What’s the stingiest thing you’ve ever seen a friend do?

[zappp]

I have an (ex-)friend who is very stingy. She earns plenty and is happy to splurge on herself and show off, but when it comes to others, she is mean with money to the point where I’ve felt really taken advantage of on multiple occasions. It’s almost like it’s a game for her; seeing how little she can pay and how much she can extract from others.

The friendship fizzled out when I started calling her out on it and stopped covering her costs (I previously didn’t want to make things awkward, especially in a group setting, but it got to a point where I was too pissed off to keep being polite).

Against my better judgment, I recently attended a group dinner that she was also part of - a mutual friend was in town and this was the only time we could see her. In the WhatsApp planning group, she’d enthusiastically agreed to the restaurant choice - it was definitely a nicer place, but not extravagant.

When she got there, she claimed she wasn’t hungry and didn’t order any food, only to ask the waiter for an empty plate and help herself - rather generously - from everyone else’s food!!! She also asked for a glass for the wine we’d already ordered, which would’ve been fine, except guess how much she chipped in to the bill…? Exactly, zero.

It was also a bit embarrassing towards the restaurant; it’s hard to get a reservation and the group was small enough that it was strange for one person not to be eating at peak dinner time, especially as we were seated at a big table.

This time I didn’t even bother calling her out - it was so brazen that she basically called herself out.

I know you never truly know someone else’s financial situation, but she’s certainly spending enough on clothes, holidays, and skincare to make me think she could afford a plate of pasta and glass of wine…

Anyway, rant over, I want to hear other stingy stories!

I work for accountants. They fit the awful stereotype to a tee (I know not are all like this). It's their business so see any tiny cost as coming out of their pocket.

I've been hauled over the coals for printing a page in colour accidentally. They look into your office as they walk past to make sure you're working and not chatting. There was a full blown mutiny after being told we had to skip our paid break, use our lunch break & make up any extra time to attend a forced fun lunch in the boardroom to watch a stupid horse race. Lunch was paid for by the chocolates & drinks they sell in the kitchen, but they took credit for the 'event'. Payrises are minimal. Last year they patted themselves on the back for the tiny payrise they gave me, quoting I got a x% payrise, more than anyone else. I knew it was minimum legally as if jumped from probation. I'd worked my butt off, too. (I no longer do that. I'll be leaving once DD starts high school & will just use the flexibility the offer for now).

It's insane, especially when primary bosses wife barely turns up, takes full pay & brags about their average £50,000, 4 week holiday they take every Christmas.

My friend from school was pretty tight. She's got great budgeting skills (much better than mine), but literally would spend 60p on a soda and lime when we went out clubbing 20 odd years ago. She'd never shop for new clothes much apart from charity shops, which there's nothing wrong with per se, but the way she went on about it made me feel inadequate at how I spent £15 on a new pair of jeans from Top Shop or something.😕😖

It was very admirable that she was so financially aware and good at budgeting, but because she literally spent half the time pondering the cost of a bag of value pasta, I'd not dare mention that I'd treated myself to an extra chocolate cake that week.😅

Our local garden centre has a sign up telling people not to break bits off plants to sneak home and propagate from cuttings. Their sign reads:

Proplifting is Shoplifting

Good on them.

I'm very short sighted and have dim eyes so need brighter light to see clearly. DDad didn't believe this and would turn off the lights in the house and tell me I could sit by the window if I wanted to read until it was dusk. DM arrived back earlier from work one day and asked why on earth I was sitting in the dark. She was not much impressed when I told her and after that I was grudgingly allowed one light 😂

In fairness to DD, he still does the same when he comes to my house - complaining if there's more than one light on, and switching them off to "help" his visually impaired daughter. God forbid I have lights on in two rooms at once!

My brother is like this, I feel sorry for SIL. He has a very good job but their house is always freezing, he sets her a strict budget for the food shop and her expenses but will spend obscene amounts of money on his motorbikes. I ended up giving him an engagement ring I inherited to give to SIL as he was too tight to buy one she’d like and I felt bad for her. They had a registry office wedding again because he didn’t want to spend much. He still goes to our parents house and plugs in his phone to charge, raids their cupboards, and goes for a number two so he’s using their toilet roll not his own! He nicked an air freshener from their bathroom recently. He will only spend money on things he wants, everything else he begrudges every penny.

See I don't think this is stingy, just sensible! You're not taking from anyone else.

The spa day was £120 which I had paid for she didn’t offer a bean just 3 quid towards parking . What don’t you get lol

Crikey this is really nice of you! Never had a friend babysit for me and it's so pricey it's not something I ever use, so you are giving a very generous gift there!

These people sound awful!! I'd be so mortified to actually like that!

Yes my mother always recycled everything. Nothing was thrown away in the war. As a youngster I used to roll my eyes when she was carefully smoothing out paper to re-use but I do these things myself now 😆 the younger generations could learn a lot of from the wartime generation way of doing things!!

went for a meal with a group of friends from many years ago. I saw one of the group pocketing the tip that we had all
left in a restaurant!

An old boss of mine was tighter than 2 coats of paint.
He once overpaid a bill by 6p. They wrote to him to tell him and that they would donate the money to charity.
He (genuinely pissed off), wrote back and said ’how dare you tell me what you’re going to do with my money? You’ll send it back to me in stamps.

I used to open the post, and sure enough, a couple of days later, they sent a letter and enclosed a 5p stamp, and a 1p stamp.

That’s what he was like…a millionaire several times over, of course.
He paid cash for his enormous house in Hampstead.

This isn’t stingy - they’re buying a present that will be exactly the same standard whether they buy reduced or full price. Stingy would be not buying a present at all.

We once rented a house from a friend. They were elsewhere for the year.
Towards the end of the year, they asked if they could move all their furniture and belongings a month before our lease was up. They knew that this was inconvenient to us (it was a small house, and we were using all the bedrooms, and had all our own furniture as we rented it empty) so they offered to pay the same cost as a storage unit.
When the time came to pay, they gave us $1 as the local storage place had a "get the first month for a dollar" offer at the time.
When we moved out, we scrubbed that place clean. It was immaculate. It was also far far cleaner than when we moved in. There was also a downstairs apartment, who were also moving out.
The downstairs apartment and ours were linked by three stairs. In moving out, neither us or the downstairs apartment swept the stairs. They wouldn't have been terribly dusty, as I had cleaned them the week before.
First, the landlords rang to thank us for leaving the house so beautifully clean. Then, 30 minutes later, she texted to say that they had noted that the stairs weren't swept and were charging us $400 for the additional cleaning.
I offered to go over there and sweep them. It would have taken two minutes. They said no.
We paid the $400 and never spoke to them again. Horrible people.

Around twenty five years ago a friend of mine charged a friend of hers £35 to wash his net curtains. I was so gobsmacked when I heard that. It was a one off, don't we do the odd favour for friends? He often did for her.

I'll always remember my friend offering me a lift home then asking me for the bus money I would have spent. She was loaded. I'd given her lifts plenty of times, wouldnt occur to me to ask for money - we are talking 20 minutes or so

One of my friends once came to stay for the weekend (I was cooking the meals and generally hosting) and brought me a bottle of beer, instead of a bottle of wine!

What's the actual point of owning a tumble dryer if you never use it? It's just an expensive cupboard. Poor kid having to live there though.

Hope you told her no.

He has at least two mil in liquid cash in the bank

They bought an expensive house in the early 80's for peanuts-i think they paid 9k and its worth 550k now (googled that once as i was feeling nosey)

They have investments,shares and god knows what else

I know they pay top tax on their pensions

And they refused to buy their grandchildren an ice cream

It's their money at the end of the day

@zappp

Apparently this trick is well known, they are known as "minesweepers"
I think if someone can not afford a night out they should stay at home,but you mentioned your friend will spend on her appearance, (as a CF!)

Um… I would call this thrifty, not stingy!

Once I hosted a friend and her sister for a weekend when I lived in a popular tourist city. I cooked an evening meal, provided breakfast etc. We were in a bar one evening and they both ordered a glass of wine. I ordered a soda water. The sister went to the bar and paid for the wine and not the soda water… and my friend said nothing about it.

Another friend, another stint as hostess, this time for a week while she was flat hunting. I did most of the cooking for the week, shared breakfast supplies etc and she said she would make a nice meal on the Friday evening. We went to the supermarket together for her to pick up the ingredients she needed. She went through her list asking me if I had any of the items in the fridge or freezer already: chicken, cream, various vegetables, something for dessert … I said hmm, no, I think we’ll need to pick all that up now. I also put a loaf of bread in the trolley. At the till she loaded the belt, put down a divider and put my loaf of bread on the other side of the divider for me to pay separately.

Soda water is usually free?

Soda water and cordial, cost me 70p!

I once shared a house with someone who took the (old) clothes pegs off the line when she moved on. They weren’t even hers, they were there when we moved in.