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!

When I was in my 20s, there was a Frito of is lived in neighbouring apartment blocks. Around once a week we’d pile into someone’s flat and have a takeaway. One of the girls would never order herself any food, always said she was skint, and she’d eaten before. I’m sure you can see where this is going… she would always hoover up it leftovers. Often us notice she would actually end you eating more than the rest of us, but the time she’d picked at all our food! It used to wind me up so us wasn’t long before I’d keep my leftovers close by, and when she’d start going in the prowl, I’d say “sorry girl, I’m saving mine for my lunch tomorrow!” But she still ate everyone else’s, and it really irked me!

Am very much struggling to see why a) that's stingy or b) that's a problem.

I’m cringing just reading that.

“your treat?”

I’ve never said that in my life.

the brass neck on some people is unbelievable.

2 second rule applies - surely??

my SIL and her hubby once served up bacon baps with one rasher in each, as they’d ‘miscalculated’ In fact, I think one just had spread (probably mine to not make a fuss!) alongside soup which the hubby admitted was ‘a few different soups that were in the freezer, mixed up and blended with some chorizo…’ He then proceeded to praise his own ingenuity while I suppressed a BARF!!!

Just buy your own!

I am guessing the sandwich wasn’t wrapped up, so she ate something that had been directly on the floor, @TorroFerney - not something I’d do in a public place. Of course, if the sandwich had been wrapped up, that wouldn't be a problem for me.

Why would you do that if you were leaving food anyway? Pathetic.

We had some good friends, we used to eat at each others pre children but after started going out for lunch.
Our turn and we took them somewhere really nice and very expensive. They kept going on and on about how great it was and how they wanted to go again.
Their turn. They made us drive miles and miles through little country lanes to go to a pub. It was incredibly cheap and crap. They had brought some food for the kids to save ordering for them. We’d spent over £.100 and they spent about £10
First thing they said at the end of the meal was when were we taking them to the nice place again, they have significantly more money than us. Never went out again.

Please tell me you’ve stopped buying her coffees?!

Definitely report that's horrendous

This is what I can't understand about tales like this. When I was still teaching I would sometimes buy lunch on Friday because it was fish and chips but my colleagues learned the painful way not to nick a chip off my plate! I'm surprised that a restaurant went along with her antics, supplying a plate when she wasn't eating.

So she didn't know about the going behind her back one.

I don't think she was paying particular attention to the tip situation, I just happend to notice that he took a fiver out of the cash for the tip (the waiter happened to be American and had made a huge fuss of us, he was lovely and I was mortified).

She did protest when he was trying to get us to pay half of the bill for BIL's meal. I don't think she thought about the fact they hadn't bought the usual meal for DH at the time - and I wouldn't have thought about it either if FIL hadn't tried to get us to cover BIL. We don't mind paying for ourselves.

No idea how she feels about the fact that her husband saved separately for their son and left out hers. I can laugh off all the rest as stingy git behaviour, but it's hard not to compare with my lovely dad. My dad only came into my siblings lives when they were much older, whereas FIL is the only dad my husband has ever known. He certainly likes to claim all the privileges of fatherhood in terms of status at our wedding, being called grandad, asking for particular gifts for Fathers Day etc. My husband is really generous too, but I can't really switch off the resentment.

(Doesn't help that FIL is a rude git in other ways - I've never been able to make sense of MIL putting up with him!)

A similar situation, the bill was split and a tip agreed upon, everyone put their share plus tip down, the last person counted it all up including the tips, deducted it from the bill and paid the difference, so she got an almost free meal and the staff got no tip! It was only later we realised what she'd done,

@AnxietySloth that is absolutely bloody disgusting.
Report away!

Not just theft, but theft from the most vulnerable.

How many people on here buy wrapping paper in the Christmas sales for the following year? It's no different than buying a pair of boots in the end of Winter sales or sandals in the end of Summer sales, if Winter ever ends and Summer ever begins this year!

DP's mum died, she had been a single parent and then on basic pension, in a council house (gosh, remember those?) so had very little to leave, but a couple of thousand in savings due to her very frugal living, bless her.
DP's oldest brother (who was very low contact as he'd gone up in the world and left his lowly past behind him) appointed himself chief executor/organiser - she hadnt left a will- and made all the funeral arrangements.
There was about £1k left after all the bills, BiL decided that it should not be shared by her 4 children, (fine by us) nor by her 5 grandchildren, but by her two great-grandchildren, which meant, surprise surprise, that it went to his grandchildren, who she had never met.
We were totally shocked and blindsided- his dm had adored her grandchildren and had very close relationships with two in particular- (our nieces-we have no children) they were allowed to take the duvet sets from the beds they slept in at nanna's, as mementos.
Luckily, she had given her beloved granddaughter her wedding ring a long time before her death, so the only item of jewellery she had was not gobbled up by BiL.

A woman who has a niece who's a barrister and has a luxury apartment in the city with spare bed, but still insists on sleeping at my run down house when she visits.

But refuses to lift a finger to help while expecting special meals. TBF she's a coeliac and functional anorexic but that does make it awkward.

She then totally refuses to even buy one pint of milk for the house. When I asked why not she said 'because you'd leave me dying on the doorstep'?! I offered her the spare keys. 🥴

I'm disabled and literally nearly died on the doorstep myself a few years ago!

She then sits in my dilapidated 80s kitchen moaning about how she hates her new kitchen that costs 40k. While I spend my benefits on food and drink for her.

Lastly she stole a sharing packet of milky way stars out of my kitchen and put them in her handbag?!

No, she isn't coming back. This has gone on for long enough and I'm too old for that shit.

I had two friends who took advantage. One turned up to a birthday lunch party with a loaf of bread and some butter. Others had brought smoked salmon, cheese. Champagne. She took her French butter home with her! She also paid for her food at lunches but refused to pay service thus dumping it in the other diners. We call her Ms Butter gate.

However the worse offender was a mother of my daughter's school friend. We hadn't known each other long but she was keen to make fast friends.
Although she pleaded single parent poverty we worked out she was raking in £75k per year for just the two of them (£500 mortgage). I'd frequently bought her meals out before I knew this and she'd asked to have certain clothes I'd been wearing.
The final straw was a lunch where she'd invited her daughter who ordered a fillet steak and she had drank a bottle of wine. I'd had a risotto and a coke. When the bill came she asked the waiter to split it. I said no, I'd pay for my own. I never saw her again.

I know ehat you mean. I was brought up in a family where people ' played the game' got their round of drinks etc. I REALLY hate it when you're out with a couple of friends and that you cannot help but notice SOMEONE is ' Hanging Back' from buying THEIR round !!! It s not a life or death situation but it PUTS MY BACK UP !!!!!!!...This particular evening : One of the friends announced: I haven't any cash on me so could one of you Pay the Taxi".......when it came to the return journey I insisted and stated verbally that she could be dropped off LAST. And so started a elongated machinations throughout the whole journey about how SHE WANTS to be dropped off first, even at one point saying that she would WALK to her place from out drop off. ..Well , in the end SHE WAS dropped off FIRST and as the taxi , pulled by her house , she produced a Wad of Banknotes and peeled of TEN POUNDS and ASKED for five pounds change from the driver. I give up.

This thread has reminded me of a boyfriend I had as a teenager. He was a little older than me and had a full time job.
My DParents invited him on holiday with us to the South of France, all expenses paid, which he happily accepted. He didn't put his hand in his pocket the entire time. Actually he did, once, to buy himself an ice cream. No offer of anything else for anyone. I was too young and people-pleasing to say anything. My DM was fuming.
A few years later I bumped into him again while waiting to be served at a pub. He was with his new girlfriend and was paying for his half of their meal with a voucher he'd cut out of a leaflet, leaving her to pay the full cost of her own meal. What a guy.

Not a friend but my adult son..

One summer we had a heat wave and he invited me to go to the local Country park for a walk, I didn't think to take my purse etc

got half way around and noticed an ice cream van so my son went over to buy some water, he asked if I wanted one too, i said yes.

he handed it to me and told me I could give him the £1 another time.

Right at the start of third year at uni, my housemate badly cut her hand opening a bottle of wine. She did nothing for a whole term while it healed - we cooked all her meals for her, washed up, all cleaning. Towards the end of the term, the wine company sent a crate of wine as an apology. She left it under the stairs until term ended then said "it'll be a good christmas with this" and took the entire crate home.

I've always been amazed that she didnt either give the 3 of us housemates a bottle each or at least open a bottle to share in acknowledgement of how we had supported her. A whole crate for free and so tight.

Yes, I'd do the same. It would be so as not to waste food (not the same thing as stingy, I don't think?) and to avoid the time queuing for another while my compaions are waiting.

I'd love to know how often people become ill from eating food momentarily on the floor.

A friend refused to pay for both her twins to swim weekly at school . She sent in a contribution which covered one of the kids . Said friend mortgage free and rents out another (also mortgage free )
She would avoid parking fees by parking at mine as much as possible.

Another friend (also property portfolio) has asked me for receipts she can claim for her expenses. Not given them and I called her out asking if it is fraud - she denied it stating creative accounting !!!!!!!!