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!

This is truly mad. You'd think after the plates were removed they would quickly apologise, try to make a joke of it and attempt to salvage the situation but clearly no...

Mates of ours got increasingly tight it’s like an obsession gripped the husband. So anything 11 months into a 12 month guarantee was pretty much broken ( I don’t think deliberately but not entirely sure as it happened a lot )and replaced as new two or three times each item until he was told no more replacements by the companies . Ok - sort of understand that.

Then we were out for a chinese and they ordered a separate take away for their daughter at home ( we have kids too and had left them food ). The bill came and we split it then the restaurant brought the bill for the takeaway separately and he actually groaned and complained it hadn’t been added to our main overall bill.

Plenty of times at our house we’ve given more wines and beers than they brought and you know what I really don’t mind that but the last time we visited theirs he actually saw his beer on the side - picked it up and hid it not realising we had seen him, offered us tea and brought out some crisps then removed the crisps before the tea had been finished so half the bag went back into a cupboard. Can’t bring ourselves to see them much now and I miss them but just feel completely used.

Still reading through the thread but I have to say the real heroes here are the people who have stood up to the stingy fuckers!

Mine isn't so much a cheapskate but actual theft, like many others. Went for a meal out with some mums, some I knew well and some I could name but didn't know personally.

One of the ones I didn't know proudly announced how she was on mounjaro so she could order a meal, eat and tiny bit and send it back saying she didn't like it and have it removed from the bill. Worked every time apparently. I said she wouldn't be doing that today so she'd better order something small or take her leftovers home.

I went to a moon thing at a local church, big suspended moon with a friend. It was only about £1 to £2 to go and for some reason I just paid for myself. Might have been even 50p. I still cringe. I just wasn't thinking.

What's a moon thing? I'm intrigued! Do you mean like a 'babymoon' style event, or an astronomy-themed evening?!

I remember a post on here about it.

She got child benefit for 2 kids in the same way I did for mine!

I bet there are a lot of CF twin parents out there who only pay for one fee/subscription if it's something that can be done by just one of them at a time.

"Mummy, why do you keep calling me Bob - Bob is my brother; MY name is Bill! And why didn't Bob come with us today?"
"Just shurrup, will you?!?!"

People who insist on paying their exact share, to save a couple of quid, because they didnt have a side if chips, and inconvience the waiting staff.

We arranged to go out for Sunday lunch with another couple, who were, like us, child-free for the weekend. Then another friend got in touch saying her husband was away for a few days but could she and her three children join us for the lunch: so that's 5 adults and 3 children. Her children (pre-teen and teen), ordered lots of starters, that they barely touched, and overpriced mocktails to go with their adult-sized main courses. When the bill arrived, the 'single' friend said she would sort it out. And she did, by calculating that as it was three families it should be split three ways. Even though her family made up 50 per cent of the total. I couldn't be bothered to argue it, but my opinion of her slumped a bit that day.

Not a friend but an ex-colleague. She asked me to proof read a promotion application for her and I ended up totally rewriting it for her.

She hadn't provided specific examples of her competencies, which was required, so I spent hours helping her to identify good examples and writing them up.

She got the promotion and said we'd have to go out to celebrate, and when the bill came she took it for granted that I was going to treat her, to congratulate her on her success!

Why she's not a friend but an ex-colleague.

That's ridiculous 😂I wouldn't even necessarily expect her to cover the whole thing but surely as a thanks for the help you would at least say something like "I'll treat us to the wine"
It shouldn't be on you at all to treat her!!!

Tell me where you go that you can get a side of chips for a couple of quid!

Couldn't be bothered to argue it?! No wonder these CFs keep getting away with it 😮🙄🤦‍♂️

You are absolutely right, @LowPowerModes - letting it happen over and over can’t be excused by shock or social mores.

That reminds me of an ex friend of ours. We sometimes went out for lunch as a group and he'd always announce we were splitting the bill "per adult" . His family had 3 kids, most had 2 though we only had 1 at that time. So he was getting a nice little subsidy from the others but particularly from us.

After this happened twice we started asking for separate bills for our family.
The other motivator was on the second occasion he also proved himself a tip CF. My husband put in to cover our share plus extra for the tip/service, stating that clearly. CF gathered the funds and paid. Then as we were leaving the manager came over and asked "what was wrong with the service" as the service charge hadn't been paid. CF said "service was crap" and walked off. My husband asked him after what happened to the tip money. He said oh there was only barely enough to cover the bill, someone must have not put enough in. We thought "yes and I bet that was you".

His wife who is still our friend divorced him because unsurprisingly he was selfish in many other ways.

I think there's an earth one too about, it's a big lit up suspended model you walk around and look at it.
https://stwilfrid.org/moon/

I have another one – a few years ago a Uni friend I hadn’t seen for a couple of years was in town for some training and reached out to arrange a catch-up dinner, we booked Dishoom.
We were both fairly new in our careers but we could both afford a dinner out!
We agreed to order between us two different curries, a side, a rice and a naan bread.
Food arrived, I took about two spoonfuls of rice and maybe a third of ‘my’ curry that I’d chosen for us to share. By the time I’d done this, she’d put the whole side and the whole curry she had chosen onto her plate then reached over and emptied the rest of the rice onto her plate too. The naan bread happened to be placed on her side of the table so I asked if she could pass it to me and instead of offering it, she tore off a small piece and handed it to me. She then took the rest of ‘my’ curry too.
I finished my plate of rice and curry in about five mouthfuls and spent the rest of the meal sipping my beer whilst watching her eat her mountain of food. I did ask her, “can I try a bit of your curry please?” and she deigned to give me a spoonful 😂I also asked for more naan but she again ripped a piece off and handed it to me so I didn't bother asking for more after that.
You won’t be surprised to hear she still expected us to split the bill evenly at the end.
I ended up getting a McDonald’s on the way home and we haven’t met for dinner since.

Found the CF ^^

Some extreme cases on this thread, really makes you wonder what goes on in some people's very tight minds.

Worst I example I can offer is a wealthy Irish couple I was friendly with when I lived there, who dressed their poor dead grandad in a hired suit for the wake.

They were quite open about it with us ("that has to go back"), maybe not so with the hire company, as it certainly didn't seem to be an accepted local tradition, thankfully.

Only an absolute tramp would do this.

When, as a group of female friends we would have a night in with a Chinese, a friend would bring a pouch of boiled rice and have that so she didn’t have to fork out for the Chinese

Ah, thank you!

Wow. Greedy and selfish.

I have two to share.

I used to have a cleaning job within a small company. We were asked to do a deep clean of someone’s house so me and a few others on the team went to do it.
The man who lived there had plenty of money in the bank but the house was beyond filthy, so much so that we were nearly sick. For example - dried dog shit on the floor when the dog died 2 years previously.
I was scrubbing in the kitchen and found 5p on the floor so put it on the working surface. The man shouted “oh you’ve found MY 5p!”
He got that clean for free through social services. Did he honestly think we were going to steal 5p?
Second one: I had a best friend and we worked together. Neither of us had much money and she wanted to buy her daughter a gold ring. I had one I had been bought by my ex and it was a gold and sapphire ring. We agreed she could buy it for £50. She gave me £20, took the ring saying she would give me the rest of the money later and she never paid the rest. I was too much of a wimp to ask her about it then. I don’t see her now.

If she volunteers for Olio then this may not be what it looks like. Olio isn't a charity - it is an anti food waste initiative which is open to all regardless of income. As a food waste hero you are allowed to keep 10% of what you collect as your thank you and upload the rest to the app. If things don't get requested then you can keep that too. We often get left with a lot of bread based items - I take it in boxes to my sons judo club to try and give it away after its been on the app for 24 hours. It is easy to reduce your food bill substantially while still being a good volunteer as the purpose is to reduce food being sent to landfill and you don't have to be poor to access it. I am a food waste hero and am not poor - I probably spend about 10 hours a week volunteering my time to olio and yes my food bill has halved. Charity gets first dibs on food and Olio take the items charity can't shift or don't want (even they can only distribute so much bread)