What's the most extreme example of effort to save a few pennies you have heard of?

Archery Annie
Doesn't worry me in the slightest if anyone sees me break of the stem from the broccoli why should it? I don't but bruised apples or squashed oranges I choose the ones I want....so what's different with the broccoli? I also don't dig it with nails a swift snap and it's done.

I also don't bother using bags for veggies or fruit in the supermarket unless it's lots of little bits like grapes. After all it's not got to be in a bag and I won't use the bag at home so why take one? When I was a kid on the 70's my gran used to take her bag to the grocers to get veggies and spuds at the bottom and veggies on top the only ones that went in bags were mushrooms. We all survived

I can remember my not so 'd'm telling me to cut off the unused portion of a sanitary towel and put it on top of the next one if I were going out.

Having periods that enabled me to soak through a super plus tampon at 14 in just over an hour, didn't make this a particularly useful suggestion.

In her case she never paid for a towel or a tampon, she just used to nick them off the shelf in her father's pharmacy - no wonder he had the bailiffs in several times for unpaid bdh invoices.

onthettcbus - yes you're probably right although it's not like I take the whole box

I once worked with someone who saved the tinfoil from her sandwiches and wiped her dental floss with a tissue to re-use again!

Calli I think that is technically stealing! In Marks and Spencer's I was charged 5p for using one for my items.

My friend taught me to search at the back of supermarket shelves for later dated fresh food. It's probably not great for the supermarkets, but it means I can have a couple more days in which to eat things up.

I also remove all plastic packing from packaged vegetables as soon as I get home. They last longer when not in plastic.

I also have a spreadsheet which shows me where to buy the cheapest of everything. I only buy certain items from certain shops. I buy things in multiples so I don't run out and rotate the supermarkets I go to.

I work with a man that only toasts one side of the bread for cheese on toast as having the grill on to toast both sides for one person is wasteful apparently.

When I was training as a hairdresser part of my job was to unfurl used perm papers (the small pieces of very thin paper that was wrapped around the section of the hair before the perm curler was put in) and I had to dry them to be reused.
The salon owner was very tight. She used to bring in a pint bottle of milk every day for tea and coffee and half had to be poured into a jug and half left in the bottle, both then had to be topped up with water so that there were two pints of very watery milk to use throughout the day.

These may have been mentioned already:
Break the stalk from the broccoli so that it weighs less
Use a food processor to turn granulated sugar into caster

Cutting the legs of tights is bizarre and really really stingy

Why?

Its very rare that a pair of tights gets wrecked on both legs, and instead of throwing away 2 pairs, you throw away 2 legs and still have a usable "pair". I had to do this once when I was in a rush and poked my finger through the last decent pair of tights I had, and it was the only option rather than bare legs!

Ooh I've got one! In the F&V section of the supermarket, grab a few extra clear bags to use at home for sandwiches etc.

If it was a £3.50 service charge or penalty that didn't actually benefit her, that's a lot, but if it was £3.50 of credit that she could use, that's nothing unless you are on the breadline.

Maybe entering a different credit card to pay was faffy and she couldn't be arsed. You do wonder why she bothers with PAYG though. You can get contracts from a fiver or so if you're a light user and much easier than having to top up.

a small payment of £3.50 You see, it's all relative! I'd say that was a large payment...

Cutting the legs of tights is bizarre and really really stingy But tights are really quite expensive... so I would say that was a lot less stingy than reusing teabags! Disclaimer - I normally wear trousers...

My mum does the tights thing. I don't see the problem as long as it's not uncomfortable. It doesn't work for me as I wear thick black ones and find them too bulky doubled up.

I keep the last clove of a bulb of garlic, plant it, cut off the shoot when it has grown and a new bulb will grow . I appreciate it is probably more faff than it is worth and garlic really is quite cheap, but the free new garlic bulb pleases me immensely.

MissCherryCakey, the stalks are lovely. Just cut off the outsides and then slice thinly like cucumber. Nice as a separate vegetable or in a stir fry.

Friend and i went for a long walk while our DH's played golf. Two miles from home she got a call from them saying they were back and locked out. At this point her pay as you go phone ran out of money. She got a message to say she could put in a small payment of £3.50 to be able to send the message to say we would be back in half an hour. She wouldn't because she didn't have the card with her that she used to top up the phone although she did have another on her. They do have money and you have to wonder why.

notthe1parrot why not just shove 30 sheets of work toilet roll in your handbag and wee at home?

swirl I do have to suppress my urge to yell 'careful' very very loud when the DC are opening presents.

I see nothing wrong with re-using wrapping paper, but only do it for people I know wouldn't mind. My MiL however, takes it to extremes. She is honestly still using paper from the 1970s. She achieves this by asking everyone to very carefully open presents using scissors along the sellotape in order not to risk ripping the paper.

For me, it removes all the joy of present opening if you have someone hovering over you desperate to rescue the paper (even though as I said, i do try to save decent bits rather than just tear). I rebel and refuse to use scissors. I can actually feel her silent panic that I might tear the paper, which also isn't a great sensation when opening a present but I am a grown up and refuse to have her dictate how I remove paper from a present given to me!

Cutting the legs of tights is bizarre and really really stingy

Alot of this is about perception though..... we are (currently) lucky enough to be financially solvent. But I got called 'cheap' and 'tight' by someone I know because we pretty much exclusively shop in Aldi. But I am astonished by the same person who called me that because they do their weekly foodshop at our local M&S foodhall.....horses for courses and all that, but I would probably faint at the bill of shopping for a full weekly shop there. The topic came up because we weer talking about Aldi and I am a massive fan. This person said she 'would not be seen dead' in Aldi, and gave one of those half laughing half not jokes of us being 'cheap'.

Thing is, we are on roughly the same household income, going by the average wages for our respective jobs and they have 2 kids to our one. It's different priorities - I think our Aldi is excellent quality, and I am very happy to shop there. I would not want to double my bill each week for produce that is either the same quality of less quality.

So, I guess my ramble is just that some of the things on the thread I think are bonkers and other things are sensible, so it's funny how perspectives differ.

Some of these make sense!

The worst I saw on Extreme Cheapskates was the woman who didn't want to pay to have a root canal, so she had her husband pull it out at home. He made a saliva suction device out of their hoover and a straw.

I know medical care is terribly expensive in the US, but I would draw the line at home dental surgery if I could afford not to. [unsure]

cherrytree63
"But my Dad, even when he was in sheltered housing with all bills included in the rent, made his first pot of tea with the warm water out of his hot water bottle."

This is so sweet.

This thread has actually made me think about our own waste and the sort of unconscious wastefulness I am guilty of.

So, I have just reset the thermostat down 1.5 degrees on the central heating and this morning when I got DS's snackbox out of his schoolbag from yesterday instead of throwing the rather sad and tired apple slices and grapes which I usually do I cooked them up in a pan with some semi-dried prunes and a little bit of honey and had that on my morning yoghurt. It was delicious.