Tightness to this extent is really unattractive?

[Bluebell99]

I have a friend who is unbelievably tight. She is so thrifty it's embarrassing, and I say that as someone who likes charity shops and saving money! She came to my gym the other day on my guest pass, so a free day out to her. She arrived early and ordered coffee but didn't pay for it! I just think that is so cheeky and reflects badly in me. Members get reduced rate coffee but not free. It's not that she can't afford stuff either. Her mil is paying for her family to go on a dream holiday and she was bleating on that her mil has said they will have to buy the food.

this thread has given me a good giggle.

Anyway! Getting back to the OP.

I worked with someone like this. Never met a more tightfisted person in my life. Constantly moaning about how he couldn't do this or that because he couldn't afford it. Didn't go to his mother's for Christmas as he didn't want to spend the money on petrol.Let slip he had quite a substantial amount of money in the bank and wanted to retire early, has no children and rents a flat.

At a works do he rushed up at the end of the evening and snaffled up everything that was left on the Buffet table and put it in bags for himself. I work for the Library service. He once bought his Christmas presents from the second hand booksale in a library and bought his sister a magazine for Christmas. Then he moaned the magazine cost nearly a fiver

At one place I worked I got friendly with the PA to the section head. She would bring sandwiches into work in order to save money and whenever we all went down for a Friday lunchtime drink she would decline my invite.

Later she told me that it was because she couldn't afford to buy a round. Next time Friday came round I invited her along. I told her that I would buy the first round. That way she wouldn't have to take a drink of someone else who might resent the fact that she doesn't take her turn at the bar. This set the pattern for the next couple of months that I was working there.

Anyway, one day she showed me a picture of her daughter's birthday party at their house. Let me put it this way - I would have loved to be able to afford to live in a house like hers.

Apparently her husband earned quite a bit, hence the big house, and she was working as a PA to earn pocket money and to keep busy.

When I told my co-workers they had a good laugh .... at me. Everyone there knew of her reputation for tightness but they didn't see why they should stop the newbie (i.e. me) from buying her (and them) drinks every Friday lunchtime.

She was a nice friendly person and she was always most helpful so I just inwardly smiled at her tightness and let it go.

Pusheed my friend is the same as your PA friend. When I last saw her, she showed me the brochure of the house they are buying. It's a five bed executive house on an exclusive estate. Price tag on the brochure was just under 800K. She is known in our circle as "tight xxxx". She also buys her kids christmas presents if she gets them anything at all,from the charity shop. (one year I thought she had really lost the plot when she started telling me, she played a game with her kids where they talked about their virtual Christmas presents!")

Blue -As I said earlier in the thread, I have known my tight friend for about 20 years. We are roughly of the same age and income level but while I have been going round buying drinks for PA's who lives in a bigger house than me :) he has been saving up his money over the years.

Well, he has saved enough to buy a hotel in Orlando which qualifies him for an investor's visa and Green Card. In this case His Royal Tightness has the last laugh :o

My dad only bought the christmas presents for us one year, after he and my mother had an argument. At the time he earned probably what I do now (a bit more than the average wage) except without having to pay London rents as he and my mum owned their place up North.

I got a pound-shop make-up set.

Though this was a guy who used to complain that McDonalds was too expensive and that Oxfam charged 'far too much' for books.

My mum's a widow and a pensioner now, and I frequently tell her not to buy me presents as I earn enough to buy things myself, but the lack of thought hurt me as much as the stinginess.

Bluebell, nothing wrong with charity shop presents: in a nice area, those can be very naice indeed! Although the virtual present thing is a bit weird, and I suppose you haven't told us everything about it.

Pusheed, that person just sounds dishonest (and so do your colleagues). It is one thing to be annoyed that someone is throwing cash around in order to be liked, but the way you presented the solution to her, in a way which would have saved face for a person genuinely in an economically outclassed situation, was quite sensitive.

You probably have to start role-playing in order to not get into these positions:

• in any new team environment, find out first what the round-buying practice is. If you have a work "mentor", engineer it so s/he buys for you first (a dynamic of deferring to him/her will make it more difficult for him/her to make you "take charge"

• by contrast, with family is the time to take charge:

- "We'll see you inside. No, it's mean to make the kids wait in the car park." Then you can treat to icecreams without feeling resentful - "I won't have a chance to book the tickets. Could you do it this time and we'll pay you back? Stalls if possible, spending about £X."

I think Oxfam charge too much for books!

MIL - mean of pocket, mean of spirit. Just a few examples:

On holiday getting fish and chips from a local put - I suggested a g&t while we waited - "that's very extravagant".

SILs remember being hungry as children.

Everything is compared and considered and sometimes the item she doesn't like as much but which costs £5 less is bought.

When her mother died she couldn't travel straight away to be with her father because she couldn't book an Apex ticket.

For DS's first birthday, she waited for the sales to start (his birthday is on Xmas day).

FIL used to keep a petrol/mileage log book.

Every time she sees me she wants to know what something new costs.

I am deeply extravagant in her eyes - she is deeply mean and miserable in mine.

If this was all because she was hard up and on a tight budget I could understand it. But she was a deputy head and fil was a chief engineer. When FIL died, he left he left her £1 million not including the house and she pays top rate tax on her pension and investment income.

Oh yes, and just remembered, "she's never had a 99 with a flake in it because they are so expensive and she remembers wanting one so much when she was growing up". DH and the SILs remember sharing a bloody cornet.

marriedinwhite that is really tight beyond belief

marriedinwhite if your dh and his sisters remember being hungry then she was financially abusive towards her kids not just tight.