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!

Bake a cake for a school fundraising cake stall and ask for expenses reimbursement for the ingredients

I would expect the widow/er to be the first one consulted about the type of stone and what to write on it and for the headstone to be paid either by the deceased's estate (which is normally the widow/er first) or the widow/er.
A bit like who pays for the funeral.
But that's just my logic. I'm not sure what is usual.

Someone doesn't understand fundraising....
I suppose she was still donating her time. Expect a bill for the electricity next time.

I mean, there's a lot of wet lettuce-ry on Mn in general, but I don't get the passivity. It makes me wonder how there ever was a British empire if this kind of 'I can't say anything' is culturally normal.

Female colleague/friend of my husband came to my house to revise for an exam with my husband. She brought with her a small supermarket cake and a bag of oranges. I had asked my husband if she would stay for lunch but he said it was a quick revision and he didn’t think she would be here for long. Anyway come lunch time she still there so I offered her lunch, pork curry, salad, parathas. she was happy to partake and ate very well. Revision continued and then early evening I offered tea , meat puffs, biscuits. All this was very last minute but I went out of my way to ensure she was well fed while studying. She ate some of the oranges while studying and also a piece of her cake, with a very feeble would you like some. Neither my husband or I had any at that point. When it came time for her to leave she took her cake and oranges and left! 🤣 The height of stinginess!

She also called us once at short notice after moving to Scotland and asked if she and her husband could stay overnight as she had some issue with her B & B booking. She was back in town on her way down south. I cooked dinner and also gave them a full english breakfast. They had a lovely bedroom with ensuite to themselves and they came completely empty handed! 😂🤣 Never seen anyone so stingy in my life!

My friend had a very tight boyfriend .. I couldn't bear eating out with him, it was all so miserly. And he had a few quid, he wasn't skint by any means.

The final straw for my friend was when he turned up wearing this old jumper full of holes ... she recognised it from a bag she'd left by her bins for the binmen to take as textiles 😁

No one is ‘consulted’

Who ever walks into a funeral parlour or makes the call about a funeral or headstone can arrange it. Whoever calls the graveyard and buys a plot can arrange it
There are no rules

People can do what they want

So true! Why wouldn't you say "don't steal the tip money!" that particular offence has been posted so many times on this thread. No-one ever does anything.
"Don't take all the samosas" "why didn't you cook the lamb I sent for my children?" "Why are you just eating food from people's plates?".
Extraordinary.

A relative charged her own mother £400 a month rent (30 years ago) when she moved in with her at her request when her house was uninhabitable after a flood. She constantly cadged money, crying the poor tale, despite having five(!) horses and a newly built sand paddock and massive horse box. I finally cut her off when, three weeks after my mum died (no sympathy card or condolences), she sidled up to me and said, you’re so lucky being an only child, when your dad dies you’ll inherit the lot!

I'll take that as a compliment, I think! I still feel sick at the thought of it and this was 15 years ago.

Op your friend sounds insane. If she doesn’t want to eat fine but to think she can take food from other people’s plate…that’s bizarre. Did nobody call her out?

Nowhere near as bad as some of these but when my friend got married and asked a few of us to be bridesmaids she didn’t pay for anything other than the very cheap dresses which were so badly fitting I had to pay to have mine altered. We also paid for our own hair and make up but bride dictated how we wore it. Then after the wedding she asked for the dresses back to sell despite them being filthy and in my case, altered at my own expense.

Wow 😮

I hope you didn't give her the dress. I hope you complained to her about your treatment?

Very tight but seriously monied, CF relative who had been hosted and treated massively over the years by us, invited me and sibling to lunch at a posh central London eatery. We thought ‘How nice … at last’. When we came to order she dived in, ordered one dish and three plates and then divided the very modest lunch plate (think starter, salady type plate) between the three of us! She then complained that the (very nice, we thought) waiter had been surly and the restaurant have her the meal on the house. 😐.

Lolololololol

Why didn't you challenge her when she did the ordering?

"they like getting one over on other people, like little victories. I don't thing it is really about money or saving"

With those people you have to ask for a higher price than necessary and let them 'haggle' them down, then they think they've won.

Bit of a weird one.
When we were about 8 yo, me and my friend were down the park. It had been his birthday and after a while he realised he had lost £15 birthday money, we looked everywhere for it, no where to be seen.
We went back to the park the next day and at some point I noticed money flapping around in the corner of the park. I ran over and picked it up, it was £45! He snatched it from my hand claiming it was his, I said no i found it but I will give you £15 to make uo what you lost and ill have the rest, he said NO because he 'prayed to jesus last night that if he came back to the park he would find his birthday money trebled' 😂😂😂. Obviously BS, anyway, he didnt let me keep ANY money but said he would buy me a pack of pokemon cards.

Caught on the back foot and so gobsmacked we just went along with it, I suppose. These types are well practised in their CF art. I wouldn’t another time though.

They're too used to getting away with it, and people saying nothing, I suppose.

Picked up the cash tip we'd left for the waiter and pocketed it like it was his change...( it wasn't )

Not another one.

My friend is older than I am and retired. She often gives money to her daughter and buys the odd expensive item of clothing. But she will only put her thermostat on 16c in the middle of winter and when I go round she measures out how much water she needs for the kettle by filling the mugs first and pouring it into the kettle.

I think it's perfectly acceptable.

I haven't spoken nor seen my mother is about 15 years so im going back a few years

Also want to add that if I was reading this,I wouldn't believe it as true but I swear it is

When I started my periods aged 12,she handed me 3 pads and told me to buy my own after that as 'this is all I have,I cant afford any more'

They where those awful thick,bulky and cheap pads-it was like wearing a brick in your knickers

They also absorbed fuck all so I leaked all over my trousers

I managed to buy some always with my pocket money and was a slave to that brand for years until I discovered the cheaper but just as good own brands own (half the price)

Anyway,I mentioned in passing about always but she snapped that they where 'too expensive' and that she'd stick to superdrugs own (massive packet of about 30 for about 15p but i paid £2 for 10/15-i cant remember)

Fast forward a few years and she goes on holiday abroad and comes on early-the only brand she could buy where always (or that countries version of always-im not sure)

She came honest raving about how good they where and started buying them-all good,didnt give it much of a thought

A few years later,I moved house (we lived down the road to her and then moved to the other side of the city) and I didnt really go to her house anymore but as the kids where teens,they did pop in at least twice a week

A few years later,then teenage ds mentioned in conversation that he was glad she had gone through the menopause and her periods had stopped as it was 'embarrassing seeing her pads drying on the radiator'

Dd and I looked at each other and then at him and asked what he meant

Turns out,she'd accidentally put a used pad (still stuck to her pants) in the washing machine and it had come out clean (god knows how as she used half the amount of the cheapest washing powder),so she'd reused it and had done the same to every pad she'd used afterwards-she would dry them on the radiator for all to see

If they sticky part had lost its stick,she'd use two nappy pins (from the days when we where in terry towlling nappies) to hold it in place (one at each end)

I have zero idea if they still had any absorbency left but im told she re-used them at least twice before finally binning them

Shes the sort of woman who can spend on herself but is the tightest of the tight spending on other people so god knows why she did it

🤢