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In 2025, if youre still relying on spreadsheets and sheer willpower to manage your budgetwhat are you doing? Tightening the purse strings is now in vogue as concerns about tariffs, inflation, job security and market volatility prompt many to pare back their spending, increase their savings, and, naturally, post about it on social media. These days, if youve trained your algorithm well enough, a cursory scroll should be enough to curb any lingering shopping impulses. In 2024, loud budgeting encouraged people to be unapologetically vocal about their financial goals. Earlier this year, everyone started revenge saving, a counter to the revenge spending that took off post-pandemic. No Buy July, is the latest, catchier, iteration of the no-spend challenges that have been around for years. The idea is simple: use the money youd spend on takeaway coffee and other small indulgences to pay down debt, build up savings, or reach some other financial goal. Bonus points if you post about it on social media for added accountability. If youre truly masochistic, one creator recently went viral for sharing another controversial budgeting technique. Recording myself saying things I wanna impulse buy instead of buying them, read the videos closed captions. The goal? To save money and make me hate myself. This one is yet to catch on. Theres a reason so many people are turning to saving challenges to hold each other accountable right now. Saving money is challenging at the best of times. For some, its easier to say Im doing No Buy July than I cant afford that coffee right now. The trends aren’t all talk. The U.S. personal saving ratethe percentage of disposable income saved after taxes and spendinghas risen to 4.5% in May, according to Bureau of Economic Analysis data. That is slightly down from 4.9% in April, but up significantly from 3.5% in December. The uptick coincides with growing anxiety, with a recent Santander Bank survey reporting 40% of Americans are more worried about emergency savings than at the start of the year, with 50% concerned about a recession and 53% about inflation. At the same time, the average length of unemployment is now over five months, one month longer than it was last year . The popularity of these saving challenges isnt simply a case of people jumping on the latest trend. It reflects many Americans economic reality. The Consumer Price Index has shot up by 24% since 2020. Moreover, prices don’t look like they’ll drop anytime soon. As President Trump barrels toward his latest tariff deadline, the overall U.S. tariff level is now the highest its been since the 1930s and while prices have been largely stable, they are projected to increase. In this economy, if a viral saving challenge keeps you on track with your financial goals, in for a penny in for a pound.
Category:
E-Commerce
When Kendrick Lamar and his longtime creative and business partner Dave Free launched pgLang in 2020, it was under the banner of an “at service company” for creatives. It was an enticing, if somewhat mysterious, modus operandi that led to inquiries in droves. However, the pgLang team quickly realized they didn’t have the infrastructure to offer their services broadly. In the beginning, there were more internal projects including producing Lamar’s music videos and concerts, as well as a smattering of brand work with the likes of Cash App, Chanel, Calvin Klein, and Gatorade. But they didn’t have the bandwidth to operate at scale.Five years later, they do. Project 3 is a new venture within pgLang designed to expand creative resources for businesses. And under the umbrella of Project 3, sits Project 3 Agency, a full-service agency providing creative direction, content creation, production services, brand design and strategy. The creation of Project 3 Agency was powered in large part from the acquisition of international creative studio Frosty, a frequent collaborator of pgLang’s over the years. “For us, it was like, how do we build foundational structures for the business so [we] can last longterm versus trying to do too much at once and being bogged down,” says Free, cofounder of pgLang, on the five-year road to Project 3. “And as we developed [pgLang], we didn’t want to alienate ourselves from commercial business. We wanted to figure out a way to walk hand-in-hand with these companies and give them information, but also learn as we’re working with these companies.” To be sure, pgLang has already been producing work for brands. In fact, they scooped six Cannes Lions Awards, including Independent Agency of the Year, in 2023. While pgLang can be considered the parent company overseeing and aligning all external ventures under a unified vision, the creation of Project 3 and Project 3 Agency allows the teams to direct their focus solely toward other companies. And in those efforts, they feel uniquely positioned to fill a void in the creative agency industry. We see brands now, and one mistake can have you questioning your existence or the audience questioning your purpose, says Cornell Brown, an executive at pgLang and Project 3. For us, there is a confidence that we can bring to this. We have tentacles in so many places: touring, music, when we’re creating merch, when we’re creating artwe have so many inputs that there’s a confidence that comes from seeing all of that around you. Both Free and Brown see Project 3s superpower in helping brands rediscover or, in some instances find for the first time, their true story and purpose. That ethos is baked into the name of the company as Project 3 is a nod to the three pillars of storytelling: the beginning, middle, and end. Brands who will utilize us best are gonna be the ones who aren’t coming for a one-off campaign, Brown says. They’re coming to us to realign strategy and to align them with their purpose. We were seeing companies we admired, but the storytelling was lackluster, Free adds. And a lot of it is because the agency motto became a turnover business of more, more, more. Sometimes that’s great, you need that. But [the storytelling] also has to help people. It has to change the world. It has to latch onto people. Free notes theres no desire for infinite growth with Project 3. He wants the company to scale, but at a pace that puts quality well over quantity to ensure the work aligns with their purpose and integrity. That’s gonna be the marker of how successful this can be because I just don’t see us doing anything with anyone, Free says. We are definitely going for a more premium approach. The goal, as Free explains, is to give brands a foundation for longterm success. When I look at a brand, I’m not thinking about how to get them to the next quarter, he says. I’m thinking about how to get them to the next 10 years. I’m trying to make the best thing that they’ve had that becomes reference material for all the companies. [Image: Project 3] When pgLang launched in 2020, it was very clear there was a desire to have roots across the creative spectrum. Were going to touch every facet of culture, Free says. Theyre starting with Project 3 to build up the commercial side of their business, and to learn from the brands they work with (how they function, why they make the decisions they do, etc.) which can inform other aspects of where pgLang will expand nextthe graphic above providing perhaps a hint of at least how many areas pgLang and Project 3 may go into. We know the trajectory, Free says of pgLangs future. But it’s going to take time, and we’re going to give every piece its own space in its own light. Right now the agency is the foundation that helps set the standard for these other services that we’re going to offer.
Category:
E-Commerce
In case youve been living under a rock and havent heard, the Tesla Diner opened its doors in Hollywood last week, and online reviews have been pouring in. While some raved about the food, others were left underwhelmed. One TikTok user said her family waited five hours to get into the retro-futuristic spota common complaint among reviews. @marinaodinn Tesla Diner Review In Los Angeles, CA #tesladiner #tesla #teslatok #teslacheck #losangeles #teslacybertruck #teslamodel3 #foodtiktok #foodie #eating #eatingasmr #burger #burgers #fries #waffle #friedchicken #elon #elonmusk #foodblogger #foodinfluencer #fyp Classy saxophone jazz in the hotel lounge(1461808) – ricca Sampling the entire menu, which is served in Cybertruck-shaped boxes, she gave the spicy chicken sandwich a 10 out of 10 and called the tuna melt a sleeper hit. The imaginatively named Tesla Burger, however, was giving overcooked smash burger, she said. Another popular food reviewer, who posts under the handle @1hrlunchbreak, ordered $100 worth of food, including the hot dog (7.8 out of 10), the cinnamon roll (8.4), and the buttermilk biscuit with chorizo gravyminus a missing eggwhich still earned a 7. Overall the food was good but I wouldnt put anything in the 9s, he concluded. @1hourlunchbreak Every Tesla Diner Item #foodreview #eat #taste #losangeles original sound – 1 Hour Lunch Break The online menu, created by Le Cordon Bleu graduate Eric Greenspan (who also helped launch MrBeast Burger), features items like a grilled cheese, Wagyu beef chili, fried chicken and waffle, breakfast taco, egg sandwich, fries, and a variety of drinks. Rolling Stone reporter Miles Klee went viral on X after sharing an expectation-vs.-reality photo of the $12 Epic Bacon (now removed from the menu). I mean quality of the meat and cooking aside, if you want to serve bacon like fries you might at least get the right size container, he wrote. went today and heres how it actually looks https://t.co/f5ry9NzPAn pic.twitter.com/SfkdITYF8e— Madame Bovary Summer (@youwouldntpost) July 25, 2025 Alongside the diner, the venue includes a drive-in movie theater (R.I.P. the neighboring apartments view), a charging station, and, often, gatherings of Tesla Takedown protestors. This feels very dystopian, one reviewer wrote. Tesla owners can order from their cars and receive priority in line, but one Tesla-driving reviewer sill described the visit as the worst dining experience of my life. Their Tesla apps ordering feature didnt work, which is reportedly a common issue. After joining the regular line and waiting more than an hour for their food, they eventually gave up and requested a refund. The overall vibe was total chaos, the reviewer said. @letsgo.travelguide Tried the new Tesla Diner and it was hands down the worst food experience Ive had in LA. App didnt work, line was 2 hours, food took forever, and it was total chaos inside. Cool design, but thats about it. #TeslaDiner #LAfood #tesla #LAeats #RestaurantReview #la #losangeles #california Suave – The Pianist & D’Michel leb The diner has long been a dream of Elon Musk’s. In 2018, the Tesla CEO tweeted, Gonna put an old school drive-in, roller skates & rock restaurant at one of the new Tesla Supercharger locations in LA. Seven years on, he declared the finished restaurant to be one of the coolest spots in LA! I just had dinner at the retro-futuristic @Tesla diner and Supercharger.Team did great work making it one of the coolest spots in LA! https://t.co/wRuyeh9x00— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 14, 2025 That depends on who you ask. The last place I want to end up is a parking lot full of Tesla drivers, one TikTok user said. Id rather eat at an Applebees.
Category:
E-Commerce
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