funny examples of when people have been extreme tightwads / tightfisted

[Sensisoul]

i recently fell out with a friend who is known for being exceptionally tight with money.

They have no kids & do anything to scrimp and save so they can afford a champagne lifestyle at the drop of a hat. They buy expensive beauty items with free gifts and then take the items back for a refund afterwards and not return the free gift!

This is a light hearted post about examples of tight friends, partners & family members who have either gone out of their way to be tight or given terrible birthday/ Christmas presents over the years.

NB- This isn’t a criticism on saving money, being mindful of money to stop hardship etc. It is great to collect coupons and vouchers and I do the same. It is more a lighthearted look at how tight some people can be:

Tell me what happened and when & is that person still in your life?

I’ll give a few examples:

this friend requests vouchers from people at Christmas
but always buys people “presents”. These presents can be anything from some old used nail varnish to free beauty samples sachets.

Their family now insist that they buy them gift vouchers as they no longer want their version of “presents”

Only orders hot water in a restaurant/bar- so drinks are always free. sometimes brings own tea bag and milk if they fancy a cup of tea.

Insists on walking everywhere and is spitting feathers when they share a taxi with anyone. They would sooner walk home on their own at night and potentially risk their own safety, than hail a cab and get home safely.

Order the most expensive luxury drink at a bar and then complain said drink is flat and that another fresh bottle is opened. They would then complain again and get another drink free!

Arrange to meet for lunch/dinner at the venue of their choice & then not order anything at all from the venue & say they are getting something from the burger van nearby afterwards. Then watch me eat my food that was ordered from the venue while they sip on a free cup of hot water. ( the hot water was free btw)

Insist on always getting a child’s portion at any eatery. whether this is chips
from a burger van or a posh restaurant.
This person always has to have the cheapest bill at the end of a meal.

Send a sympathy card when my auntie passed away & have the text in the card crossed out!! God knows what the original card said 😂

What do you mean, "all of her appliances"? Her phone? Her Kindle? How much do you reckon that costs? A penny a day?

Exactly.
And someone who comes with their hand out for their partner's card to buy something for 1.50 is extremely stingy. Not 'careful'.

I knew someone who occasionally gave a lift home to a colleague who didn't drive. The person charged £3 for a lift. I would say fair enough if they went out of their way, but they actually passed the end of colleagues street on the way home!!

My ex BF was brought up in Yorkshire and we visited his parents, staying at theirs. We had a night out with his friend, his wife and their daughter. Wife mentioned to me that they'd never been to London where I lived at the time, so I invited them to come down and stay a few days.
I put them up, organised two days sightseeing in town, bought all the food and cooked, booze and like to think I was a good host. BF never offered me a penny.
I gently suggested to him that it would have been nice if he'd bought me some flowers as a thank you for hosting his friends and paying for all of it. His reply 'well you fucking invited them' - why I didn't finish with him there and then, I'll never know.
Sooooo glad he's been out of my life a few years now and I'm with a lovely, kind, generous man now.
His recent exP contacted me via FB messenger when his behaviour had become controlling and we talked. He'd done the same to her and she had him living in her house for a year and he paid no rent and convinced her to buy furniture for the room HIS kids would sleep in when they visited. She's since kicked him out.
Also turned out he was seeing both of us.
Was great a few months ago when he drove past me and my current partner, seeing us holding hands and laughing!

This lady I think is not tight but was financially controlled by her late husband. Mum got to know her when my mum worked in a coffee shop. Lady got older and more frail so mum offered to do her shopping when she became housebound. Her house was not central heated, no tv, used torches instead of her electric. Never been out of the country, carpets threadbare so we all assumed she was very hard up.
Mum had to get carers in for her a couple of years ago and lady was able to pay. Mum became friends with one of the carers and lady then paid this woman privately. Mum would go around daily to make sure she had eaten, dad (nearly 80) did her gardening for no payment.
She has no children. She's now 95.
Anyway last year her health was rapidly declining and Mum was asked about her will. She wanted to ensure that her nephew (by marriage didn't get any of her money) She is still very much mental capable. Mums friends partner is a solicitor and became executor.
She gave them all her paperwork. Turns out she has over a million in the bank, gets a couple of thousand a month from her husbands pension and several savings plans.
She's since gone into a private care home and is thriving bless her.
Mum is organising selling her house for her £650k.
She is leaving it all to 20 charities, which is great.
She's leaving whatever is in her current account to mum and her friend (carer).
Could be £3 could be £30000 no one knows but that's not my mums prerogative (or her friends). They visit her weekly in the care home and mum even got her a Mother's Day card and flowers on Mother's Day as she doesn't have her own kids. My mum is 75.
We all just feel so sad that she had all this money but no life really. Poor woman never learnt to drive, never went abroad, never had children. It's very sad and I think obviously a case of tight fisted controlling late husband.

NC for this in case she's on here!

Someone I went to uni with invited a few of us over for fajitas. After we'd eaten she told us we each owed her money towards the food. The total was about £10 if I remember correctly. We'd all brought booze with us too!

She went on to be a very highly paid management consultant on a six-figure income and was sent to New York by her firm, who paid for her apartment. When people went to stay with her for the weekend (at her invitation) she would charge them money towards the electricity.

I have never understood that level of petty stinginess. She came from a well off family and definitely did not need the money!

Just remembered we went away with friends for a weekend. One friend insisted we needed cleaning products (this was pre covid) she said if we chip in she will buy what we need around £2 per couple. We couldn't be bothered to argue so agreed. she turned up on the day with a crate of cleaning stuff all brand new, she then said it was more than expected and came to £8 per couple!! About £40 in total. It never left the car as the host supplied everything and she took it all with her! About ten years ago. I'm still annoyed about it.

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It must be regional, spitting feathers here where I am in the NW is used to mean thirsty, spitting blood means angry

In our extended family we have a person who is famous for disappearing anytime a bill appears or it's time for another round of drinks. We are very fortunate that he is well diluted by everyone else, all of whom are happy to pick up any bill. We can all afford to cover his and are happy to so, so that no-one is left out and there are never any long pauses.

Over the years I thought that we are so used to it that it hardly even registers anymore. After a recent event, we were having coffee 'on the terrace' and I found myself talking to them quite privately. We have known each other for decades now.

They mentioned how they can never just enjoy such an event, that the thought of the money being spent, even if they don't need to contribute any part of the cost, just spoils the whole experience for them. Can acknowledge that they are comfortably situated these days, good pension and some inheritance but still can't enjoy the experience of the money being spent.

Far from free loading, they have been putting up with attending our lovely events and would have much preferred that they didn't happen.

It struck me as really so very sad.

A group of us went to a wedding in Ireland. For reasons that (believe me) made sense, the costs were assigned to pairs of us - and me and this bloke Darryl paired up. Darryl was notorious for being very close to a pound note.

I was going home a day before everyone else, so we had to sort out the money over breakfast on my last morning. My attitude to this sort of thing is "You got three meals and the bar bill, I covered the hotel room and a taxi after the reception. I mean, four hundred quid or so in total, and I probably paid about two hundred and fifty of it or something, so call it quits, eh?"

But Darryl didn't give me a chance to say that. He got out his notebook and a pencil, saying, "I've been keeping track and...hang on, hang on. Yeah, if I pick up the bill for breakfast and we assume that I'm not driving you to the airport - so no petrol costs - then, according to my calculations...er...wait, wait....yeah. I owe you seven pounds thirty-two."

"Do you?"

"Yuh. Pretty sure that's right. I owe you seven pounds thirty-two."

And despite my protestations, he made me take seven pounds thirty-two.

I mean, that's really tight. That's so tight it's coming back round to loose. As in screw.

A lot of well off people are extremely tight - that's often why they are well off!! My mum was like this and I am NC with her -- I can honestly say if I had been homeless she would have been working through a list of if I had anything I could sell rather than offer me a rental deposit /loan. Extremely comfortably off herself and none of it through her own efforts- inheritance and high earning husband. She has done next to nothing most of her adult life work wise and yet is sneery at others.

At an indian restaurant for a hen do - not my favourite so i just have a nice side dish and a glass of wine. MOH and her mum order mains and loads of sides then decide they don;t like the mains, so order 2 more plus multiple soft drinks. I was fully expecting to split the bill, I wasn't counting and didn't care, but the MOH makes a massive fuss about how they won't subsidise my 'alcohol use' (I was the only out of 10 who had a wine) and I'd have to pay extra. For the sake of the bride, i was fine with this, chucked in more than enough plus a good tip to cover the PITA the MOH had been. But i was v.suspicious when the MOH volunteered to make the payment at the till - I shadowed her and sure enough she was doing what a pp's ex-friend had, and was trying to use the tip to cover her and her mum's share. I did put a stop to that - just reached over and grabbed it all to put on the counter.

Then went to a bar where they were selling bottles of wine for something like £15 and half bottles for £10. I split a half bottle with a girl I didn't know and she insisted she just pay £3.75 because that is quarter of the £15. So I paid £6.25 for my quarter bottle.

Meanest, miserabilist hen do ever. Loved the bride, but her mates were something else!

I've mentioned this before on previous threads about 'extremely frugal' people, but a relative of mine used to switch off the pilot light on his boiler every night and then turned it back on first thing in the morning.

Unlike many of the people on here, he wasn't hurting or putting out anybody else, but I can think of better things to do with my time than have to remember and take the time to do an extra little job, 730 times a year, in order to save the £1.62 he'd calculated that it saved him in the space of the year!

An extra little job, 730 times a year, in order to save the £1.62 he'd calculated that it saved him in the space of the year! I'm sure extremes of frugality reflect underlying mental health issues.

I'm sure extremes of frugality reflect underlying mental health issues.

I completely agree. Taking advantage of others to grab yourself a free £30 meal here and there is one thing, but putting yourself out, restricting yourself and occupying your mind so much for the sake of 2 or 3 pennies a week - when you aren't even poor - cannot be the product of a healthy mind.

Far from free loading, they have been putting up with attending our lovely events and would have much preferred that they didn't happen.

They are still free loading though, aren't they?

Yes, I mean, no one FORCED them to attend the events, did they? So they were voluntarily putting themselves under that "pressure" to attend and then freeload off everyone else...

My friend’s Dad used to do this in the ‘80s.
it wasn’t to save money, it was because he was frightened of the boiler going off like a bomb in the night. I’m not sure why he thought it was any safer in the day…

But the switch on the boiler was being used an extra 730 times a year!

But the switch on the boiler was being used an extra 730 times a year!

That's a very good point - I was only thinking of the faff, but of course it would put a lot of wear and tear on the switch!

Even a standard replacement light switch would cost you more than that £1.62; but anything to do with a boiler would require calling out a Gas Safe engineer, and that isn't going to be cheap!

When I was a teenager I worked for a bar/restaurant that had an outside seating area in the summer. To get to it you had to go through the restaurant, through the bar and then outside and then back to collect orders. I spent the afternoon serving a large group of regulars. They smirked as they gave me a tip of about 30p in coppers. I put it on the table and said 'no thanks, you must need it more than me' they laughed (thankfully!) and they became one of my best tippers.

Although this was a long long time ago (70s) I still remember it. I worked in a steak house in central Manchester as a Saturday night job, I was 16. We relied on tips of course - paid peanuts. Usually in those days a tip was 20-50p.

Once an old couple came in (I think their age might have had a bearing) and they were quite fussy and seemed to need a lot of attention and to and fro. At the end they paid their bill (you paid the waitress there, not at the till) in cash. Then he dug in his pocket and said "and something for yourself my dear" and gave me 2p - as if he were conferring a great favour. I felt so disappointed but I was only 16 so thanked him politely.

Sorry, meant to add that I thought their age might have had a bearing on it because I wondered later if he thought it was a 10p - it was a bit dimly lit and he wore specs.

My mum looked after her mother for about twenty years. Gran lived by herself, so it was general cleaning/food shopping/taking to hospital appointments. When my dad became terminally ill, mum told her sister that she'd have to take over the visits instead (my aunt would normally only visit once every 6 weeks or so, despite only living 30 minutes drive away). My aunt did this for about 8 months before gran died. She demanded £600 for petrol money. My aunt is extremely wealthy, multiple properties, months-long holidays abroad etc.