CF tightarsedness

[BorisAndDoris]

Inspired by another thread, I'd love to hear your experiences of CFers being tight arses, never putting their greedy paws in their own pockets.

Mine was an ex when I was a youngster. Maybe 16? 17? I was financially independent (okay, skint on min wage but paid my way) and rented my own place.
CFBF and I were in the early stages of dating (maybe 1 or 2 months in).
I was running errands one day and needed to pick a few things up from the supermarket. He tagged along.

I went round the supermarket and he kept chucking items into the trolley. Fine with me, no point in 2 trolleys.
He put his stuff on the conveyor (sans divider!) whilst I was packing mine. I didn't notice until he said he needed to pop to the loo. He left me to pay for everything.! I was mortified and hadn't grown the lady balls yet to stand up for myself well. I paid and asked him for the money when he got back. He told me he forgot his wallet and would give it to me when he came next time. He didn't.

In fact the next time he showed up I was leaving for the cinema with my best friend. We told CFBF we already had plans. My Best friend was paying because it was his turn and I was skint (thanks to CFBF's shopping which he forgot to bring his money for again!)
I locked up the house and we all walked to the bus together. CFBF got on too as it was also his bus.

We got off in town. CFBF got off with us. Okaaaay...
We got to the cinema. CFBF still with us.
I asked if he was heading home and he said no, I'll come with you! Hmm.. whatever, I couldn't really stop him.

He walked in just ahead of us. The desk clerk had the tickets printed when we got there and best friend paid. It wasn't until we were at the concessions counter he realised he'd paid for three, not two. CFBF has asked for three tickets and not paid his one. It was so awkward that best friend couldn't bring himself to actually say anything.
I stopped answering the door to CFBF after that night and best friend and I have been laughing about him for 20 years now. I should have realised when he only turned up at mine in time for dinner and I'd feed him not wanting to be impolite!!

I really don't get some of these posts. Why would you keep lending money to people who never pay it back? And it seems like most of the time people don't even ask.
I mean, lending someone 2.5k after you've already subsided 2 holidays. You'd almost have to enjoy being taken advantage of to have this happen to you. It's baffling.

I had a friend who would often "forget" her purse when we went out but it would magically appear if she really wanted something

One day after college we went to Mcdonalds before getting the bus home, we had a sandwich at college so we wasn't starving. I said I wasn't hungry but she insisted she was starving and she only had £2.50 (could have bought a happy meal to tide her over till we went home) but she asked to borrow a few more pounds to get a large chips too she said. Stupidly I agreed. She got to the till and ordered a large fish filet burger meal and two drinks. My face dropped!! All I could afford was a small chips after that. She never said thank you or offered any money back and that friendship soon died out lol

'Friend' who was always buying new clothes (and obviously was very critical of my dress sense - so supportive and nice eh!) and was renting in a central town location (so not the cheapest option) and asked me for £200 for her rent ...otherwise she'd be homeless as her landlord (who lived next door naturally) was getting arsey. So to avoid her 'becoming homeless' I ;'lent' her the money. Her landlord would only accept cash obviously.... I mean why didn't I pick up on this.....Had to go to a cash machine whilst she hovered over me of course. After I'd handed over the cash and she'd gone to see 'her landlord next door' she then insisted we went shopping for clothes and had lunch out! All the time I was thinking WHY WHY WHY! Goes without saying she soon 'lost touch' and I never saw that £200 again. It's made me very untrusting of any friend ever since.

When we were together my exH and I had worked for the same company until it went into receivership. We had both worked there for years and had decently paid jobs but the redundancy payment was almost non-existent and took months to come through.
I was 7 months pregnant at the time and we had a 3 year old - I couldn't get another job in the short term but my exH got a job as a consultant. Great relief all round. We had a reasonable amount saved in a joint account that was intended to help pay off the mortgage - my ex said we mustn't use that for regular living expenses and I agreed. I was managing the household finances and stopped spending on anything except necessities; I was regularly walking about a mile to the local Aldi with my ds in a buggy to keep our costs as low as possible.
My H was working away a lot during the week and also most weekends, it was tough but but it was necessary for his job and I was just glad he'd managed to get some work - until I found some bank statements and realised that he'd spent nearly all our joint savings on hotels - turned out he'd been having an affair with his secretary for at least a year and he wasn't working at weekends at all.
This was a long time ago I can laugh about it now but as you can probably imagine it was pretty devastating at the time!

I saw a baby swing on one of the fb groups and agreed to meet the seller in town( about 30 miles away but needed to go shopping anyway). Packed my toddler and 8 months preagnant myself and off we went.

Packed my car and noticed the guy walking towakrds me with some object in his hands. There was something very different about the item (think blue but advertised red). I muttered to the guy something about needeng cash machine first(true) and racking my brains what to do while I was getting cash.

The guy wanted £20 for a baby swing. I agreed to pay that as It was advertised to be in vgc and seemed to be pristine on the photo so I asked the guy to show me the item.

I was presented with something pulled out of the loft at least 10 years old, yellow, manky and torn so I turned round and said to the guy that his description of fb didn’t match the item so I decided not to buy it and apologised for wasting his time.

I came back home to see the post slagging me on fb for wasting their time and not wanting to buy the item. I saw red and my hormones got the better of me. I replied along the lines “ How dare you drag me 30 miles pg and with kid in tow to offer me something fit for the skip”. The guy never replied and the fb profile disappeared soon.

Don’t be afraid to say “no”. You can always change your mind at any time.

CF’s rely on people not saying anything, when confronted they either back off( good) or try to justify their CF’ness.

This isn’t as bad as a lot of these but here’s mine. When I got married my best friend (BF) organised my hen do. One of the girls invited was her flat mate and really more her friend than mine but we’d hung out a bit as a group and she was invited to the wedding so all fine.

BF had booked a lovely house in a tourist town for a weekend including a cocktail class and an evening ‘whodunnit’ type thing as I’ve never been keen on clubbing and far prefer having a few drinks at home with friends. BF’s friend turns up a day late (so misses the cocktail class etc) and had a bit of the late afternoon with us at the house before the whodunnit started. A couple of professional actors ran it and this girl stayed for about half an hour then announced that actually she’d arranged to meet a friend of hers and so left. She missed the whole of the evening and then came back at about 3 in the morning absolutely wasted. She crashed at the house then left early the next morning.

BF said afterwards that she’d never paid into the cost of renting the house. So she’d essentially just used my hen do as a crash pad while she went and did what she wanted to do. She didn’t come to the wedding in the end... probably for the best!

Another one: toddler group that parents were supposed to supply fruit and group was providing dry snack and drink.I was on ML with DC2 so not loaded

I was happily bringing fruit duly every week and share it until one of the women pulled me to the side and said “watch who else brings anything”. Turned out some women were quite happy to take whatever was brought but never bringing anything to share themselves.It came to a head one day when we decided to go for a walk after the group as the weather was nice.

When we got to the turning point the mums sat down and proceeded to feed their kids all the goodies that they had in their bags(biscuits, crackers, ricecakes) I had nothing as put everything for a snack earlier on in the building.2yo DC was whining for food. Not one of the mums offered anything except the one that warned me to not to be so offering.

I stopped giving so much and made sure that I always had something else for my DC. One day on a walk I heard one of the other kids wanting a banana my DC was having. Mum offered her child everything she’s had in her bag but the child was having none of it. I had to turn deaf ear to the kid going on about it and told myself that I was not going to take banana off my DC and leave them without to accommodate somebody else.

I still share but more carefully.

I had to turn deaf ear to the kid going on about it and told myself that I was not going to take banana off my DC and leave them without to accommodate somebody else.

Well done! There were things the child could eat so you were right not to take from your dc!

Last place I worked they were a right bunch of mean cf .
It was mainly things like getting food in and not offering to our department (only small company ) if it was someone's birthday they brought cakes etc would never offer us we had to walk through office several times a day and would never offer even if we said happy birthday. Also at Christmas would do a buffet ( paid by company ) again would walk through office several times even saying is the food ready ? and ignored , eventually would say to us come and have buffet so would just find all the leftovers so they would only shout us when they had enough.
When a member of staff left to have a baby could only get money off a couple of people so I put the rest and bought nice present gave it to colleague myself then I heard that I was unreasonable because I didn't do a presentation.
Another time kept asking about what was happening about the Christmas party kept being told didn't know then found out that they had arranged Christmas party but not invited us as it was so far away .
Loads of other examples they were so selfish cf .
When I eventually left after 2 years my manager wanted reasons so I explained the main reason was working with a load of self entitled arses who have no idea about teamwork or sharing anything. It felt good, I now work for a lovely company where everyone is included and no cf's

I used to work with a right CF, Penny, who was always boasting how she was going to end up so much wealthier than the rest of us, and any decisions any one else made were the wrong ones financially (wrong car, wrong flat etc.)

She got wind that there was going to be a group driving up to an event in London and as she had a week to stay with her boyfriend there, wanted a lift.

One of the other drivers agreed to take her but on morning rang my BF “Sorry, Penny’s with you”.

It was a tight squeeze in the car and Penny boasted that during her week off she had several job interviews lined up and all the companies had agreed to pay the cost of her train fare, so she was going to make a tidy profit. When I produced a bag of snacks for the trip she told me I was a fool to spend money on other people. I could tell BF was fuming, but Penny was oblivious.

We stopped at a service station. BF asked everyone for a fiver towards the fuel. Penny said she would only pay 1/2 as she was only going one way.

BF said the extra was for putting up with her and if she didn’t like it she could stay at the service station!

When she returned to work she wasted no time moaning to everyone else how mean and cruel BF was. Luckily for the rest of us she did get one of those jobs.

Thought of another one. We moved house about a year ago. Just after we moved, a friend I hadn't seen for well over a year messaged me to say she had heard I had moved house and wanted to come over and see the new house. Lovely. I'm not the type to expect her to bring anything or anything like that so she turns up about half an hour later than she said she would be there, with her daughter in tow in a cab... slightly odd I thought. She also had no bag, no handbag, no nappies or wipes, drinking cup for the baby etc. I thought maybe she was in a huge rush to get here. Will let her off. She was quite rude during the visit, told me my third bedroom was far too small and asked how much the rent was, I said ummm, it's not rented, we've bought it. She said oh, I never thought you would have been able to afford something like this. Anyway, I wanted her to leave, I kept on telling her that I needed to collect my son from nursery at a certain time so she called her husband to call her an Uber home, only she can't get hold of him, can't seem to get Uber on her phone, I am clueless about such things so not much help just wanting her to leave so I can go collect my son. Eventually, she asked me to call her cab and go get cash out for it as she had no purse with her whilst so I was left with no choice but to leave her in my house to go pick my son up as I didn't have enough carseats for all the children any get money out and call the cab for her. The money was never repaid. I've never invited her back again.

Redtulip86 your situation reminded me about a CF child situation.
There could probably be an entire new thread devoted to CF behaviour toward or within kids activities.
I knew a woman in a small parents group I was part of at kids primary school who never contributed anything ever.
It wasn't a financial issue as she would often boast about having paid her mortgage off early.
When there was an occasion or party Halloween, Christmas, school concert etc parents were asked to contribute and a sign up sheet went out for napkins, cakes, paper plates etc there was plenty of easy items to choose from in the sense you didn't have to bake something you could pick up bottles of juice or plastic cups etc quite easily.
She would say she couldn't open the email and would always arrive empty handed yet would seek out her kid to push to the front of the queue when cakes / cookies / fruit etc was given out.
Another occasion kids had a trip to local pizza place and when it came time to pay the bill she only had a fifty pound note she didn't want to break into so didn't pay at all.
I could never believe the brass neck, she borrowed cash often and had to be reminded to pay it back. It was uncomfortable and embarrassing which is why she got away with it as no one was direct enough to tell her.
I also remember a right CF on kids nursery trip to the Zoo, it was a hot day and parents had been told to bring suncream for their kids. A few had forgotten I shared the one I had but it was emptied quite quickly as just handbag size. One last kid needed some poor little thing, CF mother had a huge bottle in her backpack and wouldn't share. I couldn't get over it, not normally confrontational at all I asked you'd prefer this kid to burn than give him a blob but of suncream. She'd told the nursery manager she had none so was red faced getting out after I asked her for it. I was properly shocked, someone would let a kid suffer.

BIL- single man.
Used to come and stay with us when visiting whole family, eat us out of house and home, leave dirty mugs all over. Once left a dirty tray in the oven that I only found a week later(shift worker hadn’t needed oven before then).
He will still come to stay and has never offered to pay for share of take away or brought a meal, flowers or chocs etc when staying.

We went to see him recently and again paid for dinner and drinks despite the fact BIL has come into a large sum of money!

Few years ago an old friend decided to move to London (from abroad). We told him he could stay up to three weeks with us rent free - time for him to find room and job (he wasn't after qualified one, just any job). Three weeks later he hasn't even sent one job application out; hadn't been to hand his CV in; hadn't looked for a room. We judged him a bit about it said he would get onto it. Every day we'd get up at 7AM go to work come back 7PM just for him to say he slept in until 2PM.... and again nothing. My very patient husband reached his limit at week 4. To top this up he made a racist remark whilst watching football with DH about some of the players.. DH then Sat him down and gave him 3 days to find a place or he would put him on a plane back himself. Needless to say within 3 days he'd found a job and a room. He lasted a year and went back home. He now asks if he can come back try again, and we just say NO.

Ex housemate was in a very well paid job when lived with us, whilst we were all in bar work at the time and struggling month in month out. One of the other housemates was his girlfriend (also in bar work). Apart from her, he had no social life, we named him 'couch potato' because he was always on the couch. Come pay day every month without fail he would come home and loudly say 'finally pay day!' And then leave his payslip on the coffee table, so as to make sure everyone sees it. Was such a CF. If he ever came out with us he would leave before his round of drinks came along. Needless to say the GF didn't last long.

A mother of my son's friend asked for help moving house. Was a bit surprised but agreed as she was moving around the corner from me from not too far away. She hired an elderly man-with-van and told me she had a bad back so would not be able to lift anything herself (son with divorced dad). It was just me and him, the entire contents of her home ferried over in numerous trips and a top floor flat in a victorian terrace. DP was furious I agreed, calling me a mug and would not be roped in to help and she apparently had no other friends or family that would lend a hand. It was an exhausting day, made more infuriating as she only shouted instructions as we sweated up the stairs with her brass double bed, sofa etc. DP relented and came to help, everything finally in and gave her pizza and wine to enjoy on her first night in new home. Could not wait to get away from her. She then realised she had not arranged for electricity to be on. I had had enough, found her some candles and said goodbye with her whining 'but how am I going to heat this up'? When I next saw her at school, she was keen to tell me she had gone to spend the night with someone who gave her a hot bath, dinner and a bed with the comment 'it's good to know who your friends are..' My kindness was never mentioned. I'm much tougher now with CF's - users can sense who they can take advantage of and end up crushing the generous impulses of helpful people.

I asked a long time friend if she could take DD to school 2 mornings a week as childminder couldn’t. DH would drop her off at 8.35 and they left at 8.40. She was very clear we couldn’t turn up before 8.30 (hardly out of bed). Fine, meant DH could get to work on time.
In response I had her DD over every weekend, took her out, fed her. Not once did I get a thanks (she never had my DD round). Couldn’t stop as felt like repaying a favour.
She then started asking me constantly for lifts from me and DH as we ‘owed her’ usually in the middle of the day when we were at work.
Started suggesting we could take her DD on holiday with us ?!
Started trying to fiddle money from me, offering to buy things I needed but adding money on etc.

She then started to complain we didn’t pay her like the childminder (who takes DD from 7.45am) to other friends.
Anyway I changed my hours and didn’t need her anymore and I’ve stopped taking her DD out. I did it a few more times and still no thanks. Apparently she’s not happy.

We don’t really speak anymore.

@catspyjamazzzz haha I bet she was! What did she say?!

She never complained to me, just others about how mean it is to her DD.
Pity as I think it’s nice to do these things for each other.

Took daughter’s classmate to school for a year as his mum started work early. Had him for half an hour every school day that year. She offered to babysit on the night of my husband’s birthday...and said when we got home “shall we say £8 per hour?”

What did you say?

A women I used to work with was always bringing in sponsorship forms from her kids and she would walk from desk to desk badgering people to donate. She would always fill in the first few lines herself with £20 plus donations hoping everyone else would follow suit. What bothered me was that the sponsored events were something really crappy like ‘not talk for a day’ or ‘walk 2km’ so not exactly demanding stuff. I used to deliberately sign up some derisory less then a quid amount just to annoy her.

I was asked to buy a bottle of wine for someone and they’d pay me back. I used my nectar points as I was skint. They took one look at the receipt and said they didn’t only owed me 50p as I used free money. The points pay for Christmas dinner!

@PanGalaticGargleBlaster
You just reminded me I worked with someone like that went round the office to sponsor her then baby at nursery for sponsored nursery rhymes. I happily sponsored a couple of £ but a few weeks later when I did a sponsored 10k run I asked for sponsors she just put her head down & ignored me . I heard that she's always skint fair enough but it's very cf to get sponsors for a baby and not return favour . She never put in for collections either but when it was her birthday told everyone what she wanted and she got it .

I had a friend invite me to be his plus one for a wedding overseas, but we both got paid monthly and he was so unorganised - as in I had to get him to take a photo of the wedding invite so I could ensure we RSVP’d on time. So I organised our flights and accommodations on my credit card and itemised his half to pay me back.

Out of about $2k I saw $500. He spent the months leading up to the wedding “saving” his money for the actual holiday - he blew it all in Vegas on the bucks so when we got to our week at the wedding destination he was skint and begging his sister for a loan to cover the rest of his time there. He then spent the entire week of our holiday holed up in our hotel room streaming Netflix day in day out because he couldn’t afford to do anything. I had to bribe him to come for a beer so I wasn’t alone the entire trip. It was depressing.

To make it worse, at the time I was about 5mths separated from my exH and was juggling paying both rent and a mortgage while trying to adjust to life on a single salary that was monthly (whereas exH and I managed on my monthly wages going on the big bills and his fortnightly pay was our living expenses so it was a huge adjustment.)

Needless to say we aren’t friends anymore and he’s fucked off over to work and live in the UK so I’ve given up hope he’ll ever make good on his debt. Never. Again.

I think we need a checklist so as to spot these CF tightwads from a mile off!

Forgets wallet/purse
No card or cash
Never buys a drink but is always caught short when it's their turn.
Eats and stays without contributing a packet of crisps
Borrows money without repaying
Gets lifts without a thank you and a pack of biscuits or a contribution to petrol
Assumes you will always pay and are never embarrassed.

Meanness like this is a terrible trait, but I reckon the people who do it are suffering from some illness whereby they have hides like an elephant and are never contrite or concerned about it at all. In fact the benefactor feels worse for NOT paying for CF. LOL.

You can add to the list if you wish!