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?

@liliainterfrutices yep i get that. I highly doubt anyone ever noticed though. Other than that she never pinched anything. Other than occasionally pretending me and my brother were younger than we were so we could get Pizza Hut Buffett for children's price. I don't think she's going to hell...

@ClawedButler @CSJobseeker

Sorry but having lived with such a person as your "Frugal" description I'd say it IS stingy!

Ferrari in the garage, shabby clothes but v well paid. Constantly complaining that we ate too well and should have beans on toast for dinner. I wouldn't mind but I waste nothing food wise, shopped efficiently and it's not as though we had truffles & caviar every night! Also, I've nothing against B on T

Needless to say, we aren't together anymore.

Oh and one day we stayed over there many moons ago and when she was changing the bed covers the mattress topper was heavily stained, turns out she got the topper from next door who had died and the stains were blood.

[quote miltonj]@liliainterfrutices yep i get that. I highly doubt anyone ever noticed though. Other than that she never pinched anything. Other than occasionally pretending me and my brother were younger than we were so we could get Pizza Hut Buffett for children's price. I don't think she's going to hell... [/quote]
No - I'm sure she's not going to hell!

[quote HCHQ]**@ClawedButler* @CSJobseeker*

Sorry but having lived with such a person as your "Frugal" description I'd say it IS stingy!

Ferrari in the garage, shabby clothes but v well paid. Constantly complaining that we ate too well and should have beans on toast for dinner. I wouldn't mind but I waste nothing food wise, shopped efficiently and it's not as though we had truffles & caviar every night! Also, I've nothing against B on T

Needless to say, we aren't together anymore.[/quote]

I think the definition given by one of the PPs above was frugal if it only affects the person doing it, stingy if it affects others. In your case another person was affected - yourself . And I think in relationships a lot of this is around control rather than the actual money involved .

In response to the poster who posted about the reused heart-there is now a trend for nose to tail eating, with rather expensive restaurants specialising in this. Just google ox heart or pig hearts and you will find some very posh recipe sites.

In response to the poster who said boiling fourteen eggs was not being wasteful, they would have been minging after a flight. Left in a fridge in a hotel or room serviced by low paid cleaners, they would not have been wasted.

When my sister was much younger, probably around 6 while I was in my mid teens - I made myself some instant noodles (hear me out) my sister started complaining that she wanted some and I had the last packet and I was made to share the last packet of noodles with her which I wasn’t happy about.

Anyway while we were sat eating our noodles she gave me a smug ‘haha’ smile - I saw teenage rage, escaped to the kitchen, grabbed the ground black pepper and popped off the entire lid.. then proceeded run to back to the dining room and pour the entire pot of ground black pepper all over her freshly cooked half of noodles then scoffed mine in a mouthful so I wasn’t made to give her mine.

We are closer than ever today, work together and get on like a house on fire.

Also to add, this wasn’t just “lots of pepper will be too hot to eat” this was for my sister, whom to this day is completely intolerate to any kind of spice or mint and would cry if she saw a spec of black in anything cooked for her at the pure fear that it was going to be ‘spicy’ - so I knew what I was doing

One of my colleagues only used to to shit at work to save the loo roll and water.

I wish I was strong enough to break off broccoli stalks !
I always remove outer leaves from cabbage & leeks.

Also snap off the woody ends of asparagus.
If the loose veg such as carrots & courgettes are large, I'll open the expensive bags & buy the smaller ones.

Went out for a meal to celebrate a family member’s wedding with about 30 other people - excluding the b&g. Was sitting with 2 other couples we knew. Each couple gave £20 each. The entire collection raised around £100. Perhaps some gave separately, including parents, but even so!

Used to live abroad. Colleague of dh’s was incredibly stingy. His partner came to join him from another country but on the arrival date, he was away on business. Instead of changing the flight date (which would have been paid for by the company), he asked if we could pick his partner up from the airport and have her stay with us for a few days. No problem, we got on well. I fed and watered her, went out places and so forth. On his return dh and I prepared a no expense spared meal with very decent wine (the first of many), he stayed overnight so he could also drink etc. Pretty much no thanks, let alone a gift. Said colleague brought 4 bottles of beers to drink, took the 2 not drunk home home having got sloshed at our expense and made a big fuss of ensuring he kept possession of the empties to recoup the few pence deposit on the bottles. I really liked her, she would have been 50/50 when out and out about but turned a blind eye to the stinginess and didn’t reciprocate with the invites. When we moved, they used to come and see us literally to get a free meal when going on holiday, sometimes they stated over. But as I struggle to host these days due to chronic illness, dh suggested we went out to eat locally. Tumbleweed. Zero contact since.

We also had a group of parasitic ‘friends’. One couple in particular gave nothing, would pitch at our house and stay until it was dinner time so we ended up feeding them, sometimes going out to the butcher, baker, supermarket etc get food (to cook) and they never contributed, wining and dining them, often staying overnight. They cadged lifts off us long distance so they didn’t have to pay the travel costs - they could come as we were going that way. I said I’d like to be invited to their home to eat and the answer was their place was too small. They lent us something once, not terribly expensive but we didn’t want to buy said item as it was for a one off occasion, large. Well, you would have thought they’d lent us the Crown Jewels, to be careful not to break it etc. The only time they put their hands in their pockets was when we needed a £1 coin and they graciously found one for us!

My DM at any restaurant/service station would make us take huge wodges of the free paper napkins. We had a drawer full of Roadchef paper napkins. She used them for napkins, wipes or when you needed kitchen towel. Used to mortify me. Not least when they were used when she entertained!

BIL reuses teabags. Cheap teabags used twice. 🤨

My dear old grandma used to send cards without stamps, after a few years I stopped collecting them.

@NewMessageFrom He had gone over and above the remit of his task, I feel, and I should have recognised that and topped up his fee. My Mum thought I was stingy! I was broke at the time though!

@Georgyporky you do this before weighing them? In the supermarket?! I knew someone who used to try and haggle in Marks and Spencer's - this is on a par with that.

I've just cleared my mums house. As well as free ketchups, napkins etc. She had about 40 IKEA pencils stashed away in different places and a similar amount of the paper measuring tapes from there too.

She would buy things that were on special offer on the basis that they would come in handy one day. She bought so many bargains that she completely lost track of what she had and would buy the same things over and over again. I gave away over 500 unused skeins of embroidery thread, over 30 unused cross stitch kits, dozens and dozens of unopened packs of tights, 3 bin bags of unused knitting wool, ££££ of out of date food, over 40 brand new pairs of gloves, and so much more.

Sadly her compulsive frugality led to her wasting literally thousands of pounds.

She is now living in a one bedroom flat and is gradually filling that with unneeded bargains too.

If the loose veg such as carrots & courgettes are large, I'll open the expensive bags & buy the smaller ones.

So, theft.

The owner of one hair salon I worked at in the 80s was really stingey. After finishing a perm we used to have to rinse the used end papers (the small paper which is wrapped around the hair before winding it onto the perm rod), then flatten and leave them to dry to use again. A large box cost very little from the wholesalers. I thought they were joking when I started working there and was stopped from throwing out the papers I’d used.
The owner also used to bring in milk every day for drinks for staff and clients and it had to be watered down in a jug to make it go further.

It was deception rather than stinginess at another salon I worked at. They advertised Schwarzkopf perms, and did have a regular order of the products, but the empty Schwarzkopf bottles were then washed out and refilled with cheap perm solution out of a gallon container from the wholesalers and clients were told that they were getting the genuine product. Some got the real deal if an order had recently come in while others got the contents of a refilled bottle.

@Georgyporky

I wish I was strong enough to break off broccoli stalks ! I always remove outer leaves from cabbage & leeks. Also snap off the woody ends of asparagus. If the loose veg such as carrots & courgettes are large, I'll open the expensive bags & buy the smaller ones.

Opening up packets means the supermarket has ‘shrinkage’ losses. They know how many packs come in & how many sell along with how many are ‘wasted’ when they are scanned and disposed of for being out of date. Missing packs are unexplained losses.

Ultimately this result in putting the prices up for everyone to cover the cost of their losses because they want to keep raking in their huge profits.

A friend came to a party at our house. She was driving. She asked if she could take a bottle of wine home, so she could drink it when she got in

@Georgyporky

I wish I was strong enough to break off broccoli stalks ! I always remove outer leaves from cabbage & leeks. Also snap off the woody ends of asparagus. If the loose veg such as carrots & courgettes are large, I'll open the expensive bags & buy the smaller ones.

This is one of the stingiest things I've ever heard.

If you go out for afternoon tea with my sister she carefully inspects everything brought and immediately takes 'her share'. Regardless of whether she wants to eat it all. She also used to buy butter for herself and margarine for her kids.

@FreshandLively

My mum likes her tea barely coloured, I have it black, so just about show the water the teabag, my dad likes his strong. So I make dad's then mum's then mine with a Yorkshire teabag . What would be the point of three teabags?

This is true but it makes you sound like The Three Bears!

@hamsterchump

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?

@hamsterchump you should have a look on the Olio app, people give food (other items) away free. there are some supermarket workers near me who take the unsold yellow sticker items home at the end of their shift and list all sorts for free collection. I’ve never actually claimed but have listed some toys to give away free. Too good to go app can be a bargain too. Greggs do a bag at the end of the day for £2.95. We have a dustbin of a teen so tried it a few times. One bag had 4 sausage rolls, 6 cookies, a steak slice, baguette and 3 doughnuts in! I think Morrison’s, some M&S food, Costa and quite a few other places -even restaurants-do it to reduce waste. Of course if you are getting things free that’s even better but I’d be a bit concerned cold chain wise. How do you even access their bins? Are they not round the back & locked?