has been forced to spend “billions of dollars” to adapt to the new reality, including on new tankers, and its oil extraction and export infrastructure as Western demand shriveled.
That has caused “serious and ongoing economic and policy consequences,” the Commission spokesperson said. And CREA did find that the oil price limit has stripped the Kremlin of €34 billion in export revenues, equivalent to roughly two months of earnings this year.
Others point out that teething issues are normal — it’s the first time the EU has deployed sanctions at such a scale.
“Let’s be fair … all of the sanctions measures are unprecedented, so there’s an element of learning by doing it, as well,” said one of the EU diplomats. “We don’t live in a perfect world: it’s not all rainbows and unicorns.”
Deep dark waters
Instead of accepting the tough rules designed to drain its finances, Moscow has sparked a sanctions circumvention arms race, looking for loopholes as part of what one senior Ukrainian official has described as a “cockroach strategy.”
To ensure it can sell its fossil fuels at whatever price it can get, in violation of the oil price cap and other restrictions, Russia has presided over the creation of a parallel shipping market that, through a mixture of law-breaking and law-bending, is lining the pockets of its state energy firms and oligarchs.
A “shadow fleet” of aging tankers has emerged, mysteriously managed through a network of companies that obscure their ownership, frequently trading their cargo of fuel with other ships at sea. To help them escape the jurisdiction of Western sanctions while meeting basic maritime requirements, a cottage industry of murky insurance firms has sprung up in countries like India.
“When they were introduced, the sanctions seemed to be having an effect for a very short time. But now the state of play is most of the sanctions that have beeninplace have not really worked — or they’ve been very limited in terms of what they’ve been able to do,” said Byron McKinney, a director at trade and commodity firm S&P.
As Russian trades move increasingly away from Western operators and traders, that makes tracking them even more difficult, said Katona, the Kpler oil analyst.
“Every single” Russian type of oil now trades above the price cap, he said, while CREA estimates only 48 percent of Russian oil cargoes were carried on tankers owned or insured in G7 and EU countries in October.
“It’s like coming to a party and telling everyone not to drink alcohol, but not coming to the party yourself,” Katona said. “How do you make sure that no one’s drinking?”
At the same time, countries like India have increased their imports of cheap Russian crude by 134 percent, CREA found, processing it and then selling it everywhere. That means European consumers could unknowingly be filling up their cars with fuel produced from Russian crude, bankrolling Moscow’s armed forces at the same time.
The waning West?
The EU is well aware of the problem.
“Unless you have big players like India and China as part of it, effectiveness sooner or later fades away,” conceded one senior Commission official.
“It shows us the limits of what the tools of Western players can achieve at a global level,” the official added, noting it’s “a lesson in how much the [global] power balance has changed compared to 10 or 20 years ago.”
Expectations are low, however, that India or China — or Turkey, another critical shipping country — will come around to the price cap any time soon.
And back in Brussels, political leaders seem to be throwing up their hands. When EU leaders gather for their summit on Thursday, the sanctions package they’re expected to endorse will do little to stanch the flow of Russia’s energy cash, omitting any measures targeting Russian oil or lowering the price cap.
Until such steps are taken, Russia’s finances won’t truly wither, said Alexandra Prokopenko, an economist and nonresident scholar at the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center.
“The oil price is now the only real channel of transmission for external risk,” she said. “Russia will feel extremely bad if the average price on its oil is $40 or $50 per barrel — that would be painful for its budget and for Putin’s ability to finance expenditures.”
Getting to that point, however, was never going to be easy.
“The Russian economy was quite a big animal,” Prokopenko said, “that makes it hard to shoot it with a single shot.”
Victor Jack and Giovanna Coi reported from Brussels. Gabriel Gavin reported from Yerevan.
Claudia Chiappa contributed reporting from Brussels.
Gradually add 3 cups low-sodium vegetable or chicken broth, and 1 teaspoon kosher salt. Stir to combine. Bring to a simmer. Add 20 ounces refrigerated or frozen cheese tortellini. It will be mostly, but not fully, submerged in the sauce. Cook, stirring frequently to prevent the tortellini from sticking, until tender and warmed through, 5 to 6 minutes for refrigerated tortellini or 8 to 11 minutes for frozen tortellini.
Originally from South Carolina with family roots in East Texas, Renae has been based in Brooklyn for 13 years. A U.S. Navy vet, Renae used her Montgomery GI Bill to fund her culinary & pastry education at the Institute of Culinary Education in New York. Graduating in 2015, she has since worked as a private chef, freelanced in test kitchens developing in recipes, testing cookbooks for prominent authors, and catering. More recently, she made her debut in the pop-up world serving Southern comfort food under the name “Dear Henry”. A color and glitter enthusiast, her hobbies include budget traveling the world so that she can eat more, dancing, crocheting, engaging in various tomfoolery, baking, and frying the hell out of some chicken cutlets.
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán regularly pushes the EU to the cliff edge, but diplomats are panicking that his hostility to Ukraine is now about to finally kick the bloc over the precipice.
A brewing political crisis is set to boil over at a summit in mid-December when EU leaders are due to make a historic decision on bringing Ukraine into the 27-nation club and seal a key budget deal to throw a €50 billion lifeline to Kyiv’s flailing war economy. The meeting is supposed to signal to the U.S. that, despite the political distraction over the war in the Middle East, the EU is fully committed to Ukraine.
Those hopes look likely to be knocked off course by Orbán, a strongman who cultivates close ties with Russian dictator Vladimir Putin and who is widely seen as having undermined democracy and rule of law at home. He is demanding the whole political and financial process should be put on ice until leaders agree to a wholesale review of EU support for Kyiv.
That gives EU leaders a massive headache. Although Hungary only represents 2 percent of the EU population, Orbán can hold the bloc hostage as it is supposed to act unanimously on big strategic decisions — and they hardly come bigger than initiating accession talks with Ukraine.
It’s far from the first time Orbán is throwing a spanner in the works of the EU’s sausage making machine. Indeed, he has been the most vocal opponent of sanctions against Russia ever since Putin’s annexation of Crimea in 2014. But this time is different, EU diplomats and officials said.
“We are heading toward a major crisis,” one EU official said, who was granted anonymity to discuss confidential deliberations. One senior EU diplomat warned this could become “one of the most difficult European Councils.”
Orbán is playing the long game, said Péter Krekó, director of the Budapest-based Political Capital Institute. “Orbán has been waiting for Europe to realize that it’s not possible to win the war in Ukraine and that Kyiv has to make concessions. (…) Now, he feels his time is coming because Ukraine fatigue is going up in public opinion in many EU countries.”
In theory, there is a nuclear option on the table — one that would cut Hungary out of EU political decisions — but countries feel that emergency cord is toxic because of the precedent it would deliver on EU disunity and fragmentation. For now, the European leaders seem to be taking to their usual approach of fawning courtship of the EU’s bad boy to try to coax out a compromise.
European Council President Charles Michel, whose job it is to forge deals between the 27 leaders, is leading the softly-softly pursuit of a compromise. He travelled to Budapest earlier this week for an intense two hour discussion with Orbán. While the meeting did not reach an immediate break-through, it was useful to understand Orbán’s concerns, another EU official said.
It’s all about the money
Some EU diplomats interpret Orbán’s threats as a strategy to raise pressure on the European Commission, which is holding back €13 billion in EU funds for Hungary over concerns that the country is falling foul of the EU’s standards on rule of law.
Others however said it’s a mistake not to look beyond the immediate transactional tactics. Orbán has long been questioning the EU’s Ukraine strategy, but was largely ignored or portrayed as a puppet for Russian President Vladimir Putin.
“We were watching it, amazed, but maybe we didn’t take enough time to actually listen,” a second senior EU diplomat acknowledged.
Some EU diplomats interpret Orbán’s threats as a strategy to raise pressure on the European Commission | Peter Kohalmi/AFP via Getty Images
Increasingly, the leader of the Fidesz party has been isolated in Brussels. Previous peacemakers such as former German Chancellor Angela Merkel or other Orbán-whisperers from the so-called Visegrád Four — Slovakia, Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic — are no longer there. The expected comeback of Donald Tusk for Poland, a pro-EU and anti-Russian leader, will only heighten Orbán’s status as the lonely, defiant hold-out.
“There is no one left to talk sense into Orbán,” a third EU official said. “He is now undermining the EU from within.”
Guns on the table
As frustration grows, the EU is weighing how to deal with the Hungarian threats.
In theory, Brussels could come out with the big guns and use the EU’s so-called Article 7 procedure against Hungary, used when a country is considered at risk of breaching the bloc’s core values. The procedure is sometimes called the EU’s “nuclear option” as it provides for the most serious political sanction the bloc can impose on a member country — the suspension of the right to vote on EU decisions.
Because of those far-reaching consequences, there is reticence to roll out this option against Hungary. When EU leaders brought in “diplomatic sanctions” against Austria in 2000, the day after the party of Austrian far-right leader Jörg Haider entered the coalition, it backfired. Many Austrians were angry at EU interference and anti-EU sentiment soared. Sanctions were lifted later that year.
There is now a widespread feeling in Brussels that Article 7 could create a similar backlash in Budapest, fueling populism and in the longer term potentially even trigger a snowball effect leading to an unintended Hungarian exit of the bloc.
Given those fears, diplomats are doubling down on ways to work around a Hungarian veto.
One option is to split the €50 billion from 2024 to 2027 for Ukraine into smaller amounts on an annual basis, three officials said. But critics warn this option would fall short in the goal of offering greater predictability and certainty to Ukraine’s struggling public finances. It would also send a bad political signal: if the EU can’t make a long term commitment to Ukraine, then how can it ask the U.S. to do the same?
The same dilemma goes for the EU’s planned military aid. EU countries could use bilateral deals rather than EU structures such as the European Peace Facility to send military aid to Ukraine — effectively freezing out Budapest. Yet this would mean that the EU as such plays no role in providing weapons, an admission of impotence that is hard to swallow and hurts EU unity toward Kyiv.
It’s “obvious” that concern is growing about EU political support for Ukraine, Lithuania’s Foreign Minister Gabrielius Landsbergis told POLITICO. “At first it’s Hungary, now, more countries are doubtful whether there’s a path.”
Asked about Hungary’s objections, Ruslan Stefanchuk, the chairman of Ukraine’s parliament, told POLITICO: “Ukraine is going to the European Union and Ukraine has followed all the recommendations (…) I want to make sure that all member states respect the progress that Ukraine has demonstrated.”
The long game
That leaves one other default option, and it’s an EU classic: kicking the can down the road and pushing key decisions on Ukraine policy to early next year. Apart from Hungary, Berlin is also struggling with the consequences of Germany’s top court wiping out €60 billion from a climate fund — thus creating a huge hole in its budget.
Hungarian PM Viktor Orbán, center, during a summit in Brussels | Nicolas Maeterlinck/Belga via AFP/Getty Images
Such a delay would also lead to stories about fractured EU unity, said another EU diplomat. But “in the real world it wouldn’t be a problem because the Ukraine budget is fine until March 2024.”
But for others, buying time is tricky. Europe is heading to the polls in June next year, which makes sensitive decision-making harder. “Getting closer to the elections will not make things easier,” the second EU official said, while stressing that fast decisions are key for Ukraine. “For Zelenskyy, this is existential to keep up morale on the battlefield.”
Both, like another official quoted in this story, were granted anonymity to speak freely.
Increasingly, Brussels is also worried about Orbán’s long game.
There is a constant stream of attacks coming from Budapest against Brussels, on issues ranging from democratic deficit to culture wars over the EU’s migration policy. The latest example is an aggressive euroskeptic advertising campaign featuring posters targeting European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen herself. The posters show von der Leyen next to Alexander Soros, the son of George Soros, chair of the Open Society Foundations, with the line: “Let’s not dance to the tune they whistle!”
“Nobody feels comfortable given what’s going on in Hungary,” Budget Commissioner Johannes Hahn told reporters on Thursday. “It’s very difficult to digest given the campaign that he’s leading against the EU and against the president. When he’s asking his people many things, he’s not asking if the Union is so much worse than USSR why is he not leaving?”
But Orbán seems more eager to hijack the EU from within rather than jump ship, as the U.K. did. Increasingly, he also feels the wind is blowing his way after the recent election results in Slovakia and the Netherlands, said Krekó, where the winners are on the same page as him when it comes to Ukraine, migration or gender issues.
Hungary’s prime minister was quick to congratulate the winner of the Dutch election, the vehemently anti-EU Geert Wilders, saying that “the winds of change are here.”
“Orbán plays the long game,” the third EU official said. “With Wilders, one or two more far-right leaders in Europe and a potential return of Trump he could soon be less isolated than we all think.”
Gregorio Sorgi, Nicolas Camut, Stuart Lau and Jakob Hanke Vela contributed reporting.
CORRECTION: This story has been amended to correct a quote on Ukraine’s budget.
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Barbara Moens, Nicholas Vinocur and Jacopo Barigazzi
BERLIN — Germans gave the world schadenfreude for a reason. And southern Europe couldn’t be more pleased.
For countries that spent years on the receiving end of Europe’s German-inspired fiscal Inquisition, there’s no sweeter sight than to see Germany splayed on the high altar of Teutonic parsimony.
The irony is that Germany put itself there on purpose and has no clue how it will find redemption.
A jaw-dropping constitutional court ruling earlier this month effectively rendered the core of the German government’s legislative agenda null and void left the country in a collective shock. In order to circumvent Germany’s self-imposed deficit strictures, which give governments little room to spend more than they collect in taxes, Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s coalition relied on a network of “special funds” outside the main budget. Scholz was convinced the government could tap the money without violating the so-called debt brake.
The court, in no uncertain terms, disagreed. The ruling raises questions about the government’s ability to access a total of €869 billion parked outside the federal budget in 29 “special funds.” The court’s move forced the government to both freeze new spending and put approval of next year’s budget on hold.
Nearly two weeks after the decision, both the magnitude of the ruling and the reality that there’s no easy way out have become increasingly clear. Though Scholz has promised to come up with a new plan “very quickly,” few see a resolution without imposing austerity.
The expectation in the Bundestag is that Scholz will find enough cuts to deal with the immediate €20 billion hole the decision created in next year’s budget, but not much more.
In the meantime, his government is on edge. While Economy Minister Robert Habeck, a Green, has been telling any microphone he can find that Germany’s economic future is hanging in the balance, Finance Minister Christian Lindner has triggered panic and confusion by announcing a series of ill-defined spending freezes.
On Thursday, the government was forced to deny a report that a special fund created to bolster Germany’s armed forces after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine would be affected by the cuts.
At a press conference with Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni late Wednesday, Scholz endured the humiliation of a reporter asking his guest whether she considered Germany to be a reliable partner given its budget crisis. A magnanimous Meloni, whose country knows a thing or two about creative accounting, gave Scholz a shot in the arm, responding that in her experience he was “very reliable.”
Greek accounting
Between the lines, the justices of Germany’s constitutional court suggested the use of the shadow funds by Scholz’s coalition amounted to a bookkeeping sleight of hand — the same sort of accounting alchemy Berlin upbraided Greece for more than a decade ago. Perhaps unwittingly, the court ruling echoed then-Chancellor Angela Merkel’s unsolicited advice to Athens during Greece’s debt crisis: “Now is the time to do the homework!”
For eurozone countries with a recent history of debt trouble — a group that alongside Greece includes the likes of Spain, Portugal and Italy — Germany’s financial pickle must feel like déjà vu all over again. From 2010 onwards, they found themselves in the unenviable position of trying to explain to Wolfgang Schäuble, Merkel’s taskmaster finance minister, how they planned to return to the path of fiscal rectitude. At Schäuble’s urging, Greece nearly ditched the euro altogether.
The expectation in the Bundestag is that Scholz will find enough cuts to deal with the immediate €20 billion hole the decision created in next year’s budget, but not much more | Odd Andersen/AFP via Getty Images
In recent months, Germany has once again assumed the role of the fiscal scold in Brussels, where officials have been negotiating a new framework for the eurozone’s rulebook on government spending, known as the Stability and Growth Pact. The pact, which dates to 1997, has been suspended since the pandemic hit, but it is set to take effect again next year. Many countries want to loosen the rules given the huge budget pressures that have followed multiple crises in recent years. Berlin is open to reform but skeptical of granting its fellow euro countries too much leeway on spending.
The latest budget mess certainly won’t help the Germans make their case.
Simple hubris
The allure of the strategy the court has now deemed illegal was that the government thought it could spend money it salted away in the special funds without violating Germany’s constitutional debt brake, which restricts the federal deficit to 0.35 percent of GDP, except in times of emergency.
Put simply, Scholz’s coalition wanted to have its cake and eat it too, creating a veneer of fiscal discipline while spending freely to finance an ambitious agenda.
Despite ample warning from legal experts that the government’s plan to repurpose a huge chunk of emergency pandemic-related funds might not withstand a court challenge, Scholz and his partners went ahead anyway. What’s more, they staked their entire political agenda on the assumption that the strategy would go off without a hitch.
Last week’s court decision is the national equivalent of a rich kid being cut off from his trust fund: Daddy’s money is still there, but junior can’t touch it and has to exchange his Porsche for an Opel.
What many in Berlin cite as the main reason for what they are calling derSchlamassel (fiasco), however, is simple hubris.
Scholz’s mild-mannered public persona belies a know-it-all approach to governing. A lawyer by training who has served for decades in the top ranks of German government, Scholz, at least in his own mind, is generally the smartest person in the room.
During coalition negotiations in 2021, Scholz sold the budget trick idea to his future partners — the conservative liberal Free Democrats (FDP) and the Greens — as a way to square the circle between the welfare agenda of his own Social Democrats (SPD), the Greens’ expensive climate agenda, and the FDP’s demands for fiscal rigor (or at least the appearance thereof).
Indeed, it’s doubtful the coalition would have ever been formed in the first place without the plan. The Greens and FDP happily went along; after all Scholz, Germany’s finance minister from 2018-2021, knew what he was doing. Or so they thought.
Finance minister or ‘fuck-up’?
Scholz’s role notwithstanding, his successor as finance minister, FDP leader Christian Lindner, shares a lot of the responsibility for the snafu, for the simple reason that it was his ministry that oversaw the strategy.
During the coalition talks in 2021, Lindner was torn between a desire to govern and the fiscal strictures long championed by his party. Scholz offered him what appeared to be an elegant way to do both.
Scholz’s role notwithstanding, his successor as finance minister, FDP leader Christian Lindner, shares a lot of the responsibility for the snafu | Sean Gallup/Getty Images
When Lindner, who had never served in an executive government role before, was poised to secure the finance ministry, some critics questioned his qualifications to lead the financial affairs of Europe’s largest economy.
Many Germans have no doubt made their determinations in recent weeks.
Green machine
In contrast to the FDP, the Greens, had no qualms about endorsing Scholz’s bookkeeping tricks.
When it comes to realizing the Greens’ environmental goals, the ends have long justified the means.
In the early 2000s, for example, party leaders sold Germans on the idea of switching off the country’s nuclear plants and transitioning to renewables. They won the argument by promising that the subsidies consumers would be forced to finance to pay for the rollout of solar and wind power wouldn’t cost more every month than a “scoop of ice cream.”
In the end, the collective annual bill for German households was €25 billion, enough to have cornered the global ice cream market many times over.
The Greens’ ice cream strategy — secure difficult-to-reverse legislative commitments and worry about the financial details later — also informed their approach to what they call the “social, ecological transformation,” a plan to make Germany’s economy carbon neutral.
That’s why the shock of the court decision has hit the Greens hardest. After more than 15 years in opposition, the Greens saw the alliance with Scholz and Lindner as the culmination of their effort to convince Germans to embrace their ecological vision for the future. Just as the hoped-for revolution was within reach, it has slipped from their grasp.
Habeck, the face of the Green transformation, has looked like a man at his wits’ end in recent days, making dire predictions about the coming economic Armageddon.
“This marks a turning point for both the German economy and the job market,” Habeck told German public television this week, predicting that it would become much more difficult for the country to maintain the level of prosperity it has enjoyed for decades.
Road to perdition
For all his candor, Habeck failed to address the elephant in the room: It’s a fake debt crisis.
There is no objective reason for Germany to be in this dilemma. A best-of-class credit rating means Berlin can borrow money on better terms than almost any country on the planet. With a budget deficit of 2.6 percent of GDP last year and a total debt load amounting to 66 percent of GDP, Germany is also well above average compared to its eurozone peers in terms of fiscal discipline — even counting the debt raised for the special funds.
The only reason Germany can’t spend the money in the special funds is not because it can’t afford to, but rather because it remains beholden to an almost religious fiscal orthodoxy that views deficit debt as the road to perdition.
That conviction prompted Germany to anchor the so-called debt brake in its constitution in 2009, thereby allowing the government to run only a minor deficit, barring a natural disaster or other emergency, such as a war.
For eurozone countries with a recent history of debt trouble — a group that alongside Greece includes the likes of Spain, Portugal and Italy — Germany’s financial pickle must feel like déjà vu all over again | Aris Messinis/AFP via Getty Images
The constitutional amendment passed by a comfortable margin with broad support from both the Christian Democrats (CDU) and the SPD, which shared power in a grand coalition led by Merkel. At the time, Germany was still recovering from the shock triggered by the 2008 collapse of investment bank Lehman Brothers and had to commit billions to shore up its banking sector.
The country’s federal government and states had begun planning a reform of fiscal rules even before the crisis. The emergency gave them additional impetus to pursue a debt brake enshrined in the constitution as a way to restore public trust.
In that respect, it worked as planned. As countries such as Greece and Spain struggled with their public finances in the years that followed, Germany’s debt brake looked prescient.
Even as southern Europe struggled, the German economy went into high gear powered by strong demand for its wares from Asia and North America, allowing the government to not just balance its budget but to run a string of surpluses, peaking in 2018 with a €58 billion windfall.
Goodbye to all that
The good times ended with the pandemic. Germany, along with the rest of the world, was forced to dig deep. It had the fiscal capacity to do so, however, as the pandemic justified lifting the debt brake in both 2020 and 2021.
The fallout from Russia’s attack on Ukraine forced the government to do so again in 2022.
By drawing from special funds, Scholz and Lindner believed they could avoid a repeat in 2023. But the court’s ruling dashed that plan.
Long before the current crisis, it had become clear to most in government — both conservative and left-leaning — that the debt brake was a hampering investment in public infrastructure (Merkel’s coalition emphasized paying down debt instead of investing the surpluses) and, by extension, Germany’s economic competitiveness. Hence the liberal use of the now-closed special fund loophole.
Trouble is, even as many politicians have woken up to the perils of the debt brake, the public remains strongly in favor of it. Nearly two-thirds of Germans continue to support the measure, according to a poll published this week by Der Spiegel.
Repealing or even reforming the brake would require Germany’s political class not just to convince them otherwise, but also to muster a super majority in parliament, which at the moment is unlikely.
Late Thursday, the finance minister signaled that the debt brake would have to fall for 2023 as well. That means the government will have to retroactively declare an emergency — likely in connection with the war in Ukraine — and then hope that the constitutional court buys it.
BERLIN — German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said Wednesday his ruling coalition would seek to present new budget plans “very quickly” to Parliament, after a constitutional court ruling last week plunged his government and its finances into disarray.
The chancellor is facing mounting criticism that he still hasn’t managed to offer a proposal on how to make up Germany’s yawning budgetary shortfall one week after the bombshell court ruling blew a €60 billion hole in the books.
It’s an accounting mess that now throws into doubt future payments for energy, the green transition of industry and microchip manufacturing.
Crucially, last week’s ruling means not only a delay to next year’s budget — which became evident on Wednesday when a parliament committee postponed a preliminary adoption of spending plans for 2024 — but may also require a supplementary “emergency” budget for this year to deal with the fallout of the court decision.
Speaking at a press conference with Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni in Berlin, Scholz evaded specifics on what happens next, arguing the consequences of the ruling must still “be examined very carefully,” which should now be done “very swiftly and promptly.”
The Social Democratic chancellor argued his three-party coalition, which also includes the Greens and the liberal Free Democratic Party (FDP), was determined to “very quickly” move forward with new budget plans, and “ensure that what we have set out to do — for good cohesion in Germany, for the further development of our welfare state, for the modernization of our economy — can actually be pursued further.”
Still, he did not say where he could make the spending cuts that appear to be needed to make this possible.
Scholz had already sounded upbeat on Tuesday that, despite budget cuts, Germany could still pay subsidies to chipmakers Intel and TSMC for building new plants in eastern Germany.
A key consequence of last week’s ruling is that it will probably limit the ability of German leaders, both at the federal and state level, to use money from a variety of special funds that have been established to circumvent the debt brake. This mechanism restricts the federal deficit to 0.35 percent of GDP, except in times of emergency.
During a budgetary committee hearing on Tuesday, several legal experts argued Scholz’s government would have to present a supplementary “emergency” budget for this year to account for more than €30 billion of expenses for energy subsidies. These subsidies had been financed via a special fund outside the regular budget — a practice that is likely to be unlawful in the light of last week’s ruling.
Controversially, such a decision would probably require the suspension of the debt brake for this year.
Questioned by POLITICO during an event in Berlin on Tuesday evening, German Finance Minister Christian Lindner, who has expressed great pride about upholding the debt brake in the past, evaded making a clear reply on potentially relaxing debt rules for this year.
Lindner also argued the 2024 budget would be “a little less moderate and a little more restrictive.”
If hunting down chic Amazon finds was a sport, the editors at Who What Wear would be champions. We’ve spent an immense amount of time shopping the popular site and have developed a helpful set of skills that allow us to dig up an array of pieces that stand out above the rest. Cyber Month this year is no exception. I set out to find a selection of luxe-looking Amazon Black Friday deals and was pleasantly surprised with what I came across.
My goal for Cyber Week was to score on-sale pieces that elevate my wardrobe without breaking the bank, so the Amazon picks I found fit the bill perfectly. I rounded up a range of trendy finds and chic basics including standout sweaters, classic outerwear, pretty dresses, sleek shoes, and so much more. Keep scrolling to check out all 31 of my top luxe-looking Amazon Black Friday sale picks.
This article is part of the Road to COP special report, presented by SQM.
LONDON — World leaders will touch down in Dubai next week for a climate change conference they’re billing yet again as the final off-ramp before catastrophe. But war, money squabbles and political headaches back home are already crowding the fate of the planet from the agenda.
The breakdown of the Earth’s climate has for decades been the most important yet somehow least urgent of global crises, shoved to one side the moment politicians face a seemingly more acute problem. Even in 2023 — almost certainly the most scorching year in recorded history, with temperatures spawning catastrophic floods, wildfires and heat waves across the globe — the climate effort faces a bewildering array of distractions, headwinds and dismal prospects.
“The plans to achieve net zero are increasingly under attack,” former U.K. Prime Minister Theresa May, who set her country’s goal of reaching climate neutrality into law, told POLITICO.
The best outcome for the climate from the 13-day meeting, which is known as COP28 and opens Nov. 30, would be an unambiguous statement from almost 200 countries on how they intend to hasten their plans to cut fossil fuels, alongside new commitments from the richest nations on the planet to assist the poorest.
But the odds against that happening are rising. Instead, the U.S. and its European allies are still struggling to cement a fragile deal with developing countries about an international climate-aid fund that had been hailed as the historic accomplishment of last year’s summit. Meanwhile, a populist backlash against the costs of green policies has governments across Europe pulling back — a reverse wave that would become an American-led tsunami if Donald Trump recaptures the White House next year.
And across the developing world, the rise of energy and food prices stoked by the pandemic and the Ukraine war has caused inflation and debt to spiral, heightening the domestic pressure on climate-minded governments to spend their money on their most acute needs first.
Even U.S. President Joe Biden, whose 2022 climate law kicked off a boom of clean-energy projects in the U.S., has endorsed fossil fuel drilling and pipeline projects under pressure to ease voter unease about rising fuel costs.
Add to all that the newest Mideast war that began with Hamas’ attack on Israel on Oct. 7.
On the upside, investment in much of the green economy is also surging. Analysts are cautiously opining that China’s emissions may have begun to decline, several years ahead of Beijing’s schedule.And the Paris-based International Energy Agency projects that global fossil fuel demand could peak this decade, with coal use plummeting and oil and gas plateauing afterward. Spurring these trends is a competition among powers such as China, the United States, India and the European Union to build out and dominate clean-energy industries.
But the fossil fuel industry is betting against a global shift to green, instead investing its profits from the energy crisis into plans for long-term expansion of its core business.
The air of gloom among many supporters of global climate action is hard to miss, as is the sense that global warming will not be the sole topic on leaders’ minds when they huddle in back rooms.
“It’s getting away from us,” Tim Benton, director of the Chatham House environment and society center, said during a markedly downbeat discussion among climate experts at the think tank’s lodgings on St James’ Square in London earlier this month. “Where is the political space to drive the ambition that we need?”
Fog of war
The most acute distraction from global climate work is the war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza. The conflagration is among many considerations the White House is weighing in Biden’s likely decision not to attend the summit, one senior administration official told POLITICO this month. Other leaders are also reconsidering their schedules, said one senior government official from a European country, who was granted anonymity to speak about the sensitive diplomacy of the conference.
The war is also likely to push its way onto the climate summit’s unofficial agenda: Leaders of big Western powers who are attending will spend at least some of their diplomatically precious face-time with Middle East leaders discussing — not climate — but the regional security situation, said two people familiar with the planning for COP28 who could not be named for similar reasons. According to a preliminary list circulated by the United Arab Emirates, Israeli President Isaac Herzog or Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will attend the talks.
A threat even exists that the conference could be canceled or relocated, should a wider regional conflict develop, Benton said.
The UAE’s COP28 presidency isn’t talking about that, at least publicly. “We look forward to hosting a safe, inclusive COP beginning at the end of November,” said a spokesperson in an emailed statement. But the strained global relations have already thrown the location of next years’ COP29 talks into doubt because Russia has blocked any EU country from hosting the conference, which is due to be held in eastern or central Europe.
The upshot is that the bubble of global cooperation that landed the Paris climate agreement in 2015 has burst. “We have a lot of more divisive narratives now,” Laurence Tubiana, the European Climate Foundation CEO who was one of the drafters of the Paris deal, said at the same meeting at Chatham House.
The Ukraine war and tensions between the U.S. and China in particular have widened the gap between developed and developing countries, Benton told POLITICO in an email.
Now, “the Hamas-Israel war potentially creates significant new fault lines between the Arab world and many Western countries that are perceived to be more pro-Israeli,” he said. “The geopolitical tensions arising from the war could create leverage that enables petrostates (many of which are Muslim) to shore up the status quo.”
Add to that the as yet unknown impact on already high fossil fuel commodity prices, said Kalee Kreider, president of the Ridgely Walsh public affairs consultancy and a former adviser to U.S. Vice President Al Gore. “Volatility doesn’t usually help raise ambition.”
The Biden administration’s decisions to approve a tranche of new fossil fuel production and export projects will undermine U.S. diplomacy at COP28, said Ed Markey, a Democratic U.S. senator from Massachusetts.
“You can’t preach temperance from a barstool, and the United States is running a long tab,” he said.
U.N. climate talks veterans have seen this program before. “No year over the past three decades has been free of political, economic or health challenges,” said former U.N. climate chief Patricia Espinosa, who now heads the consulting firm onepoint5. “We simply can’t wait for the perfect conditions to address climate change. Time is a luxury we no longer have — if we ever did.”
The EU backlash
Before the Mideast’s newest shock to the global energy system, the war in Ukraine exposed Europe’s energy dependence on Russia — and initially galvanized the EU to accelerate efforts to roll out cleaner alternatives.
But in the past year, persistent inflation has worn away that zeal. Businesses and citizens worry about anything that might add to the financial strain, and this has frayed a consensus on climate change that had held for the past four years among left, center and center right parties across much of the 27-country bloc.
In recent months, conservative members of the European Parliament have attacked several EU green proposals as excessive, framing themselves as pragmatic environmentalists ahead of Europe-wide elections next year. Reinvigorated far-right parties across the bloc are also using the green agenda to attack more mainstream parties, a trend that is spooking the center.
Germany’s government was almost brought down this year by a law that sought to ban gas boilers — with the Greens-led economy ministry retreating to a compromise. In France, President Emmanuel Macron has joined a growing chorus agitating for a “regulatory pause” on green legislation.
If Europe’s struggles emerge at COP28, the ripple effect could be global, said Simone Tagliapietra, a senior fellow at the Brussels-based Bruegel think tank.
The “EU has established itself as the global laboratory for climate neutrality,” he said. “But now it needs to deliver on the experiment, or the world (which is closely watching) will assume this just does not work. And that would be a disaster for all of us.”
U.K. retreats
The world is also watching the former EU member that stakes a claim to be the climate leader of the G7: the U.K.
London has prided itself on its green credentials ever since former Prime Minister May enacted a 2019 law calling for net zero by 2050 — making her the first leader of a major economy to do so.
According to May’s successor Boris Johnson, net zero was good for the planet, good for voters, good for the economy. But under current Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, the messaging has transformed. Net zero remains the target — but it comes with a “burden” on working people.
In a major speech this fall, Sunak rolled back plans to ban new petrol and diesel car sales by 2030, bringing the U.K. into line with the EU’s 2035 date. With half an eye on Germany’s travails, he said millions of households would be exempted from the gas boiler ban expected in 2035.
In making his arguments for a “pragmatic” approach to net zero, Sunak frequently draws on the talking points of net zero-skeptics. Why should the citizens of the U.K., which within its own borders produces just 1 percent of global emissions, “sacrifice even more than others?”
The danger, said one EU climate diplomat — granted anonymity to discuss domestic policy of an allied country — was that other countries around the COP28 negotiating table would hear that kind of rhetoric from a capital that had led the world — and repurpose it to make their own excuses.
Sunak’s predecessor May sees similar risks.
“Nearly a third of all global emissions originate from countries with territorial emissions of 1 per cent or less,” May said. “If we all slammed on the brakes, it would make our net zero aspirations impossible to achieve.”
Trump’s back
The U.S., the largest producer of industrial carbon pollution in modern history, has been a weathervane on climate depending on who controls its governing branches.
When Republicans regained control of the U.S. House of Representatives in 2022, it created a major drag on Biden’s promise to provide $11.4 billion in annual global climate finance by 2024.
Securing this money and much more, developing countries say, is vital to any progress on global climate goals at COP28. Last year, on the back of the pandemic and the energy price spike, global debt soared to a record $92 trillion. This cripples developing countries’ ability to build clean energy and defend themselves against — or recover from — hurricanes, floods, droughts and fires.
Even when the money is there, the politics can be challenging. Multibillion-dollar clean energy partnerships that the G7 has pursued to shift South Africa, Indonesia, Vietnam and India off coal power are struggling to gain acceptance from the recipients.
Yet even more dire consequences await if Trump wins back the presidency next year.
A Trump victory would put the world’s largest economy a pen stroke away from quitting the Paris Agreement all over again — or, even more drastically, abandoning the entire international regime of climate pacts and summits. The thought is already sending a chill: Negotiations over a fund for poorer countries’ climate losses and damage, which Republicans oppose, include talks on how to make its language “change-of-government-proof” in light of a potential Trump victory, said Michai Robertson, lead finance negotiator for a bloc of island states.
More concretely for reining in planet-heating gases, Trump would be in position to approve legislation eliminating all or part of the Inflation Reduction Act. Biden’s signature climate law included $370 billion in incentives for clean energy, electric vehicles and other carbon-cutting efforts – though the actual spending is likely to soar even higher due to widespread interest in its programs and subsidies – and accounts for a bulk of projected U.S. emissions cuts this decade.
House Republicans have attempted to claw back parts of Biden’s climate law several times. That’s merely a political messaging effort for now, thanks to a Democrat-held Senate and a sure veto from Biden, but the prospects flip if the GOP gains full control of Congress and White House.
Under a plan hatched by Tubiana and backed by former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, countries would in the future log their state and local government climate plans with the U.N., in an attempt to undergird the entire system against a second Republican blitzkrieg.
The U.S. isn’t the only place where climate action is on the ballot, Benton told the conference at Chatham House on Nov. 1.
News on Sunday that Argentina had elected as president right-wing populist Javier Milei — a Trump-like libertarian — raised the prospect of a major Latin American economy walking away from the Paris Agreement, either by formally withdrawing or by reneging on its promises.
Elections are also scheduled in 2024 for the EU, India, Pakistan, Taiwan, Sri Lanka, Indonesia and Russia, and possibly the U.K.
“A quarter of the world’s population is facing elections in the next nine months,” he said. “If everyone goes to the right and populism becomes the order of the day … then I won’t hold out high hopes for Paris.”
Zack Colman reported from Washington, D.C. Suzanne Lynch also contributed reporting from Brussels.
This article is part of the Road to COP special report, presented by SQM.The article is produced with full editorial independence by POLITICO reporters and editors. Learn more about editorial content presented by outside advertisers.
In the realm of home sanctuaries, few spaces hold as much significance as the bathroom. It’s where we begin and end our days, a place of solace and rejuvenation. Elevating this essential space goes beyond mere functionality; it’s about curating an environment that blends practicality with indulgence. Enter essential bathroom accessories, the unsung heroes that transform a basic restroom into a haven of comfort and style. From plush underfoot luxury to innovative lighting solutions, each element is pivotal in enhancing your daily ritual. Whether you’re renting an apartment in Tyler, TX, or own a house in Charleston, SC, this Redfin article will explore must-have bathroom essentials and discover how they can turn your bathroom into a retreat you’ll never want to leave.
1. Luxury underfoot
A luxury underfoot provides a soft and comfortable surface that enhances your overall bathroom experience, making stepping out of the shower or bath a pleasure rather than a chore.
“Add some simple luxury underfoot with an extra large bath mat or bath runner that expands across a double vanity,” recommends Oh Happy Home. “No more sharing tiny bath mats or jumping from one bath mat to another.”
2. Toilet paper dispenser
A toilet paper dispenser provides hygiene and convenience by neatly organizing and dispensing one of the most essential elements of the bathroom, while minimizing waste, and providing seamless access.
“My favorite bathroom accessory is a toilet paper dispenser that is fully covered. It has to be covered from bacteria and steam from the shower,” shares Leticia’s First Class Cleaning Inc.
3. Electric bidet
With features like adjustable water temperature and pressure, electric bidets have become increasingly popular and can provide a customized and comfortable experience in your bathroom.
Barumi Electric Bidet Team states, “Electric bidet toilet seats are the ultimate bathroom upgrade you never knew you needed. With customizable water temperature, pressure, and even a heated seat, it’s like a spa day for your bathroom routine.”
4. Motion sensor-activated light switch
A motion sensor-activated light automatically turns on the lights when it detects motion and then turns them off when the room is vacant, helping to conserve electricity and reduce energy costs.
“There is nothing more frustrating than fumbling around in the dark for the bathroom light switch in the middle of the night,” says The Honest Maid. “Put these motion-activated light switches in your bathrooms, and as soon as you open the door, there will be light.”
5. Steam showers
Steam showers are a luxurious and rejuvenating addition to any bathroom. They offer a spa-like experience by generating warm, soothing steam that can help relax muscles, improve circulation, and promote a sense of calm and well-being.
“Our favorite bathroom accessory right now is a steam shower. When most people take on a bathroom project, they want to replicate some version of a spa experience. Steam shower systems are controlled either from a built-in shower touch screen or an app on a phone, and settings like temperature and time can be changed and saved for each person. Media can even be incorporated so an Owner can watch the big game, listen to a podcast, or hear their favorite playlist while relaxing in their shower,” remarks Sneller Custom Homes.
6. LED mirrors with demisters
LED mirrors with demisters are a practical and stylish addition to any bathroom. The integrated demisting feature prevents the mirror from fogging after a hot shower, while the energy-efficient LED lighting provides bright lights while you get ready.
Inyouths shares, “My favorite bathroom accessory is a custom LED mirror with a demister. It’s a truly exceptional addition to any bathroom for several reasons. We believe that this LED mirror enhances both form and function in the bathroom. Its subtle backlight adds a touch of elegance, making daily rituals more comfortable and enjoyable. The mirror’s waterproof and anti-fog features ensure a clear reflection even in the steamiest showers, making it a must-have for both practicality and style.”
7. Drill-powered scrub brushes
Power up your cleaning routine by attaching scrub brushes to a power drill to provide a high-powered, rotating scrubbing action that effortlessly tackles tough stains, grime, and soap scum on surfaces like tiles, grout, and bathroom fixtures.
“Drill-powered scrub brushes are essential to maintaining a clean and healthy bathroom,” notes Drillbrush. “These brushes can be inserted into any cordless drill and be used to scrub messes out of bathtubs, shower grout, and sinks more efficiently than scrubbing by hand.”
8. Loofah soap bar
Loofah soap bars are a versatile and practical addition to any bathroom routine. Combining the exfoliating benefits of natural loofah with cleansing soap, they provide a convenient way to gently scrub away dead skin cells, leaving your skin smoother and rejuvenated.
Soapy Mania remarks, “We recommend a loofah soap har as a ‘must’ bath accessory because it is an all-in-one cleansing tool – as the soap lathers against your body, the natural loofah fibers work their magic, removing dead skin cells and leaving your skin soft, smooth, and rejuvenated.”
9. Handpainted items
“A hand-painted bathroom accessory is one of my favorite ways to personalize a bathroom. Decorated wastebaskets, soap dispensers and ceramic towel bars add a custom touch on a budget,” says Decorated Bathroom.
10. Mesh body exfoliator
A mesh body exfoliator is a must-have bathroom accessory for effective and invigorating skin care. Its textured, mesh-like surface gently removes dead skin cells and unclogs pores, leaving your skin refreshed, smooth, and ready to absorb moisturizers more effectively.
“My favorite bathroom accessory is a Mesh Body Exfoliator that has been used in West Africa for bathing for generations. Anyone who likes to be CLEAN and SMOOTH needs it in their life. Your loofah could never,” raves Caroline-Founder/Smooth Operating Officer of Luv Scrub.
11. Stash box for wipes
A stash box for wipes is a discreet storage solution for keeping wipes readily accessible in the bathroom. Designed to blend seamlessly with your bathroom decor, it ensures that wipes are neatly organized and protected from moisture, preserving their freshness.
“Our favorite bathroom accessory is a stash box for wipes,” states Dude Products. “This keeps your wipes stored right where you need them while out of sight, perfect for storing wet wipes, feminine products, or other bathroom essentials.”
12. Shampoo bar and cedar tray
A Shampoo bar and cedar tray are essential for an eco-friendly and organized bathroom, providing a sustainable alternative to traditional liquid shampoo while adding a touch of natural elegance.
Zero Waste Mvmt shares, “My absolute favorite bathroom duo is our Shampoo bar paired with a cedar tray. The bar offers a sustainable, clutter-free hair care solution, making it a favorite for its eco-friendly benefits. Anyone seeking a functional yet elegant bathroom aesthetic would find this pairing essential. It not only beautifies the shower space but also champions a greener lifestyle. It’s a must-have for those who value sustainability without compromising on style, ensuring a bathroom that shines both in appearance and purpose.”
With a partial government shutdown looming in less than a week, US Speaker of the House Mike Johnson unveiled a two-step plan on Saturday to fund the government through the new year. The stopgap funding bill, often referred to as a “continuing resolution,” would extend funding for several federal agencies until late January, while the rest of the government would be funded through early February.
Johnson defended the bill as bucking “the absurd holiday-season omnibus tradition of massive, loaded up spending bills introduced right before the Christmas recess,” in a post on the social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter.
The Louisiana conservative, who has been in the top House job for less than a month and has never chaired a House committee, faces a steep climb to get the bill passed before the November 17 midnight deadline. If all Democrats are present and vote against the bill, Johnson can afford only four defectors in his own party in a vote that could come as early as Tuesday.
Yet the bill has to satisfy two dramatically opposed constituencies. On one side are the far-right House GOP members who ousted Johnson’s predecessor, Kevin McCarthy, over his resistance to imposing deep spending cuts during the budgeting process and have called for a staggered funding process. On the other hand, more moderate members in both chambers of Congress don’t like the idea of bifurcating the deadlines for funding federal programs. Johnson conceded during a private conference call with lawmakers Saturday that the bill likely would not get universal support from Republicans, The New York Timesreported.
In just the last week alone, the House GOP punted on two separate funding votes due to divisions between hardline and moderate members, a sign that the sharp divisions that opened up during the speakership fiasco have not disappeared.
Already, some members of Congress in both parties are voicing their displeasure with Johnson’s proposal. Texas Representative Chip Roy, a hard-right House Freedom Caucus member, wrote that his opposition to the bill, which does not include any spending cuts, “cannot be overstated.” In another post, he wrote that he opposes the bill “100%”. On Thursday, amid reports that Johnson was weighing pushing forward with a staggered bill, Senate Appropriations Committee chair and Washington Democratic Senator Patty Murraycalled the plan “the craziest, stupidest thing I’ve ever heard of.”
The Biden administration immediately pounced on the plan. In a statement hours after Johnson unveiled the bill, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierrecalled it “a recipe for more Republican chaos and more shutdowns.”
“With just days left before an extreme Republican shutdown — and after shutting down Congress for three weeks after they ousted their own leader — House Republicans are wasting precious time with an unserious proposal that has been panned by members of both parties,” Jean-Pierre said.
The White House is reportedly already prepping surrogates to use the likelihood of a shutdown to boost Joe Biden’s stubbornly low approval ratings. “The clock is ticking,” reads a copy of talking points distributed to Biden allies and obtained by Politico. “We are just X days from an Extreme Republican Shutdown that would: Force servicemembers and law enforcement officers to work without pay—risk significant delays for travelers. Undermine public health. Cut off funding for small businesses.”
On Friday, the ratings firm Moody’s downgraded the United States’ credit outlook to “negative,” citing “continued political polarization” within Congress.
Rachel Perlmutter is a recipe developer, food stylist, and culinary producer at The Kitchn. Originally from Houston, Texas, she spends her free time trying to perfect kolaches and breakfast tacos that taste like home. Rachel currently lives in Brooklyn with her partner, dog, cat and rabbit, where they all share a love of seasonal local produce.
We independently select these products—if you buy from one of our links, we may earn a commission. All prices were accurate at the time of publishing.
The platters of family favorites that fill the Thanksgiving table every year all have one thing in common: Many of the most beloved (and delicious) recipes — mashed potatoes, fluffy dinner rolls, savory gravy, and the pièce de résistance, roasted turkey — are all shades of brown. Tasty as the traditional menu might be, I’m always on the lookout for low-lift ways to add color to my plate, beyond the cranberry sauce.
On a recent visit to Aldi, I spotted the key to a more colorful holiday dinner in the freezer aisle — Season’s Choice Colorful Carrots — and for about $1 per bag.
What’s So Great About Season’s Choice Colorful Carrots?
Aldi’s Season’s Choice frozen carrot coins aren’t what you’d expect. Instead of slices of orange carrots, this bag contains a medley of hues, including yellow, purple, and white. The carrots come packaged in a 12-ounce bag. That translates to about four (3/4-cup) servings, although with so many other sides available, you can probably stretch this package to serve a few more folks.
If you can’t get enough of prepped colorful vegetables, pick up a package of colorful cauliflower to pair with the rainbow medley of carrots. That 12-ounce bag contains purple, orange, green, and white cauliflower florets for the same price.
What’s the Best Way to Serve Season’s Choice Colorful Carrots?
Aldi’s Season’s Choice colorful carrots come in steam-in-bag packaging. If your oven is packed and the stovetop is occupied, go ahead and steam the carrots according to package directions. The key to making this frozen vegetable holiday-worthy is in how you serve them. Dress the colorful carrot coins with homemade honey butter or this flavor-packed cowboy butter.
In many cases, the oven has a brief respite once the turkey is removed to the counter to rest. Use that time to roast the carrots directly from frozen. Follow the technique for this roasted frozen broccoli and be shocked at how simple and delicious a frozen veggie can be. If you’re looking for a way to prep the carrots on the stovetop, look no further than glazed carrots. While this recipe starts with fresh carrots, you can add the carrots straight from the freezer; once they are mostly thawed, move onto the glazing step.
Find it in stores: Season’s Choice Colorful Carrots, $1.37 for 12 ounces
What Aldi groceries are you bringing to Thanksgiving this year? Tell us about it in the comments below.
Meanwhile, cut 8 tablespoons unsalted butter into 8 pieces and refrigerate until ready to use. Transfer all but 2 tablespoons of the garlic oil to a bowl or airtight container and reserve for another use. Add the mashed garlic, 3/4 cup whole milk, and 1/3 cup heavy cream to the saucepan. Bring to a simmer and cook until the mixture is just warmed through but not boiling, about 5 minutes.
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A very common experience for me lately is the dreaded look I give my grocery receipt. It’s a big side eye, admittedly. You might relate, instinctively holding your breath as you scan it, likely noticing that it seems to still be quite expensive these days. While, overall, the annual inflation rate has been declining, food prices have still risen 3.7% between September 2022 and September 2023. Ugh!
Regardless of whether you feel inflation’s effects on your grocery run, we’d all love to save a few extra dollars each week, right? Right. So it was high time to really nail down where the end-all, be-all, cheap grocery stores are. I used to work at a grocery store (and have many takes on how we value our groceries!), so I have my own rubric for what makes for a good and affordable experience — especially because “cheapness” can be pretty relative, depending on the shopper. After all, why praise a less-expensive retailer if its apples are consistently mealy or the cashiers are surly?
Shopping experience: Is it easy to search for items? Is the selection wide-ranging (meaning you have to make fewer stops at other stores)? Perhaps the retailer offers helpful recipe inspiration or weekly deals? Is the customer service attentive and helpful? Bonus points if grocery shopping in person or on-site becomes an ultra-delightful task, rather than merely a chore.
Service locations:I opted for grocers who either have locations or offer delivery, in the case for online grocers, for a wide swath of the country. In some instances, I’ve also highlighted beloved regional grocers that have exceptional deals.
Cost and quality:Some shoppers value cheapness as the most important quality in their shop, while others value ingredient quality or a wide selection of items. Ideally, we’re looking to be located in the center of the venn diagram for all three.
Your perceived value of said grocers may vary, but across the board these retailers have a pretty equivalent ratio of pleasant shopping experience (and quality items) for the price.
Credit: Sundry Photography / Shutterstock
1. Best Online & One-Stop Shop: Walmart+
In-store or online, Walmart has outscored most other retailers in a side-by-side comparison shop of standard items. So it’s no surprise that its online shopping and delivery arm, Walmart+, is just as impressive. As the saying goes, time is money (and, uh, money is money), which makes Walmart+ a true twofer — the service will help you save a whole lot of both.
In fact, the retailer reports you can save 90+ hours and $1300 a year by using the service (the membership currently costs $12.95 per month or $98 for the year). That’s time and money you could be spending on perfecting your pickleball serve and finally watching all the extended editions of the Lord of the Rings movies. Plus, the online selection mirrors that of what you’d find in store, with no delivery minimums and free delivery.
2. Best Pantry Essentials: Aldi
No surprise here! Aldi is well-known for having an ultra-affordable selection across the board. In fact, a recent study found that Aldi was chosen 90% of the time amongst respondents for having the highest value for their money. Plus, you can pick up wine, cheese, and maybe even a flattering dress before you head to the check out. Much like other discount retailers, like Lidl, Aldi is what I call “IKEA-ified,” in that it greatly scales down its overhead (in the form of lighter staffing, self-bagging practices, and simplified displays that can be refilled easily), which means the savings pass on to the customer.
The interior of the store is where Aldi truly shines; you can stock up on all your pantry essentials, like pasta, beans, cereal, and canned goods. You’ll be hard-pressed to find better deals on your everyday needs than at Aldi, which is my family’s pick for bagged coffees, canned waters, and nut butters (at the time of writing, you can get Nutella for under $4!). Run, don’t walk, to Aldi.
Credit: Jonathan Weiss/ Shutterstock
4. Best Frozen: Trader Joe’s
Trader Joe’s consistently has achieved best-in-class marks for the customer experience in its stores, namely for the checkout experience. Even if you aren’t flirting openly with your cashier, there’s plenty to love about Trader Joe’s, like the affordable flowers, fresh produce (that comes in every morning), and all the new seasonal items that seem to have been concocted in an evil genius’ lab.
Still, there’s one section at Trader Joe’s that rises above the rest. I used to work for the company, so I know firsthand where all the customers would inevitably bottleneck: in the frozen food aisle. Not only does it have quality dishes from all around the world (which has saved me tons on takeout), but the selection is also massive for the store, which has such a small footprint as compared to most traditional grocers. At any point in time you can find frozen tamales for under $3, a holiday-worthy dessert for under $7, and a party-ready appetizer for right around $4.
Credit: JHVEPhoto/Shutterstock
5. Best Bulk: WinCo Foods
Ever wish you could get wholesale warehouse prices but without the membership? Then WinCo Foods needs to be on your radar. With 139 locations across 10 states from California to Oklahoma, WinCo Foods is a majority employee-owned company, meaning employees earn shares in company stock.
Similar to warehouse stores like Costco and Sam’s, WinCo is a no-frills warehouse-style shopping experience, and keeps prices low by enlisting customers to bag their own groceries and buying directly from product manufacturers. If you’re always on the hunt for low-price bulk items and household staples at steep discounts, a trip to WinCo foods could save you serious cash.
Credit: Sundry Photography/Shutterstock
6. Best Outlet: Grocery Outlet
There was my life before I discovered Grocery Outlet, and my life after I discovered Grocery Outlet — and they are very much not the same. If you’re new to this fine retail establishment, let me introduce you: As the name suggests, Grocery Outlet is an outlet-style grocery store, meaning it stocks excess inventory directly from other grocery manufacturers and sells at a discount.
With locations in California, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Oregon, amongst others, each Grocery Outlet’s selection is different depending on the location of the store in relation to the manufacturers. It always keeps a solid selection of name-brand and private-label staples, as well as fresh products, like meat, dairy, and bread. What really makes Grocery Outlet worth a visit is its natural and organic section, which typically features vegan and gluten-free items that can often be pricey at other retailers.
Did your favorite discount retailer make the list? Tell us about it in the comments.
Kayla Hoang is a freelance recipe developer, writer, and baker. She is a graduate of Johnson and Wales University’s 4-year Baking and Pastry program and has training from Alain Ducasse’s Ecole Nationale Supérieure de Pâtisserie in Yssingeaux, France. Her love of food comes from her parents and their Bangladeshi and Vietnamese roots. In her free time, she can usually be found in the kitchen waiting for a fresh batch of cookies to come out of the oven or taking on a new baking project.
