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.

Or made into bubble and squeak the next day!

It was deleted sadly. The OP was the MIL and grabbed her DIL's (or the other day around?) half-eaten omelette without asking her. She kept coming back defending herself saying she had given her more chickpea curry in exchange, and that son preferred eggs over chickpeas. The whole thread was bonkers 😂

Mine is from one of my first jobs in the Civil Service in the 1980s. After 3 months I was seconded temporarily to a different section and was told to arrive a 9 am to meet the boss.

On arrival I was shown into his room where there was a wonderful aroma of freshly brewed coffee - the boss had a coffee percolator bubbling away in his room.
"would you like a coffee?" he asked.
"Oh yes please." I replied
He then rummaged in in his drawer, produced a tiny jar of of Tesco Value instant (the powder, not even the granules), pointed at the door and said "You'll find hot water at the tea station, down the stairs, on the floor below", while he poured himself a freshly brewed cup.

Oh, I would have loved to have done that but didn't want to cause a row and bit my tongue instead. I've never forgotten it, though.

We don't "carefully choose" wine to go with food

We just choose wine that we enjoy and drink most of it before we eat

And I think that that sums up this thread, inevitably it's the people with plenty who give the least generally. I taught in a socially mixed area of a city and we took classes for a week to a place in the Dales, it was the children from the better-off homes who turned their noses up at anything messy on the rota. One boy lost his spending money on day 1 so I loaned him money, being told I'd never get it back. A few days after we got back he stayed behind and gave me an envelope in which was the money and a note of apology from his mum that she hadn't been able to send it immediately. He also pulled a box of chocolates from his bag, Here, don't tell the others, they'll think I'm dead soft!

I have very generous relatives on my side, and stingy ones on my in-laws side.

My PIL have cried poverty from the moment I met them. They live very frugally but own their own nice home. I've seen them cry over not being able to afford things. As a result I encouraged my DH to be really generous with them by including them on days out, meals and holidays. I thought they were skint. Once they came to stay at Christmas and said they weren’t buying presents as the journey cost a lot, and they couldn’t afford it.

Then they bought a villa in the Mediterranean, cash.

Imho, being hard up means the choice between bread or milk, not if you can afford three weeks in Tuscany this year.

That was what I was always told too, taking wine and expecting it to be opened for the meal was a subtle criticism about quality of the host's wine! Another one was flowers are a pesky gift, the host/ess has to stop preparing the meal to sort out a vase etc., in Germany we learned always to unwrap flowers in front of the recipient and dispose of the wrapping ourselves.

not if you can afford three weeks in Tuscany this year.

They professed to be too skint to buy a cup of tea out of the house, but then “bought” a villa for a couple of hundred thousand.

If you were behaving like the people mentioned in this thread then I think some judgement is fair enough tbh.

My MIL can be very stingy with food, she always undercaters. Like previous posters she’ll provide more food for her sons, and SIL and I get whatever leftovers there are. Once we went out with the kids and she bought a muffin for the grandkids and cut it into 5 for each child. It was only £1. I would have preferred her to get them a 20p Freddo each. Her own pensioner mum has to bring her own food when she comes down to dog sit for her. The funny thing is her and FIL are very well off and FIL is very generous, often handing out cash. Her own family are not tight either. I don’t know where it comes from.

Went to a wedding once where we had no food until 8:30pm when a hog roast was served. Us guests had been there since 1pm and as it was a midweek wedding had took a day off work, some two for the day after. Everyone was queueing up for food by 8pm desperately waiting. There was no atmosphere. We weren’t even given a drink for the toast. The groom had a really good job in the city too. I just don’t understand how people expect their guests not to eat all day. One of the best weddings I went to was one done cheap in a local hall with a barbecue for food. The food was plentiful and delicious and they had plenty of wine for everybody.

My DSis and I met for lunch yesterday before she set off to stay with our other sister over Easter. I jokingly suggested she ate well, she did, because it may be the last decent meal for a few days.
My other DSis has a reputation for being very frugal with herself and guests but makes sure her DH has the major share. They will put out just enough olives for one each, a slice of bread each and butter is cut up into portions. Her DH is usually given at least 50% of whatever she serves the rest being divided between the rest of us. I suppose she is used to catering for just the two of them but I have never had anything more than a snack type meal while staying with them. Unless it is a takeaway which we usually pay for.
Typically when we take them out for a meal as a thank you for their hospitality they will pick an expensive restaurant and go for the full starter, main and pudding.
They don’t have children and grossly underestimate just how much teenagers eat. My nieces were planning a trip to the local supermarket on arrival so they don’t go hungry.

We don’t entertain frequently but if DSis visits with my nieces then they usually request the house spag Bol or similar. There is always food left over. All guests are given full access to the fridge and cupboards. I buy snacks for the younger guests since DS, a teenage waste disposal unit will always eat anything left over.

I struggle to understand why DSis is so frugal, no lack of funds, since my DM was a very generous host.
I can only think that DBIL, being an only child, never learnt to share. And not being parents has meant that they have never had to cater for a bigger household.
They also switch the wifi off when the kids are staying so they don’t sit on their phones all the time. But I think it’s really to penny pinch, they probably have a low cost contract that limits data use.

My ex used to always bring beer/cider/whatever to his friends houses as a "gift" to the host. "I've brought x!" he would announce, but then proceed to drink it all himself and not offer any to anyone else. I always found this exceptionally rude and stingey. Once he finished what he brought, he would then drink the hosts booze.

Did you stop the Tuesday night meals?

My ex sil! She lived around a two hour drive from me and ex husband. One year, shortly before Christmas she decided to invite herself over for a few days. It was shortly before pay day, we had not long had ds and we were really skint so tried to put her off until the next week. She was having none of it! Said it would be fine and she wouldn’t expect us to ‘host’ her or pay for her meals. Begrudgingly agreed.

First night she insisted on takeaway promising she’d pay her share. We really couldn’t afford it so me and ex ordered one main to share and a rice to share. No sides, no popadoms. Just the cheapest meal on the menu. Our usual takeaway which did large portions were closed but we assumed the portions would be decent anyway.
Sil couldn’t work out what she wanted so ordered two mains, rice, a couple of sides… the works basically with the plan of eating anything left over for dinner the next day.

Food turns up and so I ask sil for her share of the costs… of course she has no cash on her! ‘She must have spent it on the way and not realised… oooh aren’t i so dipsy’. I then have to pay for her food and I’m a pound or two short. The ex starts hunting down the back of sofas and going through drawers trying to find the shortfall. I was really upset, the change was what I was going to use to pay for milk in the morning. Anyway eventually we manage to find the extra £1.20 and mortifyingly pay the man.

To add insult to injury I notice that the portions are a fair bit smaller than any takeaway I’ve ever had before and it was going to be quite a slim dinner for me and ex that night. Sil can see this, swoops in announcing she likes the look of what we’ve ordered and says she’s trying some. Pours about a quarter of the container on her plate and then proceeds to sit there with her bountiful feast while me and ex husband have the amount you’d feed a 7 year old.

Ex husband asks if he can try some of hers and gets a firm ‘no, I’m saving the left overs for my lunch tomorrow’.

I was livid. I never pandered to sil again after that. We eventually fell out over her trying to effectively steal our laptop but that’s another story!

My stepmother always used to undercater
for my teenage sons. But it was just lack of awareness rather than stinginess. Finally I realised that I should feed them before we went, on the very visit that she had clocked how much they ate and produced a huge amount of food. To their credit they did eat it all but were pretty uncomfortable on the ride home and they still tease me about it now!

Hosted a birthday party for a close family member's child. I provided all food, drink, the birthday cake, toys, ballons etc. Prepared it all myself. Parent turned up wearing a hoodie which was kept up all meal to hide a horrific hangover. Complained about the food, as apparently there was insufficient tuna and sweetcorn. Cut me out of the conversation by talking only to one other person about Love Island which I have never watched. Oh and arrived empty handed.

Then tried to start an argument with me because one of my dogs had once growled at her youngest two years previously and which was out of character.I did not rise to the bait by pointing out he was shut away. It ended on a happy note though when her older son started a fight with another family member and he kicked me hard when I tried to separate them. Happy days indeed.

Actually by etiquette you are NOT required to immediately serve the wine that guests brought you as a hostess gift (because it is indeed a gift to the hostess, unless you specifically asked them to bring wine for the meal). You may have had your own wines selected to be paired with food better than what guests would bring. So don’t worry about that.

However if you are unsure of wines feel free to serve what your guests bring:) I am not sure how good wines in Lidl are, but there are apps which show wine ratings etc.

(I didn’t grow up with this knowledge either, but google a lot all these etiquette topics and read up on that)

I'm livid just reading this

Oh bless them!!

I think it was Chic Murray ‐ a very funny man with a dry sense of humour.

Would you consider sharing the laptop story? 👀

Perhaps they didn't want to risk the awkward scenario that might follow. What if he'd said 'No worries- I'll just wait here until you get back.' Possible response if he was thick-skinned, or the type who wasn't going to be thrown off his plan. Maybe they couldn't be sure he wouldn't take the opportunity to have a good nosy around in the meantime and their teen daughter was hiding upstairs.

Re the unopened wine, we wouldn’t open a bottle that a guest brought to a meal as we would already have (lots of) wine already in to complement the meal.
Nor would I ever expect a host to open a bottle I’d brought. It’s a gift for them, to use when they want.

The rest is bonkers though!