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’d pull her up on her CF behaviour. It’s not ok.

I have a friend I've known since childhood. She has always been stingy where others are concerned but will happily treat herself. Her children and ours are similar ages and we once had a weekend away with them where she and her husband tried not to buy any food during the weekend, surviving on a picnic on day one and breakfast in the hotel on day 2. I felt so sorry for her boys, aged 8 and 10, who were obviously ravenous. In the end she bought a packet of sandwiches between the four of them. Maybe she spent all her spending money on a fairly expensive bracelet she bought for herself on day 1.

I once had a friend tell me excitedly she had 3 vouchers to get free cocktails (the vouchers were like for 2 people) to use in a club.

She used one then wouldn't use the other 2, well why mention you had 3 for us to use then? She clearly changed her mind on that which she is entitled to do but I just thought she was being tight, considering how much she went on about it.

When I learned to drive I once picked her up from her house, dropped her off at her house after having a drive out to another city and hour or so away. Didn't offer to any petrol, didn't offer to pay towards the extortionate parking. Asked me to get her a drink though when I was getting petrol but then never offered the money for the drink either.

She did it to me as well in a queue in another shop, asked if I'd get her a drink when I was waiting to pay for something else. Again never gave me the money for it, didn't bring it up because I know she'd have gone on about me being tight when I am anything but that.

These are just a few examples of her being like this, there were many more. I started to get tired of her being stingy. I ended up dropping her because everytime we met up, she would just talk about herself and bitch about her colleagues all the tine. She didn't used to be bitter but just ended up like that all time. It was draining and she never asked about me. She had no idea what was going on in my life. I'd bring it up then she would get it back to her. I do not miss her. 🤣🤣🤣

Just describing my in laws here 😆

My friend's mother regularly looked after her three kids. She was not paid, given treats or gifts for doing so. She took two buses each way to do this, probably an hour and a half each way. It would have been a trip of around half hour in the car for my friend or her husband.

OP, had a friend like that too, one of the group of 5 of us. We got to the stage we'd make her take her wallet out and buy a round despite her being happy to get free pints of us. She was the first of us by a mile to buy her property, so being tight paid off for her I guess!

My auntie made me laugh. Stuck in hospital for 5 days after a horrible operation. Being veggie and hospital food is even worse, so when she asked if I needed anything, I asked for a cheese sandwich, home made niceness, instead of hospital food.
She duly brought one but because I didn't eat it while she was there (was saving it for dinner), she took it back with her.

Does he know that he can't be buried with it?

Jesus, that's bad!!

Went to a beer festival with three friends where you paid with £5 vouchers which were split into 10 tokens. Beers cost around £2.50/£3 and the idea was if you had less than £5 left at the end e.g. 2 x 50p tokens you could leave it on the way out and it would be cashed in and donated to a local charity. If you had vouchers left worth £5 or more you could get the cash back for yourself.
One friend found a £5 voucher on the floor. It was towards the end of them serving and the other three of us wanted one last beer each. We pooled our remaining tokens and we were 50p short but the friend who had found the £5 refused to give us a token saying “no I’m cashing this in for myself”
We pointed out to her that the money wasn’t hers, we were only asking for 50p and really she should donate it all anyway. She refused, however, and chastised the rest of us for donating our leftover £2/£3 worth of tokens on the way out 😅

I have a friend like this. In so many ways she is wonderful but she is incredibly prone to keeping tabs on who eats what at a meal. This gets even worse if we are at a restaurant, so that her head is constantly rubbernecking around to see what everyone is eating and keeping track of how many drinks they order. She will pause mid conversation to listen to what someone at the other end of the table is ordering and then says things like calling down to her DH "Well you get a dessert too.`" If he says no he's fine she will say: "But x has ordered dessert and I don't need one."

I can see that, mathematically, she is correct that if the bill gets split equally they have "lost out" but it just makes the whole event so unpleasant. I have sat there parched before because I couldn't face the drama of ordering another drink ...

She's paying her way, not being stingy.

A guy I used to work with, took his girlfriend into Chester on Valentine's Day. ❤️

The next time he was in work, he was saying it wasn't great.🧐

He'd suggested a walk around the ancient walls. That's what they did but after a while he said she started to complain about walking. She was hungry and said she wanted to have lunch. He suggested they continue on.🤷‍♀️

He said he'd already told her he'd take her to a pub for an evening meal, so was not expecting her to want to eat lunch too! 🤣

The plan was to walk her around so he could say it was too late for lunch as he only wanted to buy one meal out! 🤣

I have actually done that before!

But less to be stingy and more because I always think slices of cake end up like mush in a party bag and they are usually too stuffed to eat it by the end of a party, so I have given cupcakes in cupcake boxes to take home so they at least look edible and still pretty when they get round to eating it. Also you can box them up in advance. I think the cupcakes I gave were quite nice though ... at least equivalent. I did ask if anyone wanted a slice of the big cake and they were just not interested.

You have made me wonder though, as one mum said "Oh what a pity, what will you do with the cake?" and I said it's fine we can use it again at dc's family birthday tomorrow. I thought she was feeling bad for me that it was turned down, but you have now made me wonder if she was thinking how bloody stingy!

Not a friend (far from it). But I was in foster care as a teenager. One of the families I lived with was very well off (big house in the country with land etc). However they were some of the stingiest people I've ever met..

Examples being - they bought one carton of cheap apple juice a week. That had to be shared between two of us (myself and the other person they looked after). It was the same with biscuits (1 packet of Morrisons cheapest between us) and most other treats. There explanation being that when we went into independent living "we wouldn't be able to afford nice things, because we were lazy and would be on benefits*" 🙄However they didn't know I knew about there own secret stash of chocolate and proper biscuits that I would often help myself to at night 😄
All food had to be asked for. You couldn't just help yourself to a banana etc

It was my 18th birthday. I'd asked if we could go out for bowling and a meal afterwards. They said it was too expensive. So we settled on a meal out and I chose the location. The male FC sits down, opens the menu and immediately exclaims "oh it's very expensive BountyGhost isn't it?". It was a local Beefeater not the Ritz! At the time I was too embarrassed to say anything but it spoilt what should have been a celebration.

*Fwiw they were wrong. This was years ago but I'm not on benefits. I have a job, a good life and I can afford proper biscuits!

I remember this! 😂

It was a very dark, rainy day when I moved house in the depths of winter a few years ago.

The previous occupant had taken every single lightbulb with him. 💡

They've updated, they now say they've not got their phone! We were out with one recently, and it was her turn to pay. The pub only has QR codes (you CAN order at the bar, but they make it very clear they don't like that, and take ages and your food seems to be made last). And she forgot her phone, apparently. Was fine, the rest of us just ordered for her, until her food came and she suddenly found her phone to take a picture of her meal.

A “friend” who would only paint her big toe nail when wearing peep toe shoes - to save money by not painting the rest! No joke!

Our dc don't really get more than one big carton of juice and one pack of biscuits a week.😬And they have to ask for snacks although we do have a fruit bowl they can help themselves to. But I think some of that is just being healthy ... they don't need lots of biscuits. Some weeks we don't even have them in the house!

So a group of 6 of us use to meet up regularly and after a while my friend, lets call her Penny, started suggesting this particular chain pub for its convenience and every time we went she took control of the bill at the end as we had all agreed we would split the bill 6 ways plus a 10% tip We would tot up what we owed and give her the money and rather than waiting for the waitress to come back, she would go off to the till. She'd take cards (yes I know we were too trusting with our cards) or cash with her and bring those paying by card the receipt for each payment.

On the 7th or 8th such event, Penny got a lift home with one of the ladies who was going in her direction, lets call her Mavis and an hour later Mavis rang me in a real fury. Apparently Penny gave Mavis the receipt with the bill attached to it by accident, she had written a telephone number and email address on the reverse for Penny and she obviously hadn't thought it through.

When home Mavis, realised that what she had was a revised bill and a card receipt for Pennys card. Apparently Penny had been going to the bar and telling them that she had forgotten to mention her Bluelight card and asked if it was too late to get the 25% discount. In effect she got a free meal and drink plus pocketed some money as she didn't hand over the tip either

We were frothing as she is the richest amongst us and we had chipped in for one ladies lunch on a couple of occasions as she only worked part time and her husband had walked out leaving her in a financial mess until benefits got sorted and so two of us offered to chip in for her and Penny knew this. None of us had the guts to say anything to Penny.

So next time we went Mav sits down at the table and offers to go place the order and says all innocently, hey Penny, I just had a thought, don't you have a blue light card because we can get a discount in here if you do - and she had to hand it over and we all got the discount and the bill actually came with the discount on it! She never got away with that again.

My mum used to do the same with wrapping paper - it was a wartime thing, when paper was pretty scarce so every scrap was re-used whenever possible. She also used to save all envelopes and cut them into strips for shopping lists, take the list home, cross one side out and use the other side the next time. Waste not, want not. I still feel guilty if I throw wrapping paper away, even now!

Yeah that's a total lack of self respect as well. Imagine pilfering loo paper.

Though i'm told people steal loads from Air BNBs.

I think lots of older generations did this. MY GM was wealthy but just didn't see why you wouldn't reuse wrapping paper. I think you are right about wartime mindset.

He could have brought some sandwiches and a flask of tea at least!

Brilliant! What a sneak Penny was - using your payments to get a discount.