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!

My great-aunt Bobbie, sadly now deceased, used to buy a two-pack of flesh-coloured tights, split them and give one pair each to me and my sister for Christmas every year.

IME (or working in schools) all twin parents don't expect to pay full price for both twin. It seems to be an accepted thing that they just don't

I don't think that's small fry! That's actually one of the worst ones on here.
Did you buy her any more coffees after that?

I saw a thread here where a colleague of the op kept ordering things like champagne and steak for himself at after work social dinners and then demanding the bill be split .

I saw a young couple sharing a bowl of soup in a cafe one day. Bowl between them and each taking a spoon at a time. I guess they were short of money or something but I am sure there are other things you could share which weren't so obvious.

Not me, but I've read a thread where a friend expected to receive half of someone else's gift card 😂

Thanks. I've never been sure if I was being a bit precious!

What? Fair enough in your own kitchen maybe but in a public place where people could have had dog shit and all sorts on their shoes?

What he did there is illegal. If she ded withiut a will it should have been split between ber DC, who are then free to pass it on as they wish.

This was a few years ago
My father had a hip operation so went to stay with my brother and his family who lived near to him
My sister lives in Plymouth, my brother in Telford
She drove up from Plymouth to visit our Dad at our brothers and brother made her a cup of tea. An hour later she asked for another and was told she had already had one cup so didn’t need another.
She was staying with me and went over again the next day to see Dad.
The family were about to have lunch. So, Dad, Brother, sister in law and 2 mid teen nephews (5 of them)
Was told they were having a sandwich and soup for lunch but would not be able to cater for her as they only had 10 slices of bread and 5 tins of soup.

About 10 years ago, I went to the hen do of a girl I went to school with.
We'd stayed friends but over the years contact had become less frequent.
A mutual friend - the best friend of the hen was hosting the 'do' at her house... first evening was due to be held at the house and the second evening we were due to go out.

I couldn't make the first evening due to work but joined them on the Saturday afternoon.
A hot tub had been hired for the Friday.
The friend had booked the event on the Saturday evening - think cocktail making, bottomless brunch etc.
I was sent a text a month or so before saying I owed over £200.
I asked for a breakdown. I was being charged for a share of the hot tub hire, electricity for the hot tub usage, food and drink, the cost of sleeping on a new airbed that that been purchased to have people sleep over, food and drink, petrol money towards a lift for the evening out.
Some of it, fair enough! I asked for the hot tub charges to be taken off as the hot tub would be gone by the time I had even arrived. Assured the host I'd be happy to sleep on the sofa; an air bed wouldn't be needed.
Taking off the cost of the evening out, I ended up paying £100 for some Aldi crips, Aldi pop (don't get me wrong I love Aldi crisps and pop but this was £££ over what they actually cost), and sleeping on a borrowed air bed for the evening.
I found out later at the wedding that the friend had used the majority of the money towards doing her garden up.

I had a stingy friend. She stayed at my house, when she needed to be in town, I offered so that she needn’t book a hotel. She said ‘ oh good! We can go for a curry! ‘ and so I took her to my local curry house. When the bill came, she said, I tell you what, why don’t you just pay 40%?
TBH if I’d known she wasn’t buying dinner, I’d not have eaten out, I didn’t consider it a special occasion and I don’t have the budget.
She payed 10% extra than me for a meal she wanted, and saved over £100 on a hotel.
Next time she wanted to stay at mine, I lied and said someone else was staying.
she has so much more money than me, it’s not even funny. Could never look at her the same after that.

Bill splitting when there’s a big group but one couple have brought their older teenager who eats 3 courses from the adult menu (no issue with what they eat). They all (mum, dad and teenager) eat 3 courses, plus alcohol for the adults, whilst everyone else has one, maybe two courses and soft drinks. This couple always insist on splitting the bill based on number of adults, so they’re already getting a cheap meal for them two of them as they’ve spent more per person… but then they go a step further and state that their teenager doesn’t count towards the bill because they’re a child (?) so we then all have to pay for their share too. I wish I had the balls to point it out. The last meal we all went out for, myself and DH paid an extra £35 covering their extras and their teenagers food! I just can’t believe someone could be that cheeky.

I really need to have a discussion with DC based on this thread, as I have had plenty of CFs in my life takibng advantage of my generosity. I remember those cases and nowadays think WTF, why didn't I say something?
But if you're a normal person and most of your friends are, sometimes the CFiness is just so astonishing they get away with it.

So no, 'friend', it's not 'my treat' again. No, I don't want to split the bill if mine is 10% ióf yours. And pretty sure your phone and credit card are in your purse. No? Oh well, you better go talk to the waitress and figure out what to do.

I wouldn't have expected anything other than to split, so her offering extra was generous IMO. If you didn't want to pay for curry, you should have said so before eating it!

I remember a CF thread where one family insisted only adults counted. OP was a childless couple and the others had like 6 kids..

Glad to see that you are referring to him as ‘Ex Partner’ 😆

No matter how rich or poor, some people have the stingy gene.

Most stingy people I know are loaded, and most generous people I know have very little, but would still share it with you.

OMG I had a work colleague like this! We'd organise a work night out and we'd all put a set amount of £money in a kitty so we could enjoy drinks without worrying about buying rounds.
K was beautiful, tall and definitely acted entitled. She wasn't short of £££ and dressed well. She'd turn up a bit late, and without putting money in the kitty, she'd order a glass of Prosecco (when most of us were on beer or pub wine).
It really stung as some of the crew were scraping by and this was their one night out.
One Christmas it really got my goat and as K sipped her second glass of Prosecco I pointedly (rudely!) said "Glad you're having a good time on our money, K!"
She looked suitably embarrassed and rustled up a tenner. But honestly, can you imagine being that stingy to cadge drinks off your poor workmates???

This is nuts. Just stop splitting the bill equally and pay for what you each ordered.

I’m not really concerned what you would have expected.

Not a friend, but my FIL took change out of the collection at church.

Sounds like something my own mother would do 😐- She is a mean
Poor student one time, not living at home, living with my now husband who was away ( and was supporting me while a student), was very sick, my now, this was pre online banking times ect, i literally had no money. She called over could see i was sick, said couldn't afford to go to doc ( Ireland so we pay ) she said she would pay, brough me as no fit state to drive paid as well as paid my prescription think about 60e all together and brought me home. Birthday was a few weeks later, was on phone to her and asked what i would like, said would like a voucher to get my hair cut please - said then well instead of paying me back the 60e i paid when you were sick put that towards your hair, i replied back if i didnt have money to pay for when i was sick what makes you think i have money to get my hair done 😣himself was like wtf your own mother cant help out when sick - where she was earning a very nice wage herself. Its a running joke now with the family of how mean she is, has been called out on it but it washes over her

I once dated a guy and he was tight as anything, if ever we stopped off somewhere to pick up a coffee or similar it was like he had a magnet attached to his back pulling him away from the till so that I’d have to.

Due to my children, he would stay at mine around twice a week and I’d always buy and cook dinner. He had a huge appetite and liked “good food” which ended up costing me a fortune!

One day he said that he would bring dinner to cook for us both at mine. Knowing that when he cooked for himself at home, no expense was spared I was looking forward to a good home cooked meal.

He turned up with a box of reduced mushrooms (neither of us were veggies and he was a big meat eater), a reduced stir fry veg bag and then raided my cupboards for sauces and noodles.

Loads of money in the bank, good earner, spends lots of money going on expensive hiking trips abroad (with all the expensive gear) yet our trips away were camping in a tent.

Awful man, glad he’s an ex

That is what we do - and I now I know what to expect I make a point of just announcing right at the beginning of the meal "let's just each pay for what we order, shall we." As it makes it hard for everyone to relax and enjoy themselves otherwise.

But depending on the other people with us, sometimes other people prefer the ease of just splitting, and she seems to feel really nervous that is what will happen.

TBH she makes such a show of "keeping up" with the ordering that it would be less embarrassing to just say at the time of the bill, "do you mind if we each pay for what we had, as we have ordered rather less", rather than making the whole meal tense.

The thing that I think most annoys me is that by ordering more to keep up, the total cost is still escalating for her anyway. I mean I get that they get a fair share of the food that way, and her reasoning isn't mathematically flawed in that sense, but it just strikes me as odd that you would rather be ordering things you didn't want and paying more, than risk a bit of subsiding on a lesser overall cost to you.

But as I say, she is wonderful in so many other ways and this is just her quirk.