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.

Wait. What?

Fucking hell that is outrageous! 😵‍💫

I'd pierce every single one and put them back 😄

Karahi or Karai Is Pakistan dish. Pretty sure I had it at a restaurant and was told karai is the dish type it is served in. It was v nice.

😂😂

We went to a kids party at my dd's friend's house and there were around 8 children there. There were two small, very cheap pizzas (the ones you can buy for about 49p) and a handful of chips for them. A plain bun with no icing was served for pudding. There was a slice of pizza and about four chips on each plate.

They are quite wealthy as a family, big house and no reason to be so stingy. The mother asked if I wanted a chip and I refused as the poor mites had so little to eat!

My Aunt was notoriously tight. My Nana was raging one year when she insisted on hosting Christmas dinner and refused any money from Nana and grandad.

i was 11. I got one wafer thin slice of turkey, two roast potatoes, eight peas, a parsnip and a carrot. Older siblings and adults got two slices of meat and three potatoes. You only got a Christmas cracker if you were over 18 and it was water only to drink.

I can still remember my Nana in the car home saying “How on earth is she too proud to take any money toward the meal, but ok with serving that up?” to my grandad.

Same aunt also once gave my sister a ruler out of a stationary set for Christmas and said “it’s from the Disney shop”

I need to add that the children were 9 years old.

Perhaps it could be excused if the children were 2 or 3!

To be fair, I empty my bathroom before guests come and leave handsoap, loo roll and shower gel, because I assume they will want to use their own stuff and don’t want mine cluttering up the space.

Not exactly as a guest but back in the 80’s when my hateful abusive father got terminal cancer I took three months off work (I was then a very poor student nurse) to look after him until he died.
I detested him but I wouldn’t leave anyone alone to cope with cancer and there was also part of me that I will admit wanted to prove I was a decent person not the worthless object he had always treated me as.
I was an only child, my mum (who had divorced him) had died many years previously but he had several brothers and a sister (my aunt and uncles) still living and who were close to him.
Not one of them offered to do any of the nursing, cooking, shopping, cleaning and my aunt even had me driving her to the hospice when he went in for two weeks during the period of his illness.
Nobody ever offered me a penny to help ( they were all very comfortable) and I could barely afford the petrol driving to and from his house two or three times a day.
But what really shocked me was that when he died my aunt said she would hold a get together after the funeral for family as she had a large house and plenty of space.
At the end of the funeral tea after I had helped her wash up she presented me with a receipt for the cost of the bread etc to make sandwiches.
It was £32.48. I have never forgotten it. I was so gobsmacked I just paid up and went home.

when we were kids we would be invited to Sunday lunch with uncle and aunt 3hrs away . She would always serve a micro lunch , one slice chicken , one boiled potato , one tablespoon of peas . You don't like roast potatoes aunt , no they take too long to cook and use too much electric . You only like peas aunt , yes they are small so cook quicker .
Funnily enough mum would always develop a shocking migraine after lunch and we would have to leave ..... to drive at breakneck speed to the closest little chef ( in those days )

This was the aunt who excelled herself at Christmas, she would buy one colouring book and one packet of felt tip colouring pens and divide them between the six nephews and nieces so if I got green yellow and brown and would have to get together with my brother and his red yellow and blue to finish a picture .

Yes, there was another course but I was the only one without a starter, the salad I’d provided the basil for.

This is awful, so sorry that you had to experience this OP. People surprise you sometimes in the worst way.

A group of uni friends and I went to an engagement party 3 hours away from where we lived of our old uni friend under the guise of 'dinner and drinks provided' and when we turned up there were some crisps, as in like, the equivalent to 3 crisps each. I judge things like this so heavily!

Oh - and there were no drinks provided either! We ended up having to shell out about 200 quid each all in to attend the party with accommodation etc as the host knew. Really poor effort.

@Pudmyboy

Not being able to split the bill in a restaurant for a large group and instead just paying for my share because it's all I could afford and I got the cheapest pasta on the menu, others had steak and champagne. Others could see that as stingy

No that's not stingy at all. That's fine I think. After my husband left me (on benefits with a SN toddler), I was invited to a "girls meal out". I accepted but knew I'd have to budget. So I was designated driver for 4 people and that meant I couldn't drink (unfortunately). I had a nice but cheap meal and water from the table jug. Everybody else was knocking back £10 cocktails and ordering endless bottles of Prosecco. Some people had 3 courses and one had an expensive beef rib. I knew exactly how much what I had cost. When the bill came and I was asked for £100 I said no. I said I'm not drinking and I've had one course. They did all give me side eye but I felt it was utterly outrageous to expect me to subsidise everybody else's alcohol and food! And then get a free ride home! Absolutely not. Old career girl me would have just paid but I wasn't in a position to do so. I have no regrets at all. So don't stress that!

I used to do a lot of am dram and was often booked as the performing monkey/hostess for fundraising events where there'd be entertainment and food that the punters paid for handsomely. At one venue there were beef open sandwiches in the buffet. A quarter of a finger roll with a sliver of wafer thin beef on it and 'garnished' with a piece of tomato. The garnish was about 1/2 cm square. Except on more than one sandwich the garnish was the hard dry core you get at the top of a tomato.

This is utterly shite. You are far too good for any of them. I would have told them to shove it up their arse though. Despicable

If I ever went to ex-MIL's with my ex partner, he would get a cooked meal, even if it was only leftovers heated from the fridge. I would get a cup of tea and a Rich Tea biscuit as I was vegetarian and therefore she 'didn't know what I ate.' 🙄

At my dads funeral. His brother and wife brought carrier bags and bagged up the cheese table.. big wheels of cheese etc with no shame.
I just let them. I was emotionally drained.
They invited me for dinner a week or so later and served me cheese quiche... then proudly announced it was the cheese from the funeral.
I was later told they took 4 bottles of wine too that were left over and i told the wait staff they could have. Im guessing that had been drank as they served me £3.99 tesco wine just called 'fruity white' and put the £15 bottle i brought for dinner away.

Need to know who the comedian was please!!

Agreed

We had some friends that we used to see quite a lot. We would generally host them more than they did us.

So we would have them over do food for the kids and if we didn't feel like cooking we'd order a takeaway and pay for it all or cook really nice home made food/BBQs etc. Also supplied endless nice wine of which they drank a lot.

They would turn up with one bottle of ribena coloured rose wine.

On being hosted at there house we would arrive to be told by the husband that they didn't have any drinks in and he and dh could nip to the shop.

DH would end up paying for all the booze! This happened 4 or 5 times.

We were the fed the most awful stingy portions of food. Just bizarre.

They weren't hard up. Just stingy

*their house

@Pudmyboy

They knew, which is why I suspect they didn't say anything. It was this friend who continually bought me flowers or wine or chocs whenever she came over and I just learnt from her. I've learnt from her and our friendship actually 💜

Things are much better now, I hosted a guest over Xmas and didn't ask him for a penny and packed him up a mini Xmas lunch with the leftovers. No need to stuff them in now 😌