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 used to occasionally get a lift home from work with a colleague. He wouldn’t drop me near home as it wasn’t on his route, which was fine I didn’t mind. One day I’d been feeling pretty ropey and he was aware. I was actually suffering with severe peri menopausal symptoms so was feeling dreadful. My colleague knew I felt poorly as I’d mentioned it on our journey home from work. He needed to pop to a garage and asked if I’d be ok walking home from there. I bravely said yes. This garage was about 2 miles from where I lived! When I got home, my kids told me to bin him! It was the longest couple of miles I’d walked in my life!

@thistimelastweek

I worked with a bloke who kept his poppy in his desk drawer. Every year when the collection came round he'd bring it out and pin it on his jacket.

I have an enamel poppy badge which I use every year; I do however make a generous donation and I am a British Legion member.

I delivered newspapers at 13. The customers handed me the money for the delivery at the end of the week or left it outside. Let's say £4, I can't remember exactly. The shop took a cut.

It was snowing up to my ankles one time and pitch black. I fell over and got a bloody nose and my trolley broke, so I carried this giant stack of papers to each house. I was about 30 minutes late to the customer at the very top of hill.

This lady opened the door to my bloodied, dirty, frozen self and docked 50p for the lateness, and 50p for the fact that some of the sports pages had been folded and crumpled. She then slammed the door in my face.

In contrast, next (and last) customer insisted I come in and washed my face and hands, fixed my trolley wheel and gave me some nice hot toast.

I watched a group of young fit men in Nepal haggle with a old skinny man for a rickshaw ride. The ride was literally pennies to begin with.

Everyone was so obviously poor and reliant on tourists I tipped everyone as much as possible. And I had earnt bugger all money back home.

One of my neighbours invited a few families to a bonfire in her garden with a couple of fireworks and a little BBQ. Everyone brought a bottle and some snacks as you do. When each person arrived she told them it was a fiver for adults and 2.50 for kids, and if you didn't have cash she was happy for a bank transfer. Seemed a bit steep for a sausage and a roll each plus some crappy fireworks. She was a bit of a bully though so as far as I know everyone paid because they felt so awkward, she got ridiculously drunk and ended up in bed by half 8 after making a profit!

My tubes of cream I use water from kettle and squeeze the tube then let it suck up some water, shake well then use. Sorry not sorry I get another week out of them this way.

My mum never took the plastic off her headboard, half OJ and half water in a glass, 1 teabag per pot, plastic carpet runners in hall (maybe a cultural things cause a lot of families we knew did this, plastic table cloth on top of a lace table cloth.

My tubes of cream I use water from kettle and squeeze the tube then let it suck up some water, shake well then use. Sorry not sorry I get another week out of them this way.

I do the same with shampoo, conditioner and body wash!

Mrs Petty
Your blog was hilarious; perhaps your sister thought she was playing God, as in the feeding of the 5000 with 5 loaves and 2 fishes!!!

@Dontwanttolivewithmylover

I object to paying £3 for a pot of tea which is, in essence, 1 tea bag plus water and a tiny amount of milk in a jug or those useless uht thimbles.

But you are not just paying for some hot water and a tea bag. You are paying the businesses rent, rates, power bill, 20% VAT (ex covid), maintenance costs of the premises, and staff wages before the business owner gets anything. The teabag and hot water are the least expensive part when you buy a drink in a cafe.

@Santaisstilleatingmincepies

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

How is vacuuming fake grass an issue? Isn't that how you clean it

Helping with a charity event. We needed some drawing pins so I asked a lady who was certainly not hard up to get a packet from the nearby newsagents. She put in a receipt for 50p!
In the same organisation many willing volunteers gave many hours work the person in charge of refreshments insisted that must pay for tea and coffee.

@HumourReplacementTherapy

About a year after a woman I worked with retired, someone bumped into her on the top floor of our office building with a towel in her hand. She had kept hold of her door pass and come into town each day on foot and used the work showers, (which were not very nice anyway )

She also used to fill up two large water bottles every day and take the water home with her.

That is hilarious ! Not as bad, but I also had a (very well off) colleague who, a year post-retirement, was still having work printer ink and paper smuggled out to him by his assistant.

So many of these things I do all the time as it seems so wasteful not to. I guess money is saved too which is a bonus. I get another 2 weeks out of my foundation and handcreams when I cut the end off the tube.

An old friend and her husband came to stay for a few days. They just brought a bottle of red wine that had already been opened, and then drank most of it themselves (I get migraines from red wine… as she knows).
I cooked, cleaned and generally went all out to be a good host. One evening, I suggested we get a takeaway. I fully expected them to offer to pay, or at the very least go halves. But no, when the food arrived, my husband somehow ended up paying…
When we were out the next day ( I was still expecting they’d pay us back for the takeaway at some point), my friend said ‘As you got the meal last night, we’ll get your ice creams’.
Yep, she’s stingy, but I still love her

Slinky88
That is dreadful! I have only become aware recently that there are many folk out there in the world who truly are devoid of how people feel, unwell, nauseas, near fainting etc. They have no empathy, if they cant see it, they dont understand nor do they care. Hope he isn't working in hospital care. People sometimes are entirely empty.

I bar tended for a firms work Xmas party of around 30+ people for 6 hours solo before handing over to my colleague, she bar tended for them for a further 4/5 hours and broke up a fight towards the end of their party. Their bill was almost €1000 and they left the pair of us a €7 tip! My colleague was beyond furious!

@maybloss2

Most of these seem about saving and not wasting things rather than being stingy. The old war time strategies seem very pertinent to our climate change times. I’m all for not wasting as well as re using and recycling. It’s a mind set. Not a meanness.. Taking lemonade and drinking wine is stingy and cheeky.

Yes, being thrifty is great but not at the expense of others and being mean spirited

@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.

That is stingy - maybe he didn't want a weak tea

I had a colleague who bought an M&S dress to wear to her registry office wedding on the Saturday, and returned it on the Monday. I thought that was a terrible thing to do. She wasn't hard up.

When Waitrose did free tea/coffee with the my Waitrose card, they may still do, its been a while since I went to Waitrose, I saw someone filling up a empty jar with a hot drink and put it in their bag for later.

@thistimelastweek

I worked with a bloke who kept his poppy in his desk drawer. Every year when the collection came round he'd bring it out and pin it on his jacket.

And here I am, I never "buy" a Poppy, instead I donate the full amount to the seller so they get all the money, otherwise a quite large % of the cost goes to the company who makes the Poppies.

I must be pretty stingy. I do a lot of these things. I like to call it frugal.
I always added regular milk to my kids eggnog. They still drink it that way.

I used to care for an elderly lady. Her husband would put weetabix in a bowl with milk, eat the cereal and tip the milk back into milk jug . Then use it to make tea.

I saw someone at Waitrose break the tip off a carrot to have something cheap to claim a free cup of coffee with. Embarrassing.