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.

I remember when I was a kid being invited to a classmate's house for tea. Me, my friend, her sister and both her parents sat down to a tea consisting of one tin of chicken soup (watered down)served between all 5 of us and that was it. I was amazed, I had never seen anything like it. Oh, apart from my aunt who used to bring one square of chocolate for 4 of us kids to share ???

BBQ at a friend's house. She told me "DH always does SO MUCH FOOD so make sure you're hungry!"

There was one small Quorn hotdog, one finger roll, two cherry tomatoes and a boiled new potato (cold) per person.

I had brought wine- they put it away and brought out a jug of water.

They weren't at all short of money. I went to the chip shop on the way home.

I stopped with my uncle the night before my nan's funeral. In the morning I had a shower (I never spend more than 5-7 minutes in there) during which he kept rapping on the door and shouting that I should turn it off when I'm not actually rinsing anything, like when I'm putting the shampoo on my hair. I'd taken him out for dinner the night before to thank him for putting me up, so not like I was costing him a lot to host!

A few posts here say people went to weddings and it was expensive partly “because we bought new outfits”

do people really buy a new outfit for every wedding?! And then begrudge the couple that they have?

Cheeky bastard!

That's really sweet! Yes here it is:

INGREDIENTS. FOR 8 TO 10 PEOPLE.

One fresh chicken. Whole or in pieces. 1 to 1.5 kg.
6 cloves of garlic.
3 medium onions. Approximately 150 g.
One or two tomatoes. Approximately 100 g.
A piece of ginger. Half an inch.
A sprig of thyme. About 2 teaspoons stripped.
1 level teaspoon of turmeric.
1/2 teaspoon of salt.
1/2 teaspoon of ground pepper.

PREPARATION.

First, cut the chicken into pieces (about 14 pieces).

Then, season the pieces with 2 or 3 pinches of salt and pepper and a few thyme leaves. Mix well and let it chill while preparing the spices.

Peel the garlic cloves and onions.

Dice the tomatoes.

Slice the onions.

Prepare the "crushed mixture": crush or blend the garlic with salt, pepper, stripped thyme, and a piece of ginger.

In a pot, heat a little oil over high heat, then add the chicken pieces and fry them well.

When the chicken pieces are golden brown, add the sliced onions and turmeric. Stir for a few seconds, then add the crushed mixture. Stir and fry the spices until they take on a beautiful golden color.

Then, add the crushed tomatoes. Stir and let them melt. The tomato juice will deglaze the meat and spices.

Cover with hot water and let simmer over low heat and covered until the sauce reduces. (leave a sauce base).

As a fresher in my first term at university, I was invited to spend the weekend at the home of one of my new friends (she lived with her parents, but they were away). The plan was to watch a movie and get a pizza delivered on the Friday evening. Great!

Neither of us had finished our pizza, so at lunchtime on Saturday, my friend suggested finishing off the leftover pizza. Fine - except that she microwaved it! I now know that microwaved pizza isn't very nice. I nibbled at one more slice and declared that I was no longer hungry.

Saturday evening approached. Guess what was on the menu for dinner? Reheated pizza again! The same for lunch on Sunday. I was so glad to get back to halls on Sunday afternoon! I should have just asked for toast or cereal, but she was a new friend and I didn't want to offend her. I made other friends after that (not because of the endlessly resurrected pizza, but because we didn't have much in common, as it turned out).

My mum's (very tight) boyfriend had a party and made me pay for a bag of cashew nuts...as "they were from Booths ". This was despite the fact I'd bought expensive wine to the meal...which I didn't drink.

A French friend of mine who’s usually a generous and good host served what looked like mashed potato baked. She had recently moved in with her boyfriend and I think funds were low but I was embarrassed for her.

My DB spent a whole day sorting out a very overgrown garden for an elderly neighbour. After he had done about 4 hours work, hacking through brambles, she asked him if he would like some lunch. He gratefully accepted and, about an hour later, she called him into the cottage kitchen and proudly presented him with a cocktail sausage and two tinned carrots on a tea plate, all cold! And a glass of water.

Thank you @Marssuri. If I had eaten those delicious dishes at your house I would certainly have returned the compliment in kind.

I don't understand what goes through the minds of inhospitable people. Both my family and DH's family are hospitable and make sure that guests want for nothing.

That is shocking!

Tightness is such an unattractive quality

I went with my mum to one of her friend's houses. She offered us tea and home made scones - she said she'd made 4 of them and said she could give us one each and said she needed one for her and one for her DH and her 2 boys would have to go without - we declined as we couldn't deprive her sons. Then it was how much milk she had and whether she'd have enough for their evening cuppa if we had milk in our tea. We didn't bother having tea.
They weren't hard up by any means just very tight.

I was invited to dinner at a friend’s, there were about 8 or 9 of us. My friend’s partner had made a mozzarella and tomato salad but had forgotten to buy any basil. I lived nearby and had a lot I’d grown so I offered it if someone gave me a lift, which they did. When the starter was served, everyone had a plate except me. I hesitantly said something about not having one she told me that was bad luck but she hadn’t got any more. No effort to divide up some of the plates with my fucking basil. Someone did share their’s with me but it was really embarrassing. That was the last time I saw them.

Yes that’s very odd, but also very stingy to turn up to someone’s house with a small jar of peppers, I mean who does that. 😂

Not the point of the thread but I'm having Sausage Rougaille for dinner tonight now, it sounds delicious. Thanks OP!

Took a bottle of champagne round to a new year's party (just a few friends, not a huge bash). Never saw it again, a bottle of Tesco prosecco came out for midnight toast!
Also remember a house mate who would order a double whisky when it was somebody else's round, and get himself half a lager when it was his. He was the highest earner in the house too. Tight git!

Pils invited us to a family bbq with cousins and aunts, the whole crowd.

When we got there, we discovered they had bought 4 veggie sausages for the 4 of us -me, ExH, and 8 year old twins.

We let our kids have two sausages each and ExH and I sat there grimly eating green salad - the only other veggie thing.

Apparently they didn't have any spare bread rolls either.

At a wedding. Waitress brought me a glass of bubbly for toasting. Then saw I was pregnant, took it back without saying a word and didn’t offer me an alternative,

That actually makes me worried fir the kids. Were they starving? A lot of these examples make we wonder if people are dying inside as they can't afford to but enough food, or are out of touch with how much other people eat of they've been limiting themselves 😢

My jaw is on the floor with this thread!
More please

Went to a friend's house on the understanding I would provide the food, they would provide the venue. I provided 8 pizzas for seven people plus loads of salad. They cut up about half as much salad as I would and when I personally got there there was only half a pizza left. But I didn't complaint - although I found out that they kept one back and had it for tea the next night! I made sure to take all my salad home.

I wasn't the guest but the host, unfortunately. My then husband's girlfriend was visiting, again. If she ever brought anything it was just for the two of them. One time she was heading off elsewhere and asked to borrow a bottle of wine to take to the hosts. She was given a bottle, that I had paid for. After about another six visits she eventually brought back a much cheaper bottle of wine which she promptly opened and started to drink.

This is the woman who had been shopping with my husband and when they got back she opened the tin of spread she'd bought and scooped some out on her finger, licked it then proceeded to wipe the rest on the hand towel. She really was a skank, or should I say skunk, attempting to mark her territory.

Being invited for dinner at MILs who was making fajitas. 6 wraps between 8 people.....me and DH ended up with a quarter of one each. One table spoon of fajita mix each as she'd only used two chicken breasts and FIL plated himself up half the mixture before the rest of us had sat down.

I had to eat with a spoon and DH with the crooked fork because there wasn't enough cutlery.

Asked us to bring desserts so we brought a spread from Markys. She declared after the "feast" of a dinner she was too full and was going to keep the desserts for another day. She wasn't a bit amused when I asked DH to plate me up some.

Oh I was also pregnant at the time I brought myself some sparkling apple juice to have, instead of wine. She poured herself and sister in law a pint glass of it each and gave me water.

DH admitted she'd charged him £50 for our share

Anytime she tried to invite us back after that me and DH would burst into a fit of giggles, she soon stopped asking.

As a wedding guest where Dh was the best man, my almost 6ft 14 year old son was served a child's portion, it was so small it was laughable. The groom's son was 4 he had the same meal. FFS. We even said we would pay the extra weeks beforehand to upgrade him to an adult meal. The venue itself had adults as 12 and over.

Now before you think maybe he doesn't know how much teenage boys eat, he is a teacher in a secondary school teaching GCSE years. If you knew how small the adult portions were at the wedding with thumb sized pieces of carrot and courgette presented in an alternate pattern around 1/3 sliced chicken breast you would know as an adult I was hungry after 3 courses. Fortunately we had brought food to the hotel so managed to fill up hours before the evening buffet.

We learned to have food with us from when we went to a Michelin restaurant wedding, the guests were saying would it be wrong to lick the plate for the calories. We and others were raiding our boots for our travel snacks. Luckily we have also been to some weddings where the food was incredible.