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.

Not RTFT yet, but SF (stingy fucker) threads are my absolute favourite so thanks for this. I'm going to settle in

Why DIDN'T you just say that?

It was CHRISTMAS, though.

I was in my early 20s and went to my stepdads family for a birthday meal - a roast. There were three women, myself my mum and my stepdads sister visiting from abroad. The sister refused any help in the kitchen and then dished out the food and my mum and I were literally each given one small roast potato, one half a carrot, two runner beans, one Brussel sprout, one small thin slice of turkey breast and a tablespoon of gravy. The men were given four of everything and more meat.
They’re a really odd family so while there was food left in serving dishes my mother was very vocally chastised for reaching in to get a second potato and was told that once people had finished what was on their plate, only then could they help themselves to what was left but it was added that because my mother is a “larger lady” she “probably shouldnt join in that tradition”. That really hurt my mum and kind of stunned her into an unusual silence.

It ended like a feeding frenzy at the zoo with all the men diving in and clearing the lot. My mum had a real go at my stepdad on the way home as we stopped of for fish and chips. It wasn’t the first time my mum had met the family for a meal but they usually went out to a restaurant the family had owned. She never went back to theirs for dinner and soon after went totally NC with the sister for reasons relating to her nasty bullying of my mums weight.

I realised I missed a bit off!

As all the friends of the bride and groom were also just straight out of uni and not earning much her uncle had set up some land near the barn as a campsite so we didn't have to book hotels. They'd hired in some portaloos and made a seating area with more hay bales and a pit for a camp fire.

About 20 of us all took tents and set them up in the morning before the wedding. After the barn dance we went to the fields and sat round the campfire (still drinking ).

Next day we were invited to the farmhouse where her aunt took us to this massive farmhouse kitchen with a vast table were she catered for the farm workers and we were all served bacon/fried egg butties with massive mugs of tea to sop up our hangovers before we headed home. 'Twas hospitality at its finest!

in my twenties I did a ski season in Canada and . I shared my flat with my boyfriend and 2 other good mates. We had people come to stay in our basic but nice apartment accommodation. Once had friends of friends even come for one week. They didn’t put their hand in their pockets once and on the last night when a gang of us went for pizza I saw them pretend to put cash on the check folder thing and sneak money out so we were left short!

I was mortified and then denied it though and through. Bastards.

They said oh when you’re next in London come and see us. NOPE.

@Marssuri thank you for sharing your amazing recipe. It’s been in the slow cooker all afternoon and I can’t wait for dinner. Smells amazing 🙏

Ohhh thank you for cooking it!! Hope you enjoy it

Another time we stayed with her & BIL in a different city & they suggested we went out to dinner as there was a posh new place they wanted to try. Sounded interesting, but I was astonished at the way SIL kept ordering dishes, tasting them & saying with a laugh that she didn't like it & ordering more. It seemed odd & rude but I thought, 'Oh well, they're paying, they can do what they like'. Years later, when I was moaning to DH about SIL's meanness, I said, "Well, I suppose they did pay for that expensive meal in [city]," & DH quietly said that actually, he paid.

@ifIwerenotanandroid 😳

Why on earth did your husband pay? He should have requested separate bills !!

Sil and bil v stingy
I love them but still
Once we went to visit and they said they would provide a meal, lovely, thank you, can we bring anything? No they said, we've got it covered.
There were 4 adults, 2 10 year olds, 1 5 year old and 1 2 year old.
They bought 4 chicken breasts stuffed around 4 spoonfuls of haggis from the butchers. I had to cook it as they popped out to sort the pets, fine, I remember opening the fridge and being like wtaf?! Where's the rest of the food?! 😂 I chopped each one in half and found some frozen peas.
The pudding was a cake they'd baked and were very excited about...out it came and it was a tiny loaf tin sponge, as in a loaf tin that bakes a loaf for 2 people.

To be fair, they are wonderful people. They are also very thin...maybe they genuinely thought this was sufficient food?!

You did the right thing! How did FIL react? Was he embarrassed when you came back?

My husband's uni friends are also v stingy, I remember one holiday together where we alternated who cooked the evening meal each night. 2 x families of 5 so 6 kids, 4 adults. The first night was their turn, I kid you not they baked...2 store bought pizzas. 2 garlic breads. I thought OK, maybe they just don't realise how much we eat.
Our turn the following day, I cooked slow roasted meat stew plus veg and potatoes. They ate tons, then said "let's just have these leftovers tomorrow with pasta" instead of cooking again. So "their" meal ws 2 ladles of my stew plus some chopped tomatoes they'd brought and tons of pasta.

I wouldn't mind if they were poor but they aren't. Just very rude.

I’m only on page 7 but good grief, what is wrong with these skinflints?! Shameless.

Cup-A-Soup is a normal kids meal...
if it comes with grilled cheese sanwdich and some fruit or other pudding.

Even nursery would not offer wattery cup of soup as a meal lol

I’m always in two minds about this one. My brother lives in a one bed flat with his daughters and wife. I know he’s embarrassed inviting people for dinner because their living room is very small and no dining room.

I’ve invited them loads of times and they love coming over, but it does annoy me that he never invites me over. Yes, it’s small but he knows I don’t care about that. I also know they cook big meals at home.

So I do continue to invite them every month but I’m getting fed up of it. Do I keep inviting them for the sake of the kids?

Wtf. He is a grown man choosing to drink too much. Way to miss the point of the post.

@pootlin i would invite them over for coffee or suggest meeting at a cafe. He doesn’t have to invite you over to reciprocate, he could offer to pay for a take away at yours or suggest meeting at a cafe/resturant and him pick up the bill. Even a walk at a local beauty spot and he’ll bring coffee and sandwiches etc

Two wedding ones, DH's cousins. Aunt paid for both her sons weddings but dictated to the bride and groom what they would get. Younger cousins' food consisted of chips, small salad and chicken drumsticks, tiny portions, and wedding cake for desert. Massive venue for 50ish people and still not enough food.

His older brother got married up where they lived, and they arranged a 'big' reception for the family here. Again, Aunt paid for everything and booked a massive room for about 60ish guests, the room held 200+, and served a pie dinner in tiny portions.
DH's cousin from the other side ordered a takeaway delivered to the venue and ate it. The kid has balls, mother of groom didn't find it amusing, us however....

For our wedding in-between both of these, we served canapés after the service and loads of food for the reception, we were sending guests away with food as they were leaving. I always over cater whether I'm making it myself or ordering in.

Aunt has shown herself to be the biggest skinflint I've ever met. Another one not short of money too.

I remember when I was organising our wedding there was some advice along the lines “dont go broke on catering, noone remembers the food at a wedding ” or even that people don’t have high expectations of wedding food.

I don’t quite agree!!! Did not heed this advice. while I wouldn’t do seven course meal with posh wine, people surely will remember if the food was scarce and bad! Anyway we had a lovely caterer and nice food and canapés before and lots of booze including champagne we brought from France. Helped by the fact that we chose a BYOB no corkage venue (and also of course we could afford it, weddings are insanely expensive now but IMHO better to have a smaller wedding with decent food than gorgeous venue with no food). Venue was lovely too and relatively not expensive compared to other places…
my mum still remembers how nice the food was.

anyway.
this might be stemming from “this your day” yada yada. In my culture wedding is to entertain guests and relatives:))))

In the 1960s Black Country, 'tea' was a sit-down meal and, yes, we kids would have ours at our own homes unless invited 'for tea'. Mums would dole out jam sandwiches and the like to hungry playmates, though. (Local colour: a quick sandwich was called a piece.)

A wedding. We were told it was afternoon tea for the wedding breakfast. What was actually put out was buffet style open sandwiches, scones and cakes, and then tables were invited to go up from table one onwards. By the time table eight was called the food was running out. We were table 11 and one guest decided enough was enough and we all got up at that point. I had one open ham sandwich to eat all day (although there was more food when the evening guests arrived, by which point I was completely pissed).

Went to visit my dad once and said I'd book a hotel mon-fri for my DS and I as he lives 2.5hours from me. Tbf he lives at the seaside so I could have booked a little caravan made it fun, but anyway he insisted we stay at his with his wife and my brother and sister. So I did.

issue was I think we forgot I ate. I didn't grow up with my dad. Didn't know him at all untill I was 10 and then I've seen him twice a year since. At this time I was in my early twenties. I was comfortable to ask for food, or even a drink tbh. We're not close enough where I'd feel comfortable asking all the time or helping myself. I'd get offered tea all day long but no food. So he'd give my son a single slice of toast for breakfast which was fine for his age but my brother and sister for the same and they were like 9 and 13 at the time so I don't think it was appropriate for there age to eat the same as a 3 year old but i digress. I got offered diddly squat. I did get made dinner every night which was great but I mean for 5 days I ate 1 meal a day 😳 i don't drive and I don't know my way around his town so couldn't even go and buy anything. I never stayed again 😂 I know I could have asked, but I have anxiety and didn't want to seem rude and like I was eating all their food.

also 1 of the nights he did that thing parents do where he asked me to go with him to pick up THE pizzas... only to drive to Tesco 😂

Time to stop the breakfasts. Why do you guys bother?

Indeed, a "piece" was also a sandwich where I came from. Then I ended up at Cambridge, where there is a part of town called Christ's Pieces.
I always thought it needed a statue of big J, complete with halo, munching on an egg and onion or BLT.

Thanks, you’re right. Even when we go out, I’m expected to pay for all.

I just try and think of the bigger picture, to maintain a relationship with my nieces. But I think I will reduce the invites to every quarter.