What is the stingiest thing you've ever done / seen someone do?

[Teadrinker11]

Yourself or someone else, what is the most stingy, mean, miserable thing is that you have ever done or seen someone else do?

@TheDogsMother

Well I didn't think it was stingy I was berated by the decorator I was making a cup of tea for because I used the teabag to make two cups. Both his and mine at the same time, not reusing later.

I dont think this is stingy - I do the same thing for myself and DP. Plenty of life for 2 cups in one bag and with price rises it makes sense.

My (millionaire) father pisses in his garden then swishes his hands in the pool to save water on flushing/washing.

@SantaHat

Someone told me they ‘steal’ packs from inside packs at the supermarket and add it to theirs eg paracetamol from one carton and add it to another so they only pay for say 16 but get 24!

To be fair, as you say, that’s not stingy, that is literally stealing. No ‘ ‘ required.

This. It's no different from threading one shirt inside another and paying for one. Simple theft.

My SIL once tried to sell us the curtain and bedding set we'd bought her, at her request, for her first child's nursery, once her child was no longer a baby.

Dh’s old aunt - plenty of money but absolutely loathed parting with any of it.
She was a keen knitter and we once happened to be with her in the little shop where she bought her wool - on this occasion it was an expensive red mohair. The bill came to something like £14.12p - I remember the 12p because she tried for ages to get the assistant to knock off the 12p. It was so bloody embarrassing - the woman was saying, ‘It’s not my shop, I’m sorry but I can’t!’

Then she used to get her lovely, long-term and long-suffering cleaning lady to do her shopping (no extra pay) and would then berate her for not having gone to a different supermarket for the butter, where it was 1p cheaper.

She was childless, and MiL used to say to dh and his brothers, never to expect anything when she died because she’d find a way to take it with her.
However she didn’t, dh and his brothers were the sole heirs and I’m pleased to say that they agreed between them to send a nice fat cheque to the cleaning lady, who had of course been left nothing.

@hivemindneeded

Collect branches on every dog walk year round burn them through the winter

A friend of mine does that and she isn't stingy at all.

Well it is really because rotting logs and branches (and pine cones) are a vital part of local ecosystems. If you're collecting them to burn them you're destroying habitats for insects and fungi and depleting the nutrients in the soil.

Some of these are great tips for me to try & save some money this year. Some are just plain old stealing!

I once went on a works night out where we were all paying for ourselves. One woman (in her mid 20s) there had been brought in from the states to design a computer programme. She was a total whizz kid on over 150k (this was in the early 2000s. She told us her salary, and showed us the pics of the enormous house she was building for cash back home. Anyway, we went to Wagamama's, and she produced a 2 for 1 voucher and said she would split it with someone so they could both pay half price. Fair enough I thought. At the end of the night we all put money in for a tip (we were a large party). She loitered until most people had left, then tried to swipe the tip! My friend caught her and made her put it back, and she went home in a huff saying she couldn't afford to go out for drinks now!! I have never got over it!

Some years ago I was a volunteer helping in a women's refuge and we had a member of the management committee come in several times a week to have a shower or bath and wash her hair and help herself to food from the kitchen. One of the other volunteers worked at a local bakery and would sometimes bring left-over cakes and bread for the women in the refuge and I remember the skinflint sneaking away from the premises with a carrier bag of cakes and pastries. She wasn't hard-up. When it eventually came to the notice of other members of the management committee she acknowledged that she wasn't in need. She just regarded it as a perk.

My mum's sister and one of their cousins went to live in New Zealand about 60 years ago. Over the years I had their offspring and then grandchildren stay with me in London, sometimes for weeks at a time. I gave them all a good time: took them on days and weekends away, collected them and took them back to airports, fed them, lent them money and loaded Oyster cards... I wanted them to have a good time and happy memories. It cost me thousands. When I went to New Zealand for a couple of months in 2019 I thought they'd do similar for me, but no. A couple of nights' accommodation here and there but if we went out for a meal we shared the cost. One cousin, who'd brought his wife over and stayed with me for a week in London and then borrowed my car for a fortnight to tour Scotland, told me that if I wanted to stay in their bach (holiday home) out at Tennyson Sound he'd need rent money. None of them will be staying in the future.

@BlowDryRat - I'm ashamed to say I didn't really think that through. Thank you for explaining.

@alwayscrashinginthesamecar1 another one that is just stealing!

I’ve met people like this though with lots of money but it’s allocated so tightly to savings and investments, with so little left to actually live, that they’ve managed to convince themselves (and others sometimes) that they’re broke.

Here’s two cups of tea made with one bag. For me, that’s totally fine. I guess if you like it much stronger than that you wouldn’t be ok with one bag. But it comes out just like that in our big mugs as well (these are just the 300ml ones).

My grandma used to switch the eggs in the boxes at the supermarket - Tesco's finest and Tesco value. I didn't think it was stingy though I thought it was hilarious

I quit smoking at the beginning of the year. Mentioned it to ex DP and instead of saying well done, congratulations, etc, he asked if he could have my lighter and any left over rolling papers.

@Smallkeys

Yes they are common my point is they waited as if they were going to donate and then just pretended to :-) I thought that was a bit stingy and dishonest

I would never pretend, but on a couple of ocassions, I was caught out with literally no cash (during covid).

I've already given a nice cheque to whichever charity to the undertaker before.

I'm sure to other people it may look that I'm being tight.

@Talipesmum
Been making two good strong cups of tea in big mugs with one for years and it’s completely fine.

That is a picture of two mugs of weak tea!

CSJobseeker 0940
I'm with you on this one, I hate frivolous waste not because I'm stingy just because it's an unnecessary use of a resource.
My mother was brought up during post war rationing and makes sure waste is minimised. In a time where we care about the environment and are worried about costs of living this attitude make sense. I don't see how it is seen as disgusting or stingy.

[quote MrsHunch]@Talipesmum
Been making two good strong cups of tea in big mugs with one for years and it’s completely fine.

That is a picture of two mugs of weak tea![/quote]
Well that’s why I put the picture up! As I said, for me, that’s totally fine, but I guess if you like it stronger, it’s not. I usually ask people how they like their tea!

@miltonj

My grandma used to switch the eggs in the boxes at the supermarket - Tesco's finest and Tesco value. I didn't think it was stingy though I thought it was hilarious

It's still stealing, and the person who suffers isn't Tesco - it's the poor sod who pays a higher price for the value eggs. All of the examples about switching things in supermarkets (eggs, paracetamol) or stealing tips are pretty nasty tbh. Stealing isn't the same as being stingy - it's just plain theft.

Having one lightbulb and taking it around the house with you - now that's stingy!

Oh remembered another one. Split up with an ex partner. He lived with his parents so he used to always stay at mine as I lived alone.

The day after I split up with him I had asked him to drop his key through the letterbox while I was at work.

He let himself in and took every single thing he had ever bought me, valentines gift, necklace for my birthday, 2 dresses he had treated me to for a night out and to top it off every single condom out of the bedroom drawer that I had paid for "because he didn't want me using them with someone else".

Lucky escape or what!!

(Although I did get my revenge by taking a horrible porn dvd, and it was obviously horrible porn from the sleeve, back to his house and handing it to his mum)

When we were in our late teen there was a fuel shortage. I was with a group of friends at a social meet up. Friend A didn't drive and had been dropped off by her parents who were on their way somewhere else. Friend B told us that she had filled her car up with petrol that morning. When we were all leaving, Friend B told friend A that sorry she couldn't give her a lift home (they lived about 2 roads away from each other- the rest of us came from different areas) because of the fuel shortage. I was quite amazed at such meanness. (And gave friend A a lift home)

Sharing a cup with DH in places that offer free flow drinks.

My DH and I live in zone 3 in london, we used to take the tube to zone 2 (camden town) and walk to wherever we needed to save on the tube fare. Ditto with coming back.

We once walked 1.5 hours to a wedding to save on taxi fare; this was a rural italy wedding. We took the train to the town and then walked (i carried the heels in my bag). We did take the taxi back to rome (and the groom's mother paid less than her share so I guess that eroded our savings). We did give £500 as a wedding present to the bride and groom plus paid for flights and hotel so I guess we did spend a lot of money overall.

my DH used to save the macdonalds vouchers bar codes on his phone, he used to use the same one over and over again whenever he bought me macs.

@Talipesmum

Here’s two cups of tea made with one bag. For me, that’s totally fine. I guess if you like it much stronger than that you wouldn’t be ok with one bag. But it comes out just like that in our big mugs as well (these are just the 300ml ones).

My dad is incredibly frugal/stingy in many ways (he reuses everything, never throws away if something can be repaired or reused), but he loves his tea very dark.

When he visits relatives who use inferior (weak) tea bags, he has been known to ask for TWO tea bags in his cup of tea to ensure it's strong enough!

"Collect pine cones use them as firestarters

Collect branches on every dog walk year round burn them through the winter"

To the person worried about ecosystems...humans have been collecting kindling since fire was discovered.

"My nan bought a heart for my moms dissection lesson at school she was sick that day so they had it for tea instead"

I think that might win the thread. It's not really stingy just the best repurposing/ practical waste saving thing. Although if I had been the sick person I think I might have been feeling sicker at tea time.

Of course tea bags will make more than one cup, but I would put it in a little teapot not squeeze the bag again in a second cup.