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?

(I do that)

A boy invited me for dinner at his house at univeristy and then asked for my share of the ingredients. We were students so fair enough but it was soup, I had one bowl and he had made enough for his lunch all week and charged me half!
I think he had hoped it was a date but it never went further than friends for many reasons including that.

My uncle had a friend who could peel and segment an orange in his pocket. He could then discreetly pop a segment in his mouth and not have to offer anyone else any. In our family we use the phrase “so mean he’d eat an orange out of his pocket” in his honour.

@HollowTalk

Years ago I went on a first date with someone. He paid for the meal (I travelled quite a way and this had been the arrangement) and he clearly wasn’t going to leave a tip. I put a £5 note down and when I put my jacket on I realised he’d stolen it!

Bloody hell! Did you confront him????

@WindInTheWillows7

Reusing dental floss

I reuse the tipi brushes until they get too bent.

@SinisterBumFacedCat

When going into town this person would park far outside and walk in rather than pay for a car park even though that meant lugging shopping 20 minutes up hill. Would share a coffee and a sausage roll with wife rather than have one each. Obviously had just under £ million in assets.

People are peculiarly miserly about car parking charges. There is always moaning about car park charges in our town but I've yet to meet anyone here who was hard up! Mind you, maybe they are hard up because they are paying so much for their car leases...

I reuse the tipi brushes until they get too bent.

So do I. I didn't realise they were meant to be single use?

@Inbetweenn

My uncle had a friend who could peel and segment an orange in his pocket. He could then discreetly pop a segment in his mouth and not have to offer anyone else any. In our family we use the phrase “so mean he’d eat an orange out of his pocket” in his honour.

That is an actual phrase though...?

I think the difference between frugal and stingy is whether it only affects you, or other people.

Frugal: buying the reduced stuff at the supermarket to make stock, even when you've got a Porsche parked outside

Stingy: Trying to get out of paying, or eating other people's food and contributing nothing, even when you've got a Porsche parked outside.

I assume you mean they only took the florets but the big stalks by far the best part... we use to fight over who got it as a kid

I slice off the stalks and eat them raw! The florets are a bit horrible raw though.

I had a couple of friends who were incredibly tight fisted & in the end it really put me off them. The guy even charged me for burning off a CD & his wife once gave me what was clearly a 2nd hand jumper with a hole in it for Christmas! The wife’s Dad never ever gave lifts when we were younger but my parents ran this girl all over the place. Such an unattractive quality.

@ClawedButler

I think the difference between frugal and stingy is whether it only affects you, or other people.

Frugal: buying the reduced stuff at the supermarket to make stock, even when you've got a Porsche parked outside

Stingy: Trying to get out of paying, or eating other people's food and contributing nothing, even when you've got a Porsche parked outside.

Yeah, I'd agree with that

@Exhausteddog

I reuse the tipi brushes until they get too bent.

So do I. I didn't realise they were meant to be single use?

They're not single use. The instructions even mention rinsing them after use.

Another friend bought a single can to my party & took it home with him!

That's really weak tea. Fine if you like it but not OK to assume others do. Not sure it's stingy though so much as getting distracted and forgetting that drinking tea this weak is a bit niche.

Ok I do appreciate that everyone likes their tea differently - but I object to this being “a bit niche”! So much so that I’ve obsessively trawled the internet for backup and I reckon that what I make is about in the middle? I usually end up clicking in the middle of the pictures on those Facebook “ooh which colour cuppa are you” things too. Thus data

@Teadrinker11

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

In my defence- it was my first time ever eating out as part of a group, and I didn't know the "rules" or anything. Literally don't think I'd eaten out at a restaurant before this.

I went out for dinner, ordered the cheapest thing on the menu,
Everyone paid their bill, plus a tip.
I paid last, I remember saying, but that's less than my food cost. So anyway. I paid, thoroughly confused.

Turned out that I'd used the servers tip towards my food.

Had no idea, even now I feel guilty when I think about it. I wish the people I was dining with had pulled me up on it because I didn't really grasp what I was doing.
I wasn't invited back out with that group... it was clear I was a fish out of water at pretty much every situation, but I think they probably thought I was being miserly in that situation.

Not me but a friend went to stay with her daughter for the weekend. She was served up one slice of toast for breakfast. When she asked for another slice her daughter said she could but would only then be able to have one slice for her sandwich at lunch. Apparently slices were removed from the freezer each morning and once they were gone that was it. Daughter lived in a huge house and was married to a barrister at the time so my friend didn't believe they could be short of money. All food purchased was put on a spread sheet and ticked off when used apparently.

I get stuff out of bins (shop bins not household) and have had all manner of useful stuff, sometimes completely fine, sometimes requiring small repair. We get the vast majority of our food and even wine out of supermarket bins, we've never eaten so well and love saving usable and expensive food from landfill.

I also like weak tea, but always give everyone else their own bag, but just might use the dregs of it for my weak, milky cup. It depends on the brand, Yorkshire tea is too strong for me, PG Tips is ok. I like an F on the above scale and wouldn't drink it stronger than E, we're all different, I thought you asked someone if they like it strong/weak, milky/not milky and sugar or not before you made it?

@Flatandhappy

I drove MiL home - a 90 minute drive - after she stayed one weekend. It was a rainy Winter afternoon and I had a small baby in the car so I really wanted to drop her and head straight home. She insisted that I had to take her to Lidl through the town's busy one way system even though she lives on the outskirts to pick up some groceries. I asked if she could get them from the shop on the corner of her street and explained that I wanted to get baby back but she said no, it had to be Lidl. When she came out she had bought a pint of milk and a loaf of sliced white - when I asked why she couldn't have got them at the corner shop the response was "it's cheaper in Lidl".

@Flatandhappy - but it is cheaper in Lidl! Pity you had to drop her off.

I'm always staggered by how much cheaper shopping is in e.g. Lidl/Aldi and even Tescos compared to Sainsburys or Waitrose but Sainsburys is my nearest local supermarket to drive/walk to.

@Nowayoutonlydown Ah, they should have said something (kindly) when you commented! It must have been obvious that you didn't realise.

@Hawkins001

Ran out of milk, shops near me were closed after 8pm and had a carton of strawberry flavoured milk, so used that until I had milk the next day.

This sounds sensible (and weirdly delicious)

@Cochabamba

I feel like this will sound hard to believe but it's absolutely true. When hitching through South America, me and my partner met up with another couple who were doing the same, very rare in the late 90s to meet gringos hitching because it was a stupid thing to do! We were all stingy and didn't want to spend money so we could travel for longer. Anyway this couple had hitched all the way from Canada. We all got a ride together on top of a petrol tanker for about ten hours, beautiful panoramic views of the Andes. When we arrived wherever we were going we realised the girl in the other couple's rucksack had been in a puddle of petrol, so she was going to need to wash and dry out her stuff. We went over to see them the next day and she had boxes of tampons (no plastic then all paper) drying out in the sun!!

@Cochabamba - do you mean to say she rinsed and reused the tampons after using them once?!

@Smallkeys

I attended a funeral the other day and there was a collection box outside I was in the Q behind a couple who pretended to donate !

I work in a church. People pretend to donate all the time. I don't know why, it's not like anyone is keeping tabs, especially now that a lot of the regular donors give online or by standing order, it's perfectly acceptable to just pass the plate on to the next person without putting anything in, or to walk past the box at the entrance. But some people seem to have a sort of compulsion to be seen to donate so they fake it.

@reesewithoutaspoon

My nan was frugal, but she was born in 1918 and I think wartime had a lot to do with it. She saved all wrapping paper and ironed it flat to reuse, cut buttons and zips off every item of clothing that had worn out, clothes were cut up for rags or used to make patchwork items. basically she very rarely threw anything out and would find another way of using it. Old jumpers were unravelled and used to make hats/gloves/scarves. Old tights were stuffed with rags to make draught excluders. or the rags cut into strips to make rag rugs. She wasnt skint. I just think she got so used to having to make do and mend when she was younger that she just couldnt bear to see anything go to waste.

I do some of this. I always cut up old clothes to make cleaning rags. Then when they're beyond the pale I recycle the fabric.

If we did more of these things the planet wouldn't be as fucked.

We have a fortnightly meeting where I provide tea, coffee, biscuits and milk. The non-perishable things stay in the meeting hall cupboard until they're used up but the leftover milk gets taken home every time. Without fail the same person 'volunteers' to take the milk so that it's not wasted. It wouldn't be bloody wasted, I would take it. I bought it in the first place and I can easily use up a pint or two. I've decided to start saying no, I'll take it.