The funds, raised by ignoring capital limits set by regulators to oversell insurance products worth 724 billion yuan to 10.6 million investors, were transferred to companies he personally controlled for overseas investment, debt repayment and "personal squandering", according to the report.

Besides, the plan stated consumers should cultivate the habit of saving and stop squandering away precious resources, and called for certain goals related to green consumption to be accomplished by 2025 and 2030, respectively.

I recall thinking at that time that squandering a journalist's hard-earned money on an EV that would not roll for 200 kilometers in wintry Beijing didn't seem like a smart thing to do.

Why should we squander money on big and fancy showrooms?

But some experts are warning against squandering too much on digital commercials, with a statistic from Nielsen showing that 71 percent of money on them is wasted.