To ask your stingiest stories?

[iLoveFoood]

Tell me some of your stingy stories. The ones where you've had a friend out to dinner and they inspect the bill down to the last €0.20.... or the guy at the office who refuses to bring in the Friday biscuits but eats everyone else's!

I know a guy at my work who is a full time smoker but never has a box of cigarettes. Just asks someone different every time. He gets away with smoking ten a day, one off a different person every single day!

I asked him for one before after giving him my last few a couple of times and he said 'no, these need to last me 2 days' 😆

Eurgh I do hate a Scrooge. I have a friend who always says he's taking food/drinks out then proceeds to stay. Saves a small charge to eat in

My friend will always ask for a takeaway box to take away any left over food she hasn't eaten when we go out for lunch/dinner. There has been many occasions where she has asked for a takeaway box for something so small such as a single sausage The same friend will also try to barter shop keepers, something will be selling for let's say £5 and she will say i'll give you £4.50 and they say no so she'll walk away for the sake of 50p, even if she really wanted it

My friend will always ask for a takeaway box to take away any left over food she hasn't eaten when we go out for lunch/dinner.
I actually think that's perfectly reasonable What's the point in wasting perfectly good food that you/someone else could enjoy later?

An ex friend and I went on a pub crawl. 7 pubs, and she was last to the bar in each one. I bought all 7 rounds. We got to the last one and wanted to play pool. It needed 2x20p. She had loads of 20ps, I had none. She got 1x20p out, then suggested I go to the bar to change up a £1 for my 20p half.

And, I agree that a doggy bag is perfectly normal.

Years ago the in-laws came to visit. PIL, two SIL, and their 3 children. On the third day, my FIL said he was taking us all out for dinner that night. I thought that was nice seeing as though I had been cooking 3 meals a day for all of them and my family as well. Financially, that really adds up!

At the restaurant after eating, FIL asked for 2 separate checks. One for the in-laws, my family's was the other. My husband was understandably confused, after all FIL said he was taking us out. I can't remember exactly what my husband said to his father, but FIL replied, "Well, I would have paid but I didn't know you all would eat so much."

For clarity, all we had was water and a very moderately priced entree each. That's it. No alcohol, no starters, no dessert. I can't tell you how hard I had to bite my tongue because this was so typical of my FIL. He is the most selfish, entitled man I've ever known. He has loads of money but only spends it on himself and all of his expensive "toys." What a prick.

You know when you have to pay money onto your account to give yourself print credit and then each black and white sheet costs 5p, etc? I once had someone offer to print out the ticket for an event for me and one of my colleagues because he was printing out theirs (we didn't ask him to, he offered!), and once they printed them, he asked for the 5p off us each. We politely laughed and then realised he wasn't joking! I think I pushed the boat out that day and found a 10p in my purse to cover my colleague and myself as she didn't have 5p on her! Also it was a workplace where your first £20 worth of credit or whatever was free!

I had a neighbor, a young guy in his 20s, who would never break a £20 or £50 note.

If his bill in a shop came to £1.70 and he had £2, he’d pay it.

If it came to £21.70 and he had £30, he’d pay it.

If it came to £1.70 and all he had was a £20 note, he’d put the items back and go without.

Such a strange approach, and I always wondered just how many £20 and £50 notes he’d amassed by doing this.

In his defense, it wasn’t entirely stingy as he wouldn’t expect anyone else to pay his way.

Arethereany that made me laugh out loud!

An engagement party in a park. Fair enough, they didn't want to pay a venue. Except nothing was provided for guests: not a single sausage roll or drink. No effort made to host guests either. It was incredibly awkward.

Another time was a child's birthday party where adults stayed as only a second birthday. Again, not a single bite of food, for the children or adults. Kids that age are hungry! The family who were hosting were very well off, I know because they were very keen to let everyone know this. I left as my child was hungry.

Just alluded to this on another thread.. my ex, very 'thrifty' shall we say, Yorkshireman, who earned 80K (ie a serious fuckton of a lot of money in Sheffield ten years ago). Once made me walk all up and down the Moor (a nasty cheapo shopping street) going in and out of all the pound shops pricing up replacement plastic CD cases, because about 10 CDs he kept in his car had broken ones. This went on for over an hour, him grumbling the whole time. Eventually he spotted a teenage boy on a market stall had them, and proceeded to BARGAIN with the poor kid.

At a previous company, they had to start snipping the lids off the washing up liquid bottle as people kept stealing them.

Ooo, I could win this!

Bought a new sofa, despite then DHs protests (now ExH thank god) The old one was really only fit for the bin, but ex insisted we sold it. A friends DD was just setting up home, so bought it for £20. Ex agreed to deliver it (for a small fee, natch).

He stopped halfway to her house, and slit the lining with a knife so he could check for loose change. I found out years later, after we’d split. The sofa was rendered useless, and she’d had to pay for it taking to the tip, plus buy another. I was MORTIFIED!

My late uncle went to a hardware shop and bought a couple of screws. He asked the guy in the shop if he could return them if they were the wrong size....

They cost 6p in total

Sorry @hibbledibble but we’re going to have to hear more about this “party”.

An engagement party in a park. Fair enough, they didn't want to pay a venue. Except nothing was provided for guests: not a single sausage roll or drink. No effort made to host guests either. It was incredibly awkward

Hibble I went to a children's party like that. It was embarrassing! There were about 15 kids....aged 3-4 ish and the Mother had made one small plate of cheese spread sandwiches and a bowl of crisps...which literally looked like two small packs opened up. That and a small supermarket cake.

These were NOT a poor family either.

I once walked around the school playground picking up 1 and 2 pence pieces, until I had 10p, which you could put into a machine to get a drink of 'orange' in a cup or hot chocolate.

Takeaway around friends house. Host paid on card. Worked about £8.50 each. We all gave £10 each to her. One friend asked for changed to be bank refunded to her. Host had also provided us with bed for the night, bottle of wine & soft drinks and breakfast in the morning. Was shocked that friend asked for £1.50 back!

My cousin who is 21 came to my parents for dinner on New Year's Eve with his parents and brought a crate of beer. My mum and my brother cooked an amazing meal and my cousin was wined and dined all evening, and then TOOK THE BEER HE HADN'T DRANK BACK HOME 😱

My uncle hangs his teabags out to dry to reuse. One gets used at a time and he uses them until they literally break.

Silly thing is, he is extremely well off and very lavish in other respects.

I've been criticised for being stingy by keeping my broken plastic bags for life with the intent that once I have a few I'll go to Tesco and ask for replacements.

People say they are only 5p just throw them away and buy some more when you need more. I think they're called 'bag for life' for a reason.

Also a lot of stores have not been donating the money from these bags to charities, community projects etc as expected (but not mandated) by the government.

Min would have to be visiting University friends in the town. They had a bag of sweets what they invited us to share. It was only on thr journey back that DH told me that they were upset about how many sweets we'd eaten ( I'd had one or two = that they'd charged us £1 for them. Worst thing was that he'd payed!

Going on a weekend away and we all took drinks with us. Apart from one friend. She forgot so said she would pick something up on the way there.
We stopped off to get petrol and she stayed in the car. No drinks bought.

We went out walking the first night. Found a lovely pub and decided to pop in for a warmer. She went to the bar, got herself a drink and left the rest of us to sort ourselves out.

When we eat out she orders drinks to the table rather than at the bar so the cost goes on the joint bill. Most times she’ll have a steak or something equally expensive.

There are many other instances but I don’t want to put them all on here. The worst of it is she is the only one out of us who doesn’t have dependants and so has more disposable income than the rest of us.

My childhood friend’s father wouldn’t have lights on at the same time as the TV as he wouldn’t pay for lighting the room twice.

I know a couple who go to different car show rooms every weekend.
Looking at cars they are never going to buy, because they get a free hot or cold dink!!

Could you be arsed ?!?!