As a guest, what's the stingiest thing you've ever experienced?

[Marssuri]

Just that!
I'll start

I invited friends for dinner at mine. I made traditional dishes from where I'm from, sausage rougail, chicken cari and dessert.

A few days later they text me telling me to come to theirs for some food at dinner time.

I show up and bring a small jar of chilli peppers. One of the people who invited me goes "is that all you're going to eat?". I was confused and asked what they meant. They replied "It's everyone brings their own food."
I told them I thought they had invited me for dinner and they go "yes, we invited you to come to the house for dinner!".
They saw my face and said "don't worry, we can share some food with you!" before cutting a couple of raw carrots, aubergines, cherry tomatoes with some white sauce and putting them in the middle of the table.
They then served each other the meal they had made for themselves and digged in.

Note from MNHQ - we've had lots of nominations for this thread to be moved over to Mumsnet Classics and, as we're very generous hosts, we've done exactly this.

We always pay to take MIL and her partner to breakfast. They order tons of food and coffees and we foot the bill (not my idea of a great time btw but that’s another story).

MIL never offers us any refreshments if we end up going by her place afterwards. Not an even a glass of water. Meanwhile when she visits us I’m forever almost drowning her and any other guests in many different types of refreshments all visit long.

Find it weird how stingy MIL is with offerings.

Is this reminding anyone else of a recent thread where the OP swiped half the food off one of her guests' plate to give to her adult DS? The son had finished his and was still hungry, so she just decided this older guest shouldn't need the rest of their dinner and took it away without comment. She absolutely refused to understand why the others were peeved.

When I reconnected with my df as a teen I used to go to his flat after school 1 night a week. He bought me a pasty.. His dw refused to let me have a plate or even a drink.. Took my years to realise df accepted her treating me like that. Haven't seen him for 25 years. Bet he wonders why.

oh goodness yes, and the son was peeved because he shouldn't be expected to eat food off someone else's plate!

I went over to a friend’s house shortly after she bought it and she wasn’t home, despite us planning to meet. I waited half an hour as she wasn’t answering her phone, and she then text to say she’s at the cinema. Never apologised for bailing.

I popped round the following week with gifts and she and her husband sat and had dinner right in front of me without once offering me any.

I think you definitely win the thread! However why didn't your dad say to her I think you gave us the wrong thing because all we've got is old squeezed oranges. How could she possibly have thought that was a picnic?

Oh this is so cathartic

Went to visit friends who had built a huge mansion in Surrey. Only marginally smaller than Buckingham palace. Brought a nice bottle of champagne. They put the champers away and only served water throughout lunch. Starters were supermarket deli items still in plastic wrappers. Their kitchen is larger than most houses 🤷🏼‍♀️ I can’t remember the rest of the meal but it was in the same style.

These are extremely wealthy people btw. Not just living on credit - I know for a fact they are part of the 0.01%.

Many years ago, one of the managers in my old workplace invited the entire team over his place for a BBQ. Sumptuous steaks were served...but only to the senior management team. The rest of us were left to make do with a pack of supermarket own-brand burgers, which we were expected to cook ourselves. Said manager then demanded we fetch him drinks all night while his wife gassed about her new part-time job, referring to the income as 'pin money'. As county council employees, our salaries transparent, she must have known that several team members had raised families on far less than the income she was belittling.

We were at a family wedding to be held at a hotel and were staying there the night before the wedding.

Partner and I planned to go out to have a look around the local area and then for dinner, but the bride's family said arrangements had been made for all guests to attend an eve of wedding buffet style dinner in a room they had booked and insisted we attend, as it had all been booked. Obviously not wanting to be rude, we attended. It wasn't really that nice and not what I would have chosen to eat, quite disappointing really.

On check out at reception the day following the wedding, we were given the bill for our attendance at the pre-wedding day dinner. It wasn't cheap either.

Not something I have either done or have come across before or after.

A while ago I was working away and stayed for a couple of nights in an air and b. The homeowner was quite elderly. She left early in the morning to run an errand but had told me the day before that she would leave breakfast for me which was sweet and unexpected. When I went into the kitchen there was, on the table, a packet of teacakes with a reduced sticker on them and a peach, one side of which was mouldy. I went to Costa.

Because we knew of her basic kindness overlaid by eccentricity and stingyness and how upset she would have been if we had been "rude" about her picnic
We did debate pulling out the flesh and returning the empty peels "for marmalade" ....

Didn’t she take it off her DIL to give to her son?

All of the family would come to our house for Christmas when I was younger. My DM catered for hundreds, everything you could ever want was there. She worked really hard all over the holiday. One side of the family always brought drink and extra gifts for her, and my grandfather would wash up for hours, the other side brought nothing. It used to really get to her. They used to ask what they should bring and she usually just said to bring a bottle. It never happened, or so we thought. One year my dad had been given a camcorder and for some reason he had filmed everyone piling into the house, and there as bold as brass was my uncle walking in with a bottle…..of milk!

When they were moving my mum had gone over to clean the house so that they could leave it spotless. My uncle mentioned going to get some lunch, my mum said she hadn’t brought her purse, genuinely, thought she was going over to clean. Everyone else sat down to fish and chips, while she hoovered the stairs!

Christmas got a lot smaller after that!

@Marssuri I’m going to try that chicken Cari recipe OP, thank you!

I'm cringing reading these! I'm at a loss at how people can BE like this?

I can't really match these experiences, but I do recall going to a friend's house for lunch, and her DH had prepared a Spanish tortilla to share, with all of about 3 eggs (there were 7 of us). It was excellent, save that we all only had a very, very small slice each, with a tiny salad. We were offered a slice of toast, if we were still hungry, but just the one, as the DH needed the bread for lunch the next day.

These are professional, high-earning food lovers. Bizarre.

Myself and a few work colleagues went out one lunchtime for a quick bite to eat. We all had burgers and a soft drink.

When we got the bill at the end, one colleague argued that her meal was 10p less than everyone else's, so she wouldn't be paying the same as everyone else. She also refused to contribute towards the tip. Not worse off than anyone else in the group.

Was the slice of toast also to be shared by 7 🤭

I just remembered something when reading a similar post! My older sister had a baby and I went to see her, my BIL said when I got there “come with me as I need to go and get a few bits”. we went to Mothercare and he hinted he wanted me to buy the baby few bits n pieces (think baby monitor etc. so not cheap!) I pretended not to understand his hints. I was so angry for days after. They also think as we live in London we must be loaded.

@Cherrysoup didn't think you were being mean at all.

this thread has reminded me of a family member who will remain nameless. dd and i were staying and took her, her husband and 2 DC for dinner and paid everything. next day we got a bowl of cereal fir breakfast and at lunch she suggested a picnic for me, DD and her yougest DS .. half way through making sandwiches she suddenly said "I'm just doing food for my DS and me you will be alright buying something when we get there won't you " "There" turned out to be an isolated beach at bottom of a cliff with no cafe or shop for miles. me and dd watched her and her DS eat a huge picnic and we weren't offered a crumb!! dd was 7.. she's now 18 and we've never gone back to that house despite plenty of invitations .. they regularly refer to the lovely meal we had and the brilliant picnic on the beach ..

Someone I know used to turn up to a regular breakfast meet up but eat only leftover toast from other people's plates.
Same person - I was leaving the kitchen at work with a birthday gift someone had given me of a large chocolate bar. I'd bought treats too and left them in there for everyone to share. He stopped me leaving, then took half the chocolate bar I was holding. Out of my hand.

One of the most surprising was Fil coming over to stay with us en route to see his brother the following day.

He 'gifted' us a tomato and a broccoli that he had in the fridge, he didn't want it to go to waste.

Whilst he was here, he plugged in a cool box.

When he had gone to bed I asked DH what was in the cool box. Out of curiosity, we opened it up. Tons of nice cheese and fancy smoked fish, no doubt for his brother for the next visit.

Incredible

Oh not sure about that! There is a group of 8 who worked abroad years ago but are now scattered around the country and we occasionally meet up at someone's house and stay a night or two. It works well most of the time but once we were invited to a 60th birthday celebration, when we arrived we were told that they had had a few celebrations with other groups during the week and there was so much food left that they didn't want to waste so we had half eaten quiches, limp salads, old sandwiches etc etc. In the morning there was a slice of toast and coffee, as we were driving home we were messaging each other 'Who's found the nearest MacDonalds?!'

This! We lived overseas and every time we visited the in-laws in the uk there was nothing in the bathroom - my mum would remember what type of shampoo and shower gel we liked and would make sure she had that in for us in our bathroom - so odd - but I do the same now for them when they visit! And the in laws get an empty bathroom!

We went to stay at my MIL for New Year’s Eve. SIL and her family who lived nearby were also staying. Arrived early afternoon after a 2 hour drive. Dinner was prepared at 6:30 - a single slice of toast with beans. Then SIL and her older children and MIL disappeared out to a New Year’s Eve party and left us to babysit their youngest!

I was 6 months pregnant and Was visiting a friend. Stayed two days and a night and all she fed me was food from freezer (it looked grim, no idea how old it was!) . No wonder I got upset stomach and had to be admitted to the hospital for treatment 🤦🏻‍♀️ never been to their place again, it's been 2 years now!