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 😂

@TheLadyDIdGood

My friend, you’ve absolutely NAILED IT.
It is all about coercive financial control. And he’s legendary for it, and for his willingness to dine out on your dime, but stubbornly and insultingly refuses to pry open his wallet in return. .

And his “frugality” isn’t what made him wealthy, oh no. He inherited his money, his already-successful business, his upstate lakeside vacation home and various other amenities directly from his father.

A group of friends used to go out together for meals and the bill splitting was the most stressful thing - weirdly by the time ‘everyone’ had chipped in we would always be one share short and several of us had chipped in for tips (broke students at the time so the tips weren’t ever awesome but at least we tried.

anyway one time a particular friend could make it and the usual hill stress didn’t happen - magically there was more than enough! We started noticing a pattern in that she never ever chipped in and someone noticed her taking the tip money as ‘change’ once.

she wasn’t short of money - her parents were wealthy and she often boasted about how much they gave her - she was always buying new clothes etc - but just would try to dodge paying her share whenever she could. It wasn’t a friendship that lasted long once the rest of the group figured out what was happening!!

There’s a reason these people are wealthy - they’re tight.

I actually despise stingy people. I’m reading these feeling disgusted!

Former neighbor was tight about EVERYTHING. He was bragging one day about a mechanic he'd found to fix his brakes for "next to nothing, you fools pay too much for everything!!!" We fools were quite delighted when, a few days later, his brakes failed, sending him over an embankment and into a fairly shallow stream. The whole car was a dead loss, and, of COURSE he carried the bare minimum of insurance on it!

I can be guilty of this sort of financial inconsistency. We recently had a very expensive day when I paid for a cruise and also forked out for a cosmetic procedure that costs ££££. In total it was over £5k of absolutely non-essential spending in one day. That same day I walked the mile to the supermarket, realised I had come out without a bag for life so walked the round trip back home to pick up a bag because I don't like paying 10p for a carrier bag.

Even as I did it I was aware of how ridiculous I was being but I just couldn't bring myself to pay 10p when I had perfectly good bags at home.

When I left school I worked at a firm of solicitors. It was in the days when partners were pretty well off, had lovely large houses, cars etc. One of my jobs was to make the teas and coffees at break time. I was in the kitchen making tea and one of the partners walked in. He said to me "Elsie, no, surely you don't use a tea bag only once!"

As a student, I went on a trip with my flat mates. None of us would have been rolling in it but the richest one out of the group took tightness to extremes and pissed everyone else off. He wouldn’t use the bus, eat out or basically spend any money but also was trying to suck any joy out of our holiday. We’d go to a cafe and he’d just go and have a water and moan about the prices or didn’t want to pay to go into any of the attractions. I honestly don’t know why he came. When we got home he started happily spending as normal again. The whole thing was really odd.

I half wish I was as tight as some of these people! Money burns a hole in my pocket 🙄

My dbro treated a cheque book as a 5 year diary!!😬

On a date with a guy at a christmas market. Standing in front a mulled wine stall and he offers to buy me a mulled wine. He then spends 30 minutes walking round the market to find the cheapest mulled wine. Was well chuffed that he saved himself 10p per cup.

😃😃 I’ve told some
of friends and family and they can’t believe this person’s antics 😂

But why would you do that? It just encourages her. You should have just paid your share in those circumstances.

Many years ago I worked for a very, very wealthy family. Houses all over the world, multi million dollar home in London, 5 kids in private education.
The kid’s father had a financial newspaper delivered weekly - it was about £3. One week he was away when the paper was delivered so the kids mother asked me to RETURN A NEWSPAPER!!
It went straight in the recycling. Id rather have my wage docked the £3 than humiliate myself over her miserly behaviour.
Loads of stories like that from my nanny days. I knew another nanny who was told to return kids toothbrushes when she bought a second set for a downstairs bathroom. 🙄

I must be humourless because I haven't really found any of these funny, they are describing deeply unpleasant people whose appalling behaviour needs calling out in public.

I've experienced several of the scenarios mentioned, and the people involved are no longer friends. Most recently I had a friend come to stay. They promised they would cook all weekend but in fact brought food only for themselves. I asked beforehand if I could pick up some bits from the supermarket for them as they have a restricted diet and were arriving by train. Spent £20 or so. No offer to repay. Drove them around all weekend to tourist places (at their request). On the last day we went for lunch in a pricey popular location, I paid on the understanding that they would transfer their share later. They saw the prices on the menu when they ordered (they had alcohol, I didn't) but when they transferred the cash they sent £10. When I said no, that's not enough, your share was £x (more than mine), I got a very terse response and the rest transferred. At no point did they offer to pay for anything, or buy me a meal as thanks for having them and being their chauffeur.

The irony is that on the first night they had been really rude about my salary, saying I was on shit money and implying that I should have been earning more at my age. But were then quite happy to let me pay for them. We have barely spoken since, not because they are ashamed of their behaviour, but more likely because they realise I'm not going to be taken for a mug again so have latched onto others instead.

I use spitting feathers to mean angry

I should add that they asked to come and stay, I didn't offer.

I had a colleague once who was married and they had just bought a house they couldn't afford. I don't know if the core issue was his meanness but the house was lovely, red brick in an acceptably well to do area. He said all of the following
''are you going to finish that sandwich''
Can I have those crisps that have been on your desk for days
Can I have a tea bag, and a spot of milk?

I want to contribute to this contribution but I've no cash, can you put a few bob for me??
he even had somebody bring in hoover bags for him as his hoover needed new hoover bags and instead of buying more, a colleague brought him in one.
He never bought anything!

I think he socialised with ''better'' people than he worked with and he DID NOT CARE what we thought of him. But he needed the big house on the nice road for the people who mattered. Not us.

There was a thread this week about what to do with leftover chippie chips. I thought it was a strange one, as don't you just throw them in the bin .

"I was in the pub opposite Waterloo station with my pal and some randoes came up to us to chat and one of them started eating my chips! Without asking!!

i asked him if he wanted a chip and he goes "oh! Sure ok, yes please" like he hadn't already been eating them?? I was about 6 pints deep at that point so I put a chip down on the table and flicked it, and it hit him right in the face. He said "all right mate, no need for that!""

^^ your story triggered the above memory in my DP. Crying with laughter

We used to go for regular meals as a big group of friends, at least 20 of us, 1 year we went out for a Christmas meal, we split the bill, rounded it up to include a tip, all paid cash except the wealthiest person there, think multiple properties, franchisee of many sandwich shops, absolutely loaded, put the bill on their card for the exact amount & left no tip! Even worse the knew the waiter from school and they were lovely, the next time a few of us went in we made sure they got the tip.
We've always said this is how the rich stay rich!

DP has also just told me that, the day after he asked his manager to use some of her milk, she asked the whole team in a team meeting whether they'd like to set up a "coffee club" where they take turns bringing in milk. This is the first time he's asked and she makes about double what he does!! Also her milk was the one wrapped up in a plastic bag in the shared fridge so that nobody could see it was milk 😂

I can't think of my own stories and I suspect that it's because I'm the tight one in my groups!! I reuse gift bags and take all remaining teabags/toiletries from hotel rooms on checkout. When we used to go to restaurants regularly I'd never have to buy tissues, because I'd take my DP's unused tissue at the end of the meal and was building up a healthy collection in my purse!

Does the manager at work who was stealing other people's lunches from the fridges count ?
He also wouldn't put into any collections but was happy to try to get a plate of food or a slice of cake off the buffet that people earning less than half of what he did had paid for.

My FIL was so tight he squeaked when he walked. My in laws were comfortably off, he early retired on a good pension, had a holiday home in Spain and took at least two holidays a year to other parts of the world too.
Christmas: He was in charge of it all, he reused wrapping paper, cut Christmas cards up to make gift tags, bought cheap chocolates from the market that tasted odd or had a white bloom on them.
My youngest dd birthday is two days before Xmas, my eldest dd has her b/day in May. They’d each get a card with £1.00 coins taped to it. Youngest got £10.00. With “£5 for Xmas and £5 for B/day” written inside. My eldest got £5.00. For Xmas. When May came around he’d send a card, just a card, no £5 included. The first time it happened I thought it was an oversight but it kept happening. My DH had word and it stopped.
I received a cardigan one Christmas..It was quite nice on first glance, until I put it on and saw stains down the front and a paper hankie in one of the pockets. Obviously one he’s found at the back of the wardrobe. Or from a Charity shop or a Boot sale. I gave him it back and said it’s I’d complain to the shop you got it from as it looks like it’s been returned to the shop by its previous owner. He never said a word, just put into his ‘Corrie Roy” bag, had a cuppa left. They came back the following week with box of the cheap chocolates from the market.
These are just a few examples of his Scrooge like ways.

Thankfully not come across this with friends or family.

I work with elderly clients and it’s sad to see them scrimping unnecessarily. One widowed man would hang around Lidl looking for bargains. He had £300k in the bank and no kids so estate going to random charities. Just go to M&S next door you nutter.

Actually think fear of spending can be almost as bad as being a spendthrift.