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 absolutely love the derailments about how strong we take our tea

(Twinings extra strong , 1 bag per mug, brewed to somewhere between D and E on the chart, in case anyone has a spreadsheet on the go)

My bil insisting that his son (my nephew) choose from the children's menu when we were eating out. Said nephew was 13 years old and 6ft tall at the time and probably weighed 11 stone. We allowed both our children (also 13, and 10) to choose from the adults menu, no way were we going to let our children go hungry just to normalise bil's stinginess.

I am quite stingy, I like to squeeze the very last out of toothpaste tubes, dilute the dregs of shampoo etc to get the very last bits, switch off lights that aren't being used etc. But the thing I am most ashamed about is when my front door lock had to be broken, it took the specialist guy a great deal of time, he was sweating profusely using this electric cutter but he got the job done (I was desperate as moving house ). I only paid him what he asked, I didn't give him a tip, even though he worked so hard and so long. Still go red when I think about it now. It was about seven years ago.

@Fink

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.

I used to take things in for the store cupboard at work like tea bags, sugar, marmite, packet soups etc. We work long days with early starts meaning shops and cafes aren't always open, so having snack stuff around was useful.

Food started disappearing at a rate of knots - people were clearly not just using the odd teabag at work ( I had no problem with that) but taking handfuls of stuff home.

Sadly ended up being the sort of place where you kept your food in your desk/ bag unless you wanted to be taken for a proper mug. Such a shame that other peoples greed/ stinginess ends up affecting what should have been a positive communal thing for everyone.

My exH family are all miserly, grabby gits. On our wedding day they pulled loads of stunts - not one of them would pay for a hotel room so ended up driving. That's fine, personal choice etc but I was so pissed off when ex SIL took unopened bottles of wine and soft drinks home with her from the table. They wouldn't toast us at the wedding but would take home the booze we paid for. Ex PIL even brought fil food trays with them to take home leftovers from our evening do buffet. ExH was the same though - set the boiler up in a way where we could only get hot water for an hour a day, never put enough coal on the BBQ (as it was 'wasteful') resulting in undercooked food I'd have to finish in the oven to avoid poisoning our DC, banned sugar in the house and bought a big rock of some kind of hard alternative that you would have to chip away at to sweeten coffee.

I am so glad I left him, he was handy with his fists in the end but I should have left him for making our lives a tight, miserable stressful experience anyway. He is so unhappy now and I am not. And I can have as much sugar in my coffee as I like

@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?

Oh I don't think twice about reusing those - there are only a few in a back, I think they're meant to be reused!

@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?

Me too, and I reuse dental floss 😊

A sister of mine always re uses teabags. As part of her Christmas present one year, I gave her a mini teapot-shaped dish for the purpose, I.e. for keeping the teabag on until next time.
It was in a William Morris ‘Strawberry Thief ’ pattern so obviously exceedingly tasteful 😂 - I found it in the British Museum shop.

CEO at a company I worked for claimed the 20p to use a public toilet.

Salary half a million a year.

@Chocolatefreak

I am quite stingy, I like to squeeze the very last out of toothpaste tubes, dilute the dregs of shampoo etc to get the very last bits, switch off lights that aren't being used etc. But the thing I am most ashamed about is when my front door lock had to be broken, it took the specialist guy a great deal of time, he was sweating profusely using this electric cutter but he got the job done (I was desperate as moving house ). I only paid him what he asked, I didn't give him a tip, even though he worked so hard and so long. Still go red when I think about it now. It was about seven years ago.

I only paid him what he asked, I didn't give him a tip

You paid him what he asked? How is this stingy?

@WeBuiltThisBuffetOnSausageRoll

I do take advantage of the meal deals in Asda, though. Unlike everywhere else, where you can have sandwiches, a drink and crisps (or similar) for a fixed price, Asda let you choose any three of the meal deal items and get the cheapest free, so you can take three packets of sandwiches and get one of them completely free!

Oooh I didn't think of that. I'm quite stingy (not one teabag per 7 cups or rewash tampons stingy, more frugal) and I like to think I'm quite savvy, but it hadn't occurred to me that I could get three packs of sandwiches i the Asda meal deal!

I don't cut my toothpaste tubes but I use Nuud deodorant (out of necessity) and I DO cut that to get the dregs out. The stingy in me begrudges having to but it in the first place!

My ex once ranted at me and treated me to the whole 'charity begins at home' speech because I gave 50p to a homeless person. 50p. Did I mention he's an ex?

@Theunamedcat

Weigh the veg on the machine THEN bag it

Collect pine cones use them as firestarters

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

My dad used to follow the coal wagon and catch what bounced off and follow horses with a bucket to catch manure for the roses

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 everyone has missed that the @Theunamedcat is giving tips here rather than saying these things are stingy or miserable.

That was my impression anyway.

DH and I were out for a meL with family, and we were properly skint at the time. I ordered refillable soft drinks and he ordered refillable coffee. We swapped at the end of the meal, and stayed an extra 45 minutes to make the most of it!

Sorry brewers Fayre!

Guy I worked with years ago would never buy a drink, he’d go round drinking the dregs from peoples glasses instead! We all thought he was disgusting, he was young and we all earned a good wage. Never understood it.

@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.

Bet they were a darn sight healthier than those of us who would have paid for car park then had our own sausage roll, coffee and cake to follow though ...

(Unfortunately I need to be in their camp, but am firmly in the latter.)

Do you think extreme stinginess is part of some underlying mental health pathology?

@KohlaParasaurus

Coming home from a skiing holiday 15 years or so ago, I was embarrassed to be selected for a hand luggage inspection and to have to pull unopened bags of budget brand white sugar, white flour and rice, total value maybe around £2.50, out of my bag and put them on the counter in front of everyone. We'd been self-catering, I'd overestimated how much cooking I'd want to do, and I hate wasting food. I could feel my DH and the customs officer exchanging an eye-roll.

Nothing to be embarrassed about, you did good!

In my very first job, 1973 ish the company did a payroll donation to I think it was Save The Children. It was 1p a week each from a workforce of about 60+, it wasn't a large amount and I only earned £10 a week back then as office junior.

One woman who joined the firm flatly refused. She said it was her money and she wasn't going to donate any of it.

@Yellownotblue

Some years ago my DH went to a tennis championship final (not Grand Slam but next category down - recent winners include Federer Djokovic Nadal Zverev etc) with my friend’s DH who is a tennis fanatic. He is also unbelievably tight. Tickets to the event cost about US$100. Friend’s DH brought his own packed lunch so he wouldn’t spend any money at the catering venues. So DH had to eat alone in the restaurant. 🙄.

$100 for the ticket - I'm not surprised your DH's friend took his lunch with him!!

@lucillelarusso

I went on holiday with a very wealthy friend and his family at the age of 14, stayed in their villa and went out on their yacht. On the last day the mum boiled 14 eggs that were left over and wrapped them up and took them as hand luggage on the plane! She was in first fucking class (I was in economy obvs!) I have never forgotten the madness of it.

Maybe she was low carbing!

@IcedCoffeeMilkshake

We live in a tourist area that holds a famous festival annually. We had exceptionally wealthy parents of a friend of DHs invite themselves to stay. They stayed for 8 nights. (For free clearly). The whole week we provided food when they were not out breakfasts etc. In that time the husband criticised the fact I drink beer (unladylike) and the wife criticised our decor and how I pruned my roses. The 'hostess gift' they gave us was a bunch of supermarket flowers that they put in their own room.

When they left a mutual friend commented they were surprised they had not even contributed a bottle of wine - considering the husband had recently sold his business for a reported £60 million (it was reported in the FT).

Fucking tossers. We'd never even met them before- just said yes when their son asked if we minded putting them up.

What tight knobheads. Why did you say yes?

@TheYearOfSmallThings

I once poured a cup of boiling hot tea into a jar of Nutella that was waiting to be washed out. I let it sit for a couple of minutes, then drank it from the jar. The jar was pretty clean, and no Nutella got wasted.

I would only admit this on an anonymous forum.

Not jars- they are glasses -aimed to be used time and time again

My friend used to recycle her Christmas card for her Husband, so tight, funnily enough they are not together now.

@Santaisstilleatingmincepies

Dh vacuums our fake grass. Our ndn mops the path outside her gate.. She is even on Google maps doing it!

Those things aren't stingy