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.

My step mum (no longer in contact with her or my dad) used to treat me and my brother very differently…as did my dad to be fair!

My brother used to get bigger portions at dinner etc - because boys need more food and girls can’t get fat. He always got better presents - one thing that I always remember is they got my brother a brand new England shirt and they gave me an old bracelet she’d found in a drawer. Oh, and they used to make me get out of bed early in the morning to shower as boys need more sleep than girls 🤣

they then wondered why I went no contact…surprising I know!

Invite yourself? He's your brother, surely you can ask to come to dinner?

Our host said 'I suppose you're expecting dessert,' and put half a packet of Jaffa cakes on the table (there were 5 of us). As we'd had Brussels sprout curry for the main we were actually looking forward to a dessert.

Who just turns up at someone’s house expecting to be hosted 🤣 We were invited, for dinner!

@DodoTired

*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:))))*

I agree wholeheartedly with you.

I think the food is one of the things people remember the most and "the most" if it's awful/inadequate.

Personally I think it's just bloody rude to invite people to a day and evening event where people are expected to survive on a few crappy sandwiches or similar. I do remember one wedding I went to at a posh venue where it was obvious the top table were served a very different menu to the guests. We had a pretty awful buffet (one where you knew if you were not at the start of the line the food left would be sparse) whilst they enjoyed a 3 course meal and cheese course.

Having a good wedding day is about choosing your priorities and that means being hospitable if you want your guests to have a good memory of the event and by extension your self as the host.

I had a small wedding (40 people) because I wanted a specific venue, fabulous food and free drinks. We could afford to do this for 40 people so that's how many we invited.

🤣🤣🤣🤣

A
family members house .. 1987 .. I was heavily pregnant and hubby was helping lay bricks for most of the day for their garden … a small plate of sandwiches that assumed they would save for my hubby separately.. all gone .. I was hungry too … went to KFC on way home and I was awake all night as it laid on my heavy … 😂
hubbys brother and wife this was.

I remember one friend's wedding, nearly 40 years ago, because she made much of the expensive buffet (£17 a head which was, back then, quite a lot for a wedding buffet) and there wasn't really enough food for everyone. If you had a small appetite, it was ok, but it was late afternoon by the time we ate and we were hungry!

Another friend, on the other hand, had her wedding reception somewhere far less fancy, everyone stuffed their faces, got pissed and stuffed their faces again.

I know which one was more fun.

About 11 years ago my ex boyfriends friend threw me a baby shower (joint with another pregnant friend) half way through said baby shower she started hurriedly packing away the food and cupcakes into Tupperware boxes before anyone had even finished eating as if everyone had eaten too much of her food or she wanted us to leave. The ironic part about this is she now lives in a £5 million house on one of the most exclusive gated communities in the area.

She also once served cold savoury pancakes as a special lunch for me. 🙈 - I’m quite pleased I don’t have to see her anymore 😂

Sorry, man.
At our wedding, there was no food. My wife cannot cope with long social occasions, so we said, wedding, reception at the pub and free drinks on us. But no dinner and we leave at 5pm and leave you to it.
This was harsh on my relatives coming to Scandinavia, but it meant she could enjoy the day and I have no regrets.

Invited to friend's home for my birthday tea as no gift bought (not that I expected one).
Had been told we were having a takeaway, but he went out and came back with one portion of chips we were expected to share.
I won't be getting him a birthday present or meal after that!

A mum at dd’s school invited me and other mums for drinks and nibbles.
It was actually an Arbonne sales event and the nibbles were non existent. I was so hungry (as I’d assumed I’d eat there), that I ate some pizza crusts her sons and their mates had left.

You know I love you for that. It’s so cheering reading about someone having the guts to stick up for themselves rather than furiously pay and then feel like the walking wounded. (Sadly I speak as one of the latter) Bloody well done you.

That’s unbelievable!

For me it’s not being invited back. We have people for dinner, feed them well, lots of drinks, have a great night. They then say you must come to us but with some couples it doesn’t materialise on DH’s side.

The northern branch of my in-laws are some of the tightest gnats’ chuffs you could ever wish to meet. I don’t think it’s North vs South thing.

Not hosting. We used to have an office biscuit table and we all took turns making sure it was stocked. Except my boss, who never brought anything. Turns out he was taking the biscuits home at the end of the day, full packets!
So we started hiding them in a colleagues desk. He actually asked where they were and complained there wasn’t any, and that he wasn’t sure if it was a HR matter. I wish he had gone to HR. Literally the worst person i ever knew.

Ah, we had a new couple move into our road who invited us and the other neighbours around for drinks to say hello.
It turned out to be a Forever Living sales pitch. We left early and afterwards the woman bombarded me with messages about the 'fantastic opportunity' I was missing. I actually told her to fuck off, because she would not stop. Not especially proud of that.
They moved away a couple of years later.

Plus - I'm pretty sure that the mean gets wouldn't knocking themselves out carefully choose the perfect wine to go with 2 lettuce leaves, a slice of tomato, and a bag of crisps (the latter shared among 30 people . . . )

This is the ONLY one of these stories I find acceptable! Presumably that's her only tipple - if she's not drinking anyone else's contribution and her whisky's expensive, she's being reasonable. Would be better if she'd explained herself, though.

This is as a host really. I have a cousin who isn’t British so when she comes here she always stays with relatives and even friends of relatives, she very rarely pays for a hotel ( only in extremis). Last time she came she stayed 11 days ( without letting us know at the outset it would be that long). It was a week before she even offered to do the washing up, she never once helped pay towards the shopping and when she left she gifted us….a pot of yoghurt.

I once went to babysit children I didn't know well but my mother knew the parents and had volunteered me. I always was good with children and a much asked-for sitter. I had to spend the night as the parents would only be back very late and not able to drive me home at that time. The family lived very well, big posh house. Before leaving the house the father turned down the thermostat on the heating, in winter! Once I had fed and bathed the children, read stories, and put them in bed, the heating went on nightsettings. I was so angry I turned it back up again ánd used lots of wood in the open fire as well ánd made long phonecalls with my then-boyfriend. In the morning I was expected to feed and dress the children, brush their teeth after breakfast and entertain them untill the parents were out of bed around noon. I was paid the price of a packet of cigarettes in those days (late '70s). I refused to ever go back.

Why on earth does these tight arsed invite guests if they don’t want to spend any money feeding them? I just don’t get it ! I couldn’t embarrass myself doing that ! If anything all my family & friends go overboard & there’s too much food!
DS1 is away at uni but it’s only 45 mins away so comes for Sunday dinner every couple of weeks. He’s started bringing his lovely GF who never shows up empty handed & never leaves hungry! As it should be ! Guests should bring a token & should leave happy and satisfied or what’s the point ? 🤷‍♀️

I really do not understand why you, or indeed anyone, would put up with this whether you like the people or not.

Especially this:

The last time they came they asked if a friend of our nephew (about 13 by then) could come as company for him. No problem. So we had four people for 5 days. Not once did anyone offer to help with food prep or clearing up (because they were on holiday, although SIL didn't work). We were both working about 48 hours a weeks at the time and were knackered. We went out all together twice to eat and we ended up paying for it all. They arrived without so much as a box of chocs or a bunch of garage flowers. We paid for all the food and drink consumed at home.

You have a tongue in your head, why not use it. Why not talk before the visits and set our what your expectations are?

If you let people walk all over you that is exactly what they will do.

I've had evening guests turn up with nothing, then proceed to drink as much wine and eat as many nibbles as they can. They don't get invited back!

I always think it's rude to turn up empty handed? A small box of chocs or wine is polite, if the host has provided food and drink??