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' 😆

The 21 yo should have left some beers for his cousin, presumably around the same age, to enjoy after he wined and dined him all evening.

Why didn't cousin's parents bring some drinks if cousin is too young and poor to leave beer? There is something cheap about it.

@onecutefox I see what you mean, I suppose it’s just different values...if someone owed me £12.13 I’d say call it £12 or even £10 but maybe that’s just me! Probably a bit naive but it genuinely didn’t occur to me that she would ask for 13p!

My friend invited about 60 people to her wedding at a church which was from 1130am - 1230am. She told me after the ceremony there would be photo taking and then the guests could dissipate to find their own food and refreshments!!!!
I think it would be nice to offer the guests you dragged from their homes on a weekend to watch you walk down the aisle in an expensive dress at least some water/tea or a biscuit after? Or seeing as it is lunchtime maybe push the boat out and provide sandwiches lol

Sorry 1130am -1230pm.. lunchtime

Many years ago I was sharing a flat with a guy. We would go halves on pizza sometimes.

The pizza was £9.99. The first time I took £5 of the housemate and handed a £10 note to the delivery man.

The next time the dame thing happened, but housemate asked where his 1p was because he had paid £5 last time so this time it was my turn.

1p, 1 fucking p.

His parents were Chinese, he always said he wasn't like other Chinese people because he wasn't obsessed with money.

@Asthenia, if you said to me personally, "Can I give you £12.00 today and 13p later as I don't have it today with me?" Then I would say, "No worries, forget about 13p."
But you didn't ask your friend if you could bring 13p later? I know 13p is such a small thing. I wouldn't dare to ask for it but if you had asked your friend to bring it on another day then maybe she wouldn't ask for it. Do you see what I mean? You expected her to slash the remaining few pence as many wouldn't bother with it but many also wouldn't offer a smaller amount without asking first to bring the rest later. It's just being polite.

Friend came on holiday with us a few years ago. Me, dh and dd plus friend.

As the week went on it became more and more obvious we were paying for most things for friend. Meals, drinks, ice cream etc. By day 5 I was pissed off without even an offer for her to pay her share. She said she couldn't afford fancy meals. We were eating in cheap and cheerful family places, 3 courses for 10 euros type places. Said she should just order what she could afford then.

On the last day she dragged us all the way accross the resort to a cheap tobacco shop, bought about 20 sleeves of fags to take home and sell. Then asked us if we could split them into our suitcases. .

Told her no and if she got stopped by custkms she would have to make her own way home from airport as we would be taking our taxi and taking dd home.

At the time she lived at home, worked and had a business and earnt the same as me and dh put together. So was by no means poor.

he and wife went on a long haul holiday he sat in coach and paid for his unwell wife to sit in club, he could not bear to pay for both of them to go club.

Maybe he thinks paying 000s for a flight is not worth it, but as they/he pay for DW to go the class they want to, I'd say not stingy

ElideLochan I think it's quite sweet that he paid for his wife to sit in comfort, but not himself!

screaming is your username a reference to the characteristic noise made by the engines fitted in HST powercars?

My dsis and joined her friends (now ex) at end of a meal with drinks. As they werehaving coffee we sat quietly waiting as we were about to go to an event. Bill came and my sisters friend asked everyone at the table for the money including my dsis and i. We were so shocked ds and i both put the same amount as everyone who eaten in. Bear in mind we eaten and drunk nothing. Later dsis and i complainedto each other about it. I was 21 she was 18 and had her new bf (who became her dh) with her. He also put money in. We laugh about it now all of us 20 years later.

FunkyKingston It certainly is! I mourn the passing of the Paxman Valenta!

Oh I do love these threads. I have a big crush on LegoAdventCalendar after reading this one! I often wonder though if these types of threads are pored over by tight gits looking for tips, functioning as a sort of handy guide to miserliness!

When I was a smoker, I was always amazed by how many people made free with Other People's Fags (OPFs). I would always gladly help a fellow smoker out if they were stuck, but there always seemed to be a large cohort of "social smokers" who would happily scab smokes off other people while reassuring themselves they were not really smokers. As the cigs got more expensive over the years, I had to cut back on my previous generosity to various OPFers!

DH has a friend whose wife is notoriously tight. We've seen it all from her over the years, all the usual tricks. At one party, she brought a bottle of wine for herself, which she kept in her handbag to avoid a Terrible Occurrence such as somebody else perhaps thinking it a communal bottle. She would reach down to the handbag when her glass needed replenishing. Another friend spotted her taking two large bars of expensive chocolate from the table and putting them in her bag (it must have been like the Tardis) that same night. She was quite happy, of course, to nosh on all the delicious food the host had provided and quaff copious quantities of the cocktails she had made.

I find tightness to be an odious quality. Perhaps tolerable in a friend one does not see often, but surely utter misery to live with. It's a pitiable mindset really and would be no more than that if these misers would confine themselves to their own lives of self-imposed penny-pinching penury. The problem, of course, is that they generally feel very much entitled to impose themselves on others, strategising and scheming to have friends, family members and colleagues subsidise them. Arseholes.

When I was 21 I unexpectedly came into a fair bit of money.

I decided to take my then-best friend and her boyfriend, plus my XH (my boyfriend at the time) on an all-expenses-paid trip to Rome and Lake Como.

I paid for flights, hotels and the hire car we used in the Italian Lakes. I paid for plenty of our meals too. It was supposed to be a real treat for them.

Except, every time we were out driving, those two insisted that we avoided the toll roads, so they sat in the back navigating from a map while my ex hauled the car up mountain roads and round hairpin bends. We spent most of our days driving.

Eventually the car packed up on one of these days out. We had to call out a mechanic, which was interesting as this was in the days before mobiles and none of us had any Italian.

Then those two left us with the car while they fucked off back to the hotel on the last ferry! Probably to avoid paying for a taxi.

FunkyKingston It certainly is! I mourn the passing of the Paxman Valenta!

Yes even after 10 years, i still find it discombobulating when a HST passes me and it doesn't produce the classic Valenta scream.

@onecutefox again, I think it’s just personal values. With someone I didn’t know very well I would do that, but this is someone I’ve paid for/given lifts to/lent money to a thousand times without much in the way of reciprocation. Maybe that makes me a mug but I thought I’d be let off the 13p in those circumstances. I personally would be mortified if someone offered me the 13p but again, just me.

@Asthenia I'm with you on this one, giving 13p simply wouldn't cross my mind and I'd never expect it to cross anyone elses.

I used to know a colleague who would really take expenses to the max when travelling. If you were given £100 a day for food, then they'd get their £100 and put it in doggy bags or something similar to take home. If they had a petrol allowance, they used to put the longest journey in the calculator to make sure they got as much money as possible (even if they took the shortest route).

They also charged colleagues for petrol money to go out at lunch or their "charge" for picking something up for them.

Years ago, we were invited to a family members house for a bbq...we took 2 bottles of wine, a load of beers and sweets for their kiddies. When we got there there was no food. The ‘man of the house’ said he had to nip out for the food and invited my o/h to go with him. I later found out that he had asked my o/h for half of the supermarket bill (which included some wine and beer) which out of embarrassment he had paid!, I had cooked for them many times over the years and they had never even bought so much as a bottle of wine with them. They were never invited again!
Tight sods!!

That is awful Pinot. What is up with these people?!

I had a friend who would order her dinner (at lets say McDonald's or something) then step aside and loudly say, "she's paying!", so I'd have to pay or die with embarrassment. We're no longer friends as she was a massive cf all the time. The type who borrows money and then makes you feel bad or stupid when you ask for it back at a later date. She didn't pay back the last £40 she "borrowed" but it was well worth walking away from her than even trying anymore

God, some of these are funny, but seriously how shit are some people! I used to be mean w money when I was young as I learned it from my parents so thought it was normal. I'm quite generous/spend these days. I just think it's a general reflection on people's other traits ie selfishness etc. Please people call people out when they are serial offenders!! I have 'taught' my parents, finally, to tip 10% rather than 5%. Win!

We went away in a big group some years back to celebrate a friend's milestone birthday. One of the group bought her newish partner. He wouldn't eat when we went to restaurants but would wait for others leftovers and polish them back for. He would also look in the bin for teabags when making a cup of tea to reuse ones that had only been used once. Whilst I did understand that he felt strongly about wastefulness it didn't half put a downer on things. He was a miserable so-and-so too!

At a school I worked in a few years ago. Some of the younger children had with the help of their class teacher grown vegetable plants from seed to sell for charity, I think it was 75p or £1 per plant. The headmaster’s wife (HMW) bought a courgette plant. I later heard from another member of staff that the head had a go at her for buying it as he said they (HM and HMW) were perfectly capable of growing their own vegetables!

Which is itself is bad enough ... but HMW actually took the plant back to the class and asked for her money back.

It wasn’t a case of HM being a bully and HMW being scared of him either - he was particularly odious but she was pretty awful too. He’s the only person I’ve ever worked with that I actually despised.

dsis went on a date with a guy to the London Dungeon (as you do!). She asked for two tickets at the counter, and the bloke said get a souvenir guide book too. He did not pay his share.

Walking around afterwards, dsis developed a painful blister, and sat down whilst bloke went to Boots to get her some plasters. When he returned he said, "That'll be £1.47, please."

Dsis says the worst point was that he'd had the nerve to do some serious groping inside the London Dungeon...