In 2025, cloud infrastructure has become a significant budget item for enterprises, with a substantial portion of spending wasted due to unmanaged and forgotten resources, often resulting from poor Infrastructure as Code (IaC) practices. This inefficiency, referred to as the "Bad IaC Tax," represents not just financial waste but also increased risks of outages and breaches, which can be costly—sometimes exceeding $1 million per incident. Despite the widespread use of tools like Terraform, few organizations adopt best IaC practices, leading to executive concerns about cloud-related risks and their impact on multi-cloud strategies. To mitigate these issues, organizations must adopt disciplined IaC practices, including comprehensive codification, proactive governance, continuous drift detection, and adherence to standardized templates and policies. Firefly suggests that these strategies can help avoid unnecessary costs and risks, urging leaders to embrace more mature IaC practices to prevent waste and regain confidence in cloud investments.