Is stinginess the most unattractive character flaw

[DrowningEveryDay]

in a potential partner?

And could you share stories of stinginess that turned you off?

Not overall.this one would rather drive to Tesco

If say jealousy is. But stingy is horrible and embarrassing

Yes dona it is a massive turn off to think that someone is working out continually how much they've paid and how much you've paid. It is about attitude, I'm a generous person and I want the people I'm with to be the same. (of course if friends are skint, I'm still generous, that's not what this thread's about). This tight arse couldn't let a penny go and I should've known... he complained about ex girlfriends not paying their way. Exhausting to be with someone like this.

If you're talking about some of the examples posted above, then yes. Someone wanting to go through rubbish for thrown-away food would be too much.

However, this idea that it is one of the top things to find unattractive in someone is ridiculous. Why should a man be expected to display love through money (or as some previous posters put it, "Stingy with money, stingy with love)? I've tried hard not to look at men that way - to look at their actual personality, not whether they're willing to splash out a lot. In fact, coming from a family that were very poor, I see someone being frugal as a good thing.

Someone who was angry, petulant, manipulative, humourless or a host of other traits would come above stinginess with money. And all those posters saying that a man not paying for things turns them off just sets us back and paints women as too concerned with a man's wallet.

I think stinginess is definitely up there in the top 5. Also I can’t be with a fussy eater it drives me mad.

I don't think it's about splashing out. I never expected to be treated all the time. Stinginess is a trait that affects the whole core of a person. If someone is so stingy they are counting every penny, working out a bill to the last penny, checking they haven't spent more than you over a period of weeks... they are not generous of heart. They are mean and that affects every bit of their personality.

FionnaMAC

There is a very wide berth between someone “splashing out and someone squabbling over pennies when they are comfortable.

Yeah there's nothing wrong with being conscious of cost and waste it's more the way they go about it or being so caught up in it that they're ignoring the other person's feelings.

On our first date an ex got his cinema ticket and then stood and watched me get mine. I wouldn't necessarily expect him to pay for it but surely you ask for two tickets then either I'd pay my share or I'd get the popcorn etc. He also would put in less at a restaurant if he didn't have alcohol and everyone else did. We went on holiday and he was talking about how much money he had left and said 'and of course I'm owed money' by which he meant me and it was about 3 quid!

Another guy and I went to the pub for food with his friend, they were standing at the bar. They came back his friend had ordered but he hadn't because it was 'my turn' so I then had to go to the bar, which by now had a long queue to order. He was just there! I had no problem paying but I could have just given him the money afterwards or he could have called me over and I would have paid. He then complained as our food turned up a lot later than his mate's. I wonder why that was He would buy low quality meat and toilet roll but spend ridiculous amounts of money on T shirts from the internet that didn't even fit.

My worst was first serious BF as a teenager who wouldn’t share a bus ride home with me as he was too tight so he would walk instead
To put in context he was working and I was still at 6th form
He sometimes asked a mate who lived near me to walk me to my house from bus stop after my DM went mad that I was walking from bus stop alone
We were all scared then as Peter Sutcliffe was still at large and one of the Yorkshire Ripper victims was in my then home town

I don't mind people who are careful, or those up front about saving for something. I absolutely can't bear people who are stingy though

Agree this is deeply unattractive but I think it's tough though for some people to get their heads around being generous, or splashing cash when it's not necessary.

I imagine it comes from a place of fear.. fear about running out of money or having to sacrifice important things in the future if they splash out now. Perhaps seems irrational to us onlookers but makes sense in their heads. I agree it seems to go along with traits like narrow-mindedness and general miserableness. It would be really surprising to discover someone who was confident, caring and fun to also be stingy.

And by same token it's hard to imagine someone who was very generous being anything other than a fun and kind person to be around.

Dirtiness, not washing sufficiently, wearing dirty scruffy clothes, not being prepared to help with housekeeping ....

Not an ex but I had a friend at uni who was the stingiest person I’ve ever met- it made her really unattractive. She had a good allowance from her Dad so wasn’t even poor (like the rest of us) and would go mad at anyone who put the heating on. She had an electric blanket for herself though... Also at birthdays when asked how much she’d like to contribute she’d say something like £3.35 😂. Odd way of thinking and everything was about money. Safe to say we’re no longer friends.

It’s not just in partnerships, I think stinginess can also put a strain on friendships. My DM had an extraordinarily stingy friend. DM had free phone calls, friend didn’t, so DM said to friend that whenever she fancied a chat, to call and hang up after three rings, then DM would call her back. Friend said she wouldn’t do that, because if DM was on the phone when she called, it would go to voicemail and cost her 10p. The friend wasn’t sloshing around in money, but she lived comfortably within her means. She was just incredibly tight-fisted. They aren’t friends anymore.

That said, I’m all for being thrifty. I turn lights off when I leave a room, and I’ll put a jumper on before I put the heating on. I won’t do without light and heat, but I don’t like to waste money.

I don't think it's the worst trait but it's very unattractive and shows a lack of generosity.

I know a guy who although well paid in a professional role, keeps an actual excel of everything eat and drunk and charges his partner for her share to the penny. Did you eat that banana? You've had one more than me. Onto the excel it goes. Inc petrol if they were going anywhere. He'd calculate the mileage .He is the same with his friends.

I look at him and wonder what is wrong with him if I'm honest. I look at her and wonder why she's with him. He's an even bigger arsehole in many other ways, and quite frankly it makes you wonder what's wrong with her too that she's with him.

He would buy low quality meat and toilet roll but spend ridiculous amounts of money on T shirts from the internet that didn't even fit

I don't know why but that had me really laughing!

I think I'm generous in that I don't do the 'your turn, my turn' to buy thing. So what if I get an extra round in, what does it matter if I paid a few quid more on the meal because you didn't have change. It just works out. But unfortunately the wheels come off the bus when I'm with a stingy person because they take advantage. Luckily the people I mix with are the same as me but it hasn't always been like that!

The type of stingy people I can't stand are the ones who will partake of any food and drink on offer but never return the favour. They spend their lives figuring out how to get freebies. Turn up when they know you'll be having dinner so you have to offer them some. Then they might occasionally arrive with the cheapest packet of biscuits saying "I got you some biscuits" as if you should be really grateful.

A relative of mine was s stingy that he took cold baths and drank hot water rather than soup. He left all his money to medical research as a massive exercise in virtue-signalling. No money for his nieces who took care of him in his protracted old age and no money for his niece’s husband who spent a year sorting out said uncle’s estate so that the money could actually be donated to his chosen causes.

I’ve been very poor and had to be frugal. But I don’t think I was stingy.
I do think stinginess is rarely in isolation though. Those mean with money tend to be mean in other ways too. I do have a few friends like this, one in particular. Amazing clothes and home but has literally never done a kind or generous thing for anyone in our friendship group. But is mean with time as well. She works very few hours , has full time childcare but her time is always more important than anyone else’s.

Rose459 I had a friend like that at uni too! She was constantly coming home with shopping bags full of clothes that she was blowing her student loan on, and she made it very clear that her parents were loaded (e.g. complaining about not having an en-suite bathroom in our flat as she was used to one at home!) But then she would come knocking on your door asking for the 10p that you owed her, and complain bitterly about having to pay £15 for a cheap set menu for someone’s birthday. Once my friend and I got a bottle of wine while a big group of us were out for dinner, and as soon as it arrived she sidled over and asked if she could have some. Then when the bill came she was outraged at the suggestion that she should chip in a couple of quid extra for wine, because she ‘hadn’t ordered it’ and therefore shouldn’t be expected to pay for it. She would hop in a taxi home with you and then refuse to pay because ‘you were going that way anyway’. I couldn’t stand her!

My mum is the stingiest person I know. She is also narrow-minded and unemotional and all the other things posters have said goes with being tight fisted.

Examples:
We stay with her once a year, for a week in the summer. She won't put the not water on long enough for DH and I to have a hot showering the morning, so one of us gets a tepid one of both of us have to whip in and whip out.
She stands over us when we are boiling the kettle to make sure we only boil the amount of water needed for the number of people having cups of tea.
She has a dishwasher but hasn't used it since she moved into the house; she washes up in cold water instead.
When I had DC1, she told me quite matter of factly that she would not be buying me flowers because other people would.
She writes down every penny she spends and keeps a tally of every penny you owe her or she owes you; an example would be if she was popping to the shop for something and I asked her to get me a newspaper, she would charge me for it every single time.
When I was a child, she would take the stalks off mushrooms in the supermarket and only take the heads, because she thought that was the best bit and she wasn't going to pay for the rubbishy bit. 😱
She won't use the home phone in peak time, even if it's someone's birthday (including mine or my siblings').
She has never bought my children a packet of sweets or an icecream in all the times she's stayed with us or we've stayed with her.

None of the above is because she's short of money; she has more money than she knows what to do with, as she freely admits.
She's not just right with money either. For example, the last time we stayed with her, she asked DH to take her kitchen rubbish bag round the corner to the public bin. When I asked her why on earth he needed to do that, she said it was because it saved her putting her half empty wheely bin out for the dustmen. I told her that was ridiculous, and also fly tipping, so now she's arranged to put her rubbish in a neighbour's wheely bin after the neighbour has put it out on the pavement!!

I think it's a bad one, yes. Also competitiveness, which I find really ugly and aggressive.

Don't like it at all. Ages ago I used to live with a guy that was very mean, I realised after a couple of weeks that this was because he was saving every penny he could for beer. One day I came home early and overheard him telling his mate he was going to dump me - but was waiting until after Valentine's Day and his birthday as I always gave good presents! Needless to say he got nothing apart from a being dumped.

On another note, of my friends (a woman) is unbelievably "frugal" but earns good money. For example if we go for a meal and she has spent slightly more than half she will suggest we split it. If I have spent more she will suggest that we each pay for our own. She actually adds it up in her head then makes the appropriate suggestion. She would love to find a guy and I really feel that one thing that turns most guys off is her meaness, but have never actually told her this!

I think there are worse traits but I hate meanness. I had an ex-friend who once refused to split a bill in a cafe 50/50 because my items added up to 24 pence more than her's