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' 😆

My Dp... My waters broke spontaneously at 25 weeks. Blue light to bigger hospital. I go into labour, fast contractions and I know it won't take too long, phone my partner to come in. About a 40 min drive for him. Labour continues baby in distress. Docs say got to get baby out now. I call Dp and he says he's seconds away. All good. All gets a bit dramatic for me and 25 week baby.... Has to be a section under GA as not time for epidural. Still no sign of DP. Docs cannot wait anymore. Go through hugely traumatic labour and section alone. I wake up an hour or so later, with an incredibly poorly baby, and I've lots a couple of litres of blood and have a collapsed lung.

You know why he didn't make it before surgery??

BECAUSE HE WAS TOO CHEAP TO PAY HOSPITAL PARKING, SO PARKED STREETS AWAY, AND HAD TO RUN ABOUT A KILOMETER TO THE HOSPITAL.

He chose to save a couple of quid rather than get to come into the pre op but or surgery or hold my hand.. I've never let him live this down.

I'm amazed at how many people are happy to ask guests in their home to pay for food. I wouldn't dream of asking a guest for money!

Some people are pathetic, aren't they?

violet you win the thread. Congratulations , I think?

I hope you and baby were well!

@Ragevibration Its definitely il there, I've threatened to tell mumsnet many times but he's scared ha. We were in hospital for nearly a hundred days and the daily struggle to get him to buy me an nice M & s salad instead of hops it l food..
Nearly 3 yrs later we've discovered violet has a life limiting illness but unfortunately this can't be blamed on dp.

• hospital food

Jesus @VioletPickles, why are you still with this bellend?

BECAUSE HE WAS TOO CHEAP TO PAY HOSPITAL PARKING, SO PARKED STREETS AWAY, AND HAD TO RUN ABOUT A KILOMETER TO THE HOSPITAL.

My DH is similar.

Just remembered when dgm was rushed in with an aortic aneurism (later died), now exh took me in every day to see her, he took dc to local park with picnic tea I had prepared, every day he asked had I asked my aunt for petrol money -
When she died he still asked me (bloody bullied tbh) to get him some cash.
I never did, divorced him soon after.
Tight bastard.

When I was 16, my (very well off but nc) father sent me a pack of AA batteries for Christmas. Seriously.

My friends were divided on this one.

Friend invited our group (8 of us in total plus partners for 6 of the group) for a Bbq back in August. Great - asked on initial invite can we please bring a bottle of drink? Sounds good, and a perfectly reasonable request. I would do this anyway.

Then came the next message (which I just looked back at)
Says they are looking forward to seeing us all,can we all please decide between us and bring one of the following each with us:
Burgers
Chicken
Sausages
Buns
Crisps and nibbles
2 salads
2 desserts
They would provide ketchup, cheese and.....the actual BBQ

Half our group felt this was perfectly reasonable! Why should everyone expect a free lunch? It’s only fair for everyone to provide!
The rest of us when we were there twigged that the hosts had literally provided ketchup and a bit of cheese. And a bottle of coke. Guests had bought all alcohol, soft drinks and all the food. And we all saw them putting uncooked meat into their freezer at the end. One of the guests asked for theirs back (I wimped our and snuck my uneaten pack of sausages back!)

A relative who was staying at mine for Christmas (she offered money and I told her to behave!) accused me of using their cheap body wash. I'm not using the word cheap pejoratively as it was the same brand as the ones I use.

And we all saw them putting uncooked meat into their freezer at the end.

Of course they did. More fool all of you for going. Would have been, 'What a pity, I'm no longer able to attend.' Bring and share means you take what you brought home with you if there are leftovers. But these people used it to score free food.

Too true LegoAdventCalendar, I was naive.

I did have a convo with another friend going before saying it sounded like we were literally providing everything - both of us naively thought they must have something there (they have always been a bit cheap but not this bad) - I actually volunteered nibbles and took the sausages I already had from a rained off bbq - and have learnt a valuable lesson!

When an elderly spinster relation died the family did family flowers only. At the wake my dads bil suggested quite strongly that we return to the crematorium and take back the flowers and divide up between the family

I worked with a team of four out of office hours and on a Friday we used to order an Indian takeaway. One of the girls would never chip in towards it yet would ask if she could have the leftovers. Now I’m practically veggie and the chicken korma (it was a set meal, several dishes) had Hughe chunks of chicken in, so this particular night the other two didn’t want any korma so I sucked all the sauce off the chicken pieces and put them in a tray to take home for my dog.
Well, I had to go on a call out and I got back just before my shift ended, so I asked my colleague where she’d put my chicken pieces.
Turns out that my tight colleague who never chips in with the takeaway had come into the kitchen and finished off the leftovers including the chicken I’d sucked the sauce off!! . Served her right really for being tight!

@FairyLightBlanket45 They had some nerve. How can you possibly invite people to a BBQ but not provide anything at all?

Actually @loubeylou there was a funeral director on the radio yesterday saying you should do exactly that, he said they all get chucked away and it’s a terrible waste.

I'm stingy. I admit it it. I'm no CF though. Luckily i mostly go out to eat with other mum friends who are all also broke very frugal. Pay-up time is hilarious. We're all there with the vouchers and discounts working out exactly who had what and where did that extra 50p come from. Usually we try to overpay slightly and if the service was good we always tip (esp when I'm with one certain group as we have a tendency to let it go on till closing time so we feel like we owe them).

I always feel very embarrassed whenever funds are tight and i have to be all "I'm going to sit this one out" about social things. I do hope i don't have any friends thinking I'm a contender for this thread. I'm a generous host and airways overfeed people, though we're a dry house and i often forget other people like booze so don't get any in. And we have one set of frienda who refuse to let us feed them. We invitwd them for a bbq, I'd made burgers, got sausages, salads bits etc and told them so. They turned up with bags of steak from waitrose and all sorts of exviting vegetableas then proceeded to do most of the cooking and wouldn't take any of the leftovers home! I adore them but they make me feel like a CF sometimes! All we can do is love them and let them know we consider them family. They're both from t'other side of the world with no family over here so perhaps the extreme generosity is their way of paying it back. I'm just grateful for the fact they entertain our v hyper kids for hours on end but there's no telling some people.

Lots about splitting bills. My policy is always to offer to split equally if I've had less but offer to itemize if I've have more expensive. I always thought that was the polite thing to do. I kinda expect that if someone has had way more expensive they will object to my offer to split equally.

I was heavily pregnant at the Christmas office party and wasn't drinking.

Three younger colleagues met me in the car park as I left, claiming to be stranded and saying that they couldn't get a taxi, so I gave them all a lift home. It took me two hours to get home, rather than the usual 20 minutes.

Never mind, I thought. We wimmin have to look out for each other. One offered to take me for a hot drink and pastry on the Monday as a thank you gesture, which I gratefully accepted. Then, on the Monday while I popped to the bathroom, I passed all three returning to their desks having been on a coffee run together. Didn't even bring me so much as a sugar packet. CFs.

I know a couple where the MoB had to pay for her own meal at her daughters wedding as they only had limited numbers of guests included.

TryItAndDieFatLass I don’t understand how the battery makes them stingy? You are supposed to change smoke alarm batteries at regular intervals, not when they run out. Surely it was just to remind them when to change them?

I have a friend who is notoriously cheap.

When she married a few years ago, she made such a drama about the whole thing as it was going to cost so much money. Her parents paid for the hotel package, so that huge expense was covered. She had very specific ideas about how she wanted things, but would then be so offended by the cost. It ended up causing her a huge amount of anxiety. I offered to make her wedding stationary as her wedding gift, as she was in a right state about how much people were charging (it wasn’t a huge deal as I had made my own before). She was an absolute nightmare with it all. She kept changing her mind about the materials, the colour of ribbons, the wording. In the end, I spent about £80 on everything I bought (most of which ended up unused), but that was my wedding gift so I was fine with it, plus she was happy with the end result which she had been getting quotes of about £300 for. So I thought £80 was a bargain. She outright asked me how much it all cost as she loves to think she has got good value for money, so I proudly told her it was about £80 baring in mind someone would have charged her three times as much. She was godsmacked and quipped that “she thought I was going to say about £8-£10)”. At the time I was furious as the fancy glitter card that she had to have was £15 on its own!

This same friend wanted to go away for a hen weekend. It ended up just being three of us in total as no one else she knew wanted to go. So off we pop to a city about 3 hours away by train. We’re all sharing one room so it’s not a huge cost, but for £10 pp we could have stayed in the hotel right in the city centre so saving on taxis. But as friend wanted it as cheap as possible, she decided to book the budget hotel a mile and a half away from all the bars. I made a comment when we arrived and made the journey by foot with all our luggage that we’d probably end up spending more on taxis than we saved on the cost of the room. She laughed and said why would we get taxis when we can just walk I would normally have just agreed seeing she was the bride to be, but I put my foot down and told her there was no way I was walking to our hen activities after spending so long getting ready and in a very undesirable area! The taxi was about £7, so not at all breaking the bank! We spent the entire two days sitting in a dull chain pub drinking rubbish cocktails, which we could have done in our local town! We didn’t even have a kitty for the drinks because she had to pay the exact amount for her own drink, right down to the last penny.

My friend is lovely but her attitute to money is depressing. Everything with her now husband must be exactly 50%. If one of them is going to the shop and the other wants something, then they need to hand over the exact cash for it. Even now with them looking to buy a house, she refuses to put more into the deposit that what her husband can put in. Even so much as looking into getting a loan off a family member, so they can equally pay it back. After a few glasses of wine on a night out one night her husband tells me that he once saw how much money she had squirrelled away in her bank.. £30,000! Yet she won’t use this for any sort of house deposit because her husband can’t match it 50/50.

I know of someone who regularly went to the supermarket and took all the medium eggs out of their box and swapped them for large eggs!

LampShadeHeld how on earth does her DH stay married to her?? I know you say she's a good friend, but I do think my friendship would erode after a few years. If you're similarly financially, I could just not put up with everything hinging round money. Surely her DH can't feel valued, she puts money above him!

One of the reasons I married my DH decades ago, was his generosity. He'd give me his last pennty. I could not be with a tightwad.