Cheapest thing a person has ever done

[Unorganisedchaos2]

Inspired by the children's birthday party thread, Im sure this has been done so many times but humor me as Im stuck at home with a poorly DD...

Our family once knew a couple who were convinced that the baby they were due to have shouldn't cost them any more than the family allowance and a grant I believe you used to get in the early 2000's. Some of the things they did:

• Commented that it had worked out well that the baby was born 2 months prem as they had been able to claim family allowance but he hadn't cost them anything yet as the hospital were providing nappies, milk etc.
• Refused to visit the baby until the hospital had issued a free parking pass then only visited 3 times a week because they were tired and as it was a 30 minute it was already costing a lot in petrol.
• Did a separate food shop for him of all supermarket own brand food and £1 meals, she actually had "his money" in one of those money bags the bank used and made the checkout person run it through as two separate shops.
• Spent hours in charity shops buying up the next few years with of clothes for him, at his second birthday they were asking us to buy clothes for 7-8 year old.
• Asked my mum to register as a childminder so they could claim childcare but expected my mum to do it for free (not honestly sure how that was ever going to work out)
• Not child related but he refused to drive above 50 MPH because he believed it was uneconomical, even if he was late for work or holding up a queue of traffic.

She just laughed

It was maybe my 3rd/4th shift and I remember her walking past looking confused at where half her shopping was

As soon as they said 'oh,D took it' she just laughed and said she'd walk back to the shop and re-buy it

He was a nasty bully and would corner the younger girls (most of them,this was their first job so they felt they couldn't rock the boat/where not sure of their rights)

Until one spoke out and the floodgates opened-he ended up with the sack ('I've handed in my notice' bollocks he did)

He was a nasty,greedy,selfish pervert and I'm sure she was scared of him so didnt kick up a fuss

She was on about 20k a year compared to his 150k

Nasty bastard! I hope he is having a miserable life.

I used to work in a very large office, with staff on several floors. Each floor had a very small break area and there was a bowl of fruit for staff provided in each one, replenished daily. There was not enough for one piece of fruit for every person every day, but it was generally just about enough for those who wanted it. It worked well for years, and was appreciated on those occasions where you were peckish and didn't want to reach for biscuits etc. Suddenly, the bowls started to be empty for several days each week and, since it was every floor, everyone thought management were cost cutting. There were many e-mails of complaint to the office manager, who maintained that nothing had changed, and even a staff meeting called to deal with the gossip that started about why cuts were being made and denied.
Eventually it was discovered that a new member of staff who reported in to me had been emptying all the bowls on days when he arrived very early and keeping it for his own consumption. I had to speak to him about it, and he really couldn't see why it was not acceptable. His view was that he'd been told that it was for staff so it was clearly 'first come - first served' and there was no sign to say there was a limit. Apparently he had been keeping the fruit he took on his 2 early days in a bag under his desk, then eating it for lunch and snacks for the rest of the week. Even spread over a week it was a huge amount of fruit for one person. After that, there was a sign put on each bowl saying 'no more than one piece per person per day'- which probably looked unnecessary and petty to any new staff or visitors!

I think the cheapness is by keeping it 30+ years.
We reused children's clothes for younger children and donated (and accepted) clothes to relatives, and donated to charity shops.
So reusable items do get reused.
It's just saving them for 30 years for your own use I see as tight.

Just remembered another one

I was about 14 and my mother handed me a glass jar that she'd filled with rice and hot water (to clean it-she'd read this tip somewhere)

Anyway,I shook it and it shattered in my hand

Boiling hot water hit my gential area and thighs,burning all the skin and hair off (I had been wearing a pair of shorts,so had nothing to protect me)

She refused to take me to the doctor (much closer than the hospital) in her car as she didnt want to waste petrol-it was a minute drive away

I managed to get there under my own steam (i must have looked like i was doing my best impression of a crab as i staggered down the road) and had to go back everyday for about 3 weeks to have the burn redressed

She not only refused to take me during the week due to petrol,but took the dressings the nurse gave me for when they where shut at the weekends (I think she sold them) and tried to charge me for the broken jar!

Thankfully the hair grew back but much thinner than before and it's not too bad on the scarring too this day 30+ years on
(Dp swears hes never noticed)

It's a mystery to her why I went nc!

I can tell you a lot more about the disgusting stuff if you want me to. Including the picture of the dog the butcher used to draw on the sign so it was pretty clear it was for animals, the odd grey colour, how it used to be on its own tray in the top left hand side of thr butcher's cabinet, how the butcher used to put sawdust on the floor of the shop, how there used to be a chain mail curtain on the shop doorway or if it wasn't going to totally out me the name and address of the butcher's.

If that isnt enough, how about how it used to be served to us. Can't remember what it was served with but as bastard father used to think rice and pasta were 'exotic' foods that were spoiled on us kids/kids dont need fancy foods/he wasnt going to spend money like that on <insert racist slur> foods it was probably something like packet mash. It used to be boiled in a pan with occasionally a few gravy granules sprinkled for 'flavour' and served swimming in the grey, fatty water. I can still taste the nasty grittiness of it now. He used to get foodbank parcels for us and Tyne brand minced meat was a perennial in them. So he used to keep the cans and tell us the revolting concoction was 'tyne brand'.

This was in the 90's

Has that satisfied your curiosity enough?

> She recycles wrapping paper.

I have no problem with that.

Who said they were still good?
Think brown cords with lines on the ankles because the hem had been sewed up 40 years ago then let down as mum friend grew taller.

They're not steamers. They're described accurately somewhere upthread and there's a photo of mmm

The vase thing on my parents grave keeps going walkabout. It's the only "silver" one in that section of the cemetery so we can always find it (and we are sure because we put some hidden marks on it) and just steal it back. We do leave them their flowers though.

It's hardly 30 years though. The gap between the youngest of us getting out of the clothes and the oldest of us having children was only 10-12 years, but is that too tight? Is 9 ok? 13 too many? Such an arbitrary judgment.

Either things are worth keeping because they are beloved, high-quality and reusable, or they're not. It's not clingfilm. It's clothing.

I used to work near Smithfields market in London while it was still in operation, it was the below standard meat that was set aside for animals - it was dyed blue, presumably to stop it being sold for human consumption. If you opened some really cheap dog food tins, there was often a blue tint to the contents!

Yes, thanks, but why so spikey?

This isn't cheap it's downright abusive. I'm sorry.

Lids and vases go walkabout in the Garden of Remembrance where my parent's and DH's ashes are.

I took the advice of the girls in the crem office and used sealant to attach the lids to the vases and wrapped rubber bands around the vases so that there's a bit of resistance when they're pulled out of the granite holders.

I've also used marker pen to inscribe the plot numbers and names on the bottom, in both 'normal' writing and in Cyrillic. Stuff has still walked, however.

I order Christmas grave pots each year - plastic pots weighted down with gravel and Christmas arrangements inside - and they've walked as well, in spite of the names being on the bottom. I suspect that the thieves have just covered up the marker.

He really was a prize prick. Oh so generous if someone he wanted to impress was present but an utter cunt in reality.

He is his mother's son. On about the second time I met her she sat and smugly told all at the table that she would be inheriting her cousin's entire estate when he died (despite the fact she had two siblings) and he was terribly rich with his town house and the fact he had been a dentist. I thought it a bit uncouth at the time but didn't give it any more thought until my then husband and his sister were left £1,500 in the cousin's will and the rest went to a cat home, or something along those lines. His mother and other sister got nothing. Listening to his mother, wailing down the phone "What about meeeeeeeeee?" was quite the experience. I wouldn't have believed someone could be so shameless if I hadn't heard her with my own ears.

I knew a very well off older couple who would take sugar / salt/ pepper sachets from cafes / bars home.

My aunt who is very rich use to often give us regifts or free samples she had received. The worst was a Clinique lipstick that she must have forgotten she had used!

Wow, pity the poor cleaners who had to deal with the men's toilets on his floor!

What do you mean it's only 10-12 years?
I'm talking about my friend who kept her childhood nappies from 1975 until 2005 for her first child, so exactly 30 years.
And her clothes she kept w, I guess, she was dressing her 5 year olds in tatty clothes (not better made than now) from 1980, so also 30 years.
Her kids looked like orphans.

Like a lot of people I reuse gift bags plus we also reuse the gift tags. Wrapping presents is a real challenge trying to find a gift tag that sort of matches the colour/design of paper that is bought later plus then matching to a person. I have said we'll stop doing it but the DD's love a challenge. I often end up wrapping presents from one person to another and I don't have piles wrapped waiting for tags to be written. It started out as a "save the planet" more than a thrifty thing but it's a bit of a tradition now

As many people do I make gift tags out of old Christmas cards - I have an old die cutting machine and I can cut gift tag shapes. I spend a lot of Christmas eying up the cards we receive to see if anything is suitable, it's fun

But I have digressed from the thread

I finally got to the end of this thread after a couple of days reading and I genuinely can't believe how many of these have nothing to do with being tight and are just blatant stealing and thievery.

100%!

My mother steals salt,sugar,pepper,sweeteners,milk,knives,forks,spoons,napkins and any sauce packets

(and toilet rolls/nappies from the loos-im not sure if tesco still do nappies,so if they dont,its because of her)

Shes been known to pick up the tubs and tip them into her handbag

You can imagine how mental I went when I found she'd been training my then young children to do it for her

Oh,and shes now banned from the local morrisons cafe

Absolutely. If it makes you so happy to walk three miles to save £1 for parking, or you gleefully water down your milk to get twice as much, that's all fine and good if you do without in order to avoid paying for them.

But to expect to still have all of those things exactly the same but to force/coerce somebody else into paying for them for you, or to lie to the shop/supplier in order to gain something free deceitfully - that is indeed pure thievery.