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.

My ex mil used to keep her poppy so she didn’t have to buy another one for the next year.

This isn’t cheap so much as just plain nasty. What a horrible piece of work she is!

So minor in comparison to some on this thread, but I worked with an older man who would take little containers into work and fill them up with instant coffee and sugar from the employer-provided supplies in the work kitchen to take for use at home.

Now that I think about it, that’s probably more “theft” rather than “cheap”.

MIL asked SIL if she wanted an unwanted gift of grey gloves with fluffy cuffs (because she didn't like the cuffs) but SIL said no thanks ("I don't like fluffy cuffs either"). She did this in front of me. Guess what I got for Christmas?

Went to visit a ‘friend’ after work, travelled 30mins on train. She lived in her new flat with other friends.
She’s made me some dinner, one of those stir fry meal deals - but only the sauce, noodles, veg with some nuts on top. Carrots and houmous to start. She kept the leftovers for another meal for herself. Not what I would serve but didn’t judge, until she asked me for £3 as my contribution….
This was maybe 10yrs ago so was likely the cost of the whole meal….

We’re no longer friends, I decided we had very different values in friendship and I hate tightness.

Some of these are so awful. I'm sorry these people even exist to mix amongst us.
This one is very old... my DSis worked with complete tight wad. The worst I heard was the day he told her he picked a half penny out of a men's urinal!

Why would you invite this person anywhere? Do you not call her out on it?

All these stories about people being tight despite being wealthy: maybe that’s why they’re wealthy! I guess it all adds up over the years. I’m a generous person, but my savings account definitely shows for it!

Unlike our friends who are considerably wealthier than us but do a bring and share every year for their children’s birthday parties.

Friend I used to go out drinking with. We'd get a taxi into town and pay half each. If she ended up paying about a slightly more, say a pound, or £1.50, she'd make sure I bought the first round and would choose a pricier drink thst covered the cost of her overpaid pound. Going out for dinner if we halves, she'd make sure it was down to the penny. I don't know why she was like that as I earned less than her yet I was always generous with her and treated her on occasion. I even fostered one of her kids for 12 months and she never once even said thank you.

Working in the industry, she probably had to pay for accommodation at the venue, hen + subsiding yours/gifts, drinks, partners outfit… why should she have to pay for everyone’s breakfast too? You were the one getting married and the run up to it won’t have been cheap!

I remember these weird saucepans at my uncle's house. They were shaped so you could fit three on one ring on the oven top thus boil 3 different veg or whatever using only one ring. I don't know whether these were common at one time, never seen them anywhere else.

This actually sounds really useful
I have stacking ones for using on a camp stove, similar to that?

I had a roommate who would leave empty bottles around the kitchen forever if unchecked (and he drank a lot). We used to take his empties to the bottle deposit and spend the refund money on snacks (not UK obvs)

You're making a lot of assumptions there. Accommodation, hen party, partners outfit etc - none of them are necessary or part of every wedding.

I'm a wimp so I paid her. Didn't invite her the following year.

I don’t know whether it’s tight or just lack of generosity and laziness. We host a Xmas get together for DHs family each year. This is despite the fact that his siblings have bigger nicer houses but they refuse to have people over. None of us are wealthy so we try and share the burden of catering between us. Each year my DH asks his siblings to bring drinks and desserts. They never ever get enough. You would think they would cater according to how many people are there but they just bring enough for themselves, it’s so annoying. They also never bring alcoholic drinks (but want to drink any alcohol I have). This year I am going to refuse to get extra and just let them cope when the puddings and drinks run out.

Fair enough I probably wouldn't believe it myself until I saw it, sadly though it definitely happened.

Once baby was ready to be discharged they told us that the nurses had arranged for her to stay in hospital for a few days to make sure they were okay doing the nappies, feeding, general care etc it seemed to fly over their heads that it was quite clear they were worried they couldn't take care of the baby. Baby didnt have an additional needs it was just the basics.

I hosted a BBQ at my home and invited a bunch of people from my sports club. I was a bit annoyed after the event to find that several bottles of my very nice wine had gone missing from the rack. I just assumed I was being naive in thinking it would not be opened by the guests and chalked it up as a lesson learned. However, I was puzzled not to find any of the empty bottles when tidying up and came to the conclusion that they had just been nicked. The mystery was solved a few weeks later when I saw a Facebook post from one of the guests where my wine was sat clearly on the dining table in the photo. I travel to France a lot and have spent years building up a decent wine collection and the stuff that was pinched was Premier Cru class quality came from a very small vineyard in an obscure town in Burgundy. There was zero chance of picking this stuff up in a shop in the UK. I left a comment asking her to return what was left by the weekend and the post was deleted minutes afterwards.

I cant imagine how awful it is to be able to take your baby straight home 🌺

I volunteered for a charity recently that puts supplies like basic toiletries and snacks for parents in neonatal units - I think the assumption is they rarely leave

My disabled MIL lives in Ireland where you pay for your household rubbish by weight. She had a ‘lovely’ helper who decided to bring her own rubbish to work to dispose of in MIL’s bin. Included stuff like cat litter, so not a few bits from her bag or car. I wanted to call the police but DH’s siblings just told her they didn’t need her services anymore. MIL is not rich by any means and lives in a dilapidated old house.

Absolutely.

Fool me once - shame on you.
Fool me twice - shame on me.

No way would I let people disrespect me and my hospitality like this over and over again.

I was helping on a church fair jewellery stall with a friend ( who was very well-off!) She tried on two necklaces and said " Ooh, I love both of these! Which shall I buy? Can't choose, what shall I do?? Which one?"
I said "Maybe buy both?" They were 50p each! (She did buy both in the end!)

I used to call dh’s old aunt Queen Midas - she had plenty of money but absolutely loathed spending any of it.

One embarrassing occasion I remember was in a small wool shop - she’d bought knitting yarn (Jaeger mohair) that came to e.g. £12.20p, and this was ages ago.

She argued for ages with the sales assistant - she wanted the 20p knocked off the bill, and the poor woman kept saying it wasn’t her shop, she couldn’t give discounts.

Another time I remember her moaning about her extremely long suffering cleaning lady, who often did some shopping for her - no extra pay, of course. She’d bought the butter at shop A, instead of making a separate trip to shop B, where it was 1p cheaper!

After old Queen Midas died I was so pleased that dh and his brothers set a fairly hefty cheque to the cleaning lady, who of course had not been remembered in her will.

My ex boss was tighter than 2 coats of paint.

On one occasion he had overpaid an invoice by 8p.
They wrote to him and explained what had happened, and that they were going to donate the 8p to charity.

So far, so good…you’d think!

He wrote back, and was genuinely furious that they told him what they were going to do with his money.
So, he told them: i want the money back in stamps.
They must have thought 🙄, but they duly sent back (I opened the post), a 5p stamp, and three 1p stamps.

I put them in the stamp book…

I’ve never met anyone like him since.

The low life carer who stole my dying mother's purse.

A family member used to keep the free gifts from magazines, wrap them up and give them to their grandchild at Christmas.

Another acquaintance asked their child to take them to the hospital (that was literally 3 miles away from them) for an all day appointment (nothing serious, routine). The child lived a 30 mile round trip, had to arrange childcare and take time off work. The patient wanted to be alone all day and didn't want their child to sit with them.

Payment for the car park was offered (and accepted). Then they commented that it 'was much cheaper than a taxi'. Tight git.