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?

Took a bottle of champagne as a gift to a wedding party. Upon arrival saw the price of the drinks, so drank the bottle of champagne instead. 😖🤫

I agree @Galdos.

A friend bestowed the virtues of pod made coffee, keen to try I asked for coffee only to be presented with instant while they had pod. We ceased to be friends from that point on

I know of someone who had to buy a suit for his fil (who died) to wear to his own funeral..then he had the suit removed from him and he swiftly returned the suit to the shop

Went to a wedding where no food or drink was provided for the guests.

@AdriannaP

Friend invited me for dinner. I brought wine and chocolates for dessert. We drank the wine during dinner. She cooked salmon and potatoes.

A few days later she asked for £5 to cover the cost of the ingredients.

I hope you refused

@Xmasgetaway

I knew a family that plastic runners on their carpets in all rooms to protect them from being walked on.

That used to be very common, I recall many of my relatives doing this, the same people who would cover the settee before you sat on it.

Apologies my unglassed eyes saw strangest not stingiest!

@Ijustreallywantacat

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!

So do I, there's a very narrow line between stingey and being careful with money!

@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.

I used to work with a woman who came in early to wash her hair at work because she’d calculated how much water she saved reducing her time in the shower at home. She also used to take the soap & loo rolls home from the toilets & the washing up liquid from the kitchen. Believe me, she was far from skint & we could all see how she kept her money!

I don't know if this would be considered stingy or just not wasteful, but DP uses the last drop of everything. He actually cuts shampoo bottles, body creams, turns the washing liquid upside down so every single bit is used, scrapes right in the corner of the butter, eats fruit that's more than ripe etc.

@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. 🙄.

We were lucky enough to get tickets for the rowing at the Olympics and the father and children of the family sitting in front were constantly sending the wife/mother down to buy food, she actually missed the GB pair winning our first gold medal.

@Alayalaya

In many cases people do these things not because they’re stingy but because they’re poor. I find it in really bad taste to criticise.

Not always so, when I was still teaching there were two Heads of department, so well paid, they shared a tea bag every day, the one who brought the milk that week had first dunk of the tea bag.

When my DD was in Primary school I was in the PTA, so often helped at fundraising events. Once we had a cake sale where students had donated cakes and cookies etc, some shop bought, but most homemade. All cakes were 20p each, no matter how lavish. One woman was arguing that the cornflake chocolate crispy cakes should only be 10p as they were smaller. I suggested that she wasn't obliged to buy them, she again argued that it was bad pricing. I was tempted to say that in that case the large fancy iced cupcakes that she was buying should perhaps be 30p then. The same woman was at another event where we were charging 10p for a fairly large glass of squash, with a biscuit added free. She argued that as she didn't want a biscuit she should get 2 glasses of orange for 10p. The funny thing was that she was also in the PTA, and lived in a Fu*k off great big house and later bought all 4 of her kids cars on their 17th birthdays so not short of a shilling.

I had an out-of-date box of biscuits… by a good several months… as a Christmas gift this year. Spot the re-gift from the year before!
Also I was once given a wrapped-up book that had clearly already been read. I don’t mind that really but it had a couple of pages missing! And it’s the thought that someone couldn’t be bothered to choose me a gift I suppose and just scouted round the house to find something at the last moment…

My husband was fitting the carpets for a brand-new build bungalow over a weekend (very nice place) & I said I’d go with him to keep him company - it was empty, the people who’d had it built weren’t moving in till the carpets were down. There were no lightbulbs in there at all so some of the hallways were really difficult as it was a dull day. Husband was a bit miffed but thought they’d just not got round to fitting them. When he did the en-suite the bulb was there but had been removed, needless to say he put it in or he’d never have seen to fit the floor covering.
Towards the end of the day the owner turned up to pay him. Bear in mind we’d been there about 7 hours by this time. First thing he did was go into the bathroom & storm out saying “Who put the bulb in? That’ll ruin my bill - I didn’t want anything on it before we move in!” Then “Did you use the toilet? You flushed it! I only want toilets flushed at night time, do you know how much each flush costs?”
This must have been 20+ years ago, he’d had the bungalow built to his exact specifications & he must have paid around £4000 for the flooring alone, yet he was worried about flushing the bloody bog?
Gross. I pitied his poor wife & family.

@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.

It's usually placed there by the funeral directors so people can donate to a specific charity in memory of the deceased.

@socialistcab

Apparently my granddad (who I never met) used to pick up discarded cigarette butts and light them to get a bit more out of them.🤢

I did this too

I recall a neighbour of my Aunt who would push a pin through the end of a cigarette and hold it with the pin so she could get everything, this was before filters!

My brother stealing napkins from Mac Donald’s and using as loo roll. Or he’d pop round a ask for one onion or one carrot for his tea.
I once bought a mop for £2 - my friend bumped into me as I was taking it back after seeing the same one for £1.50. 😁 We grew up poor.

@doubleshotcappuccino

Had to go to the bakery after 5 on a Saturday for the half price cream cakes !

When I worked in BHS I was on the cake counter and the supervisor would come round about half an hour before closing and reduce what was left to half price. During the afternoon we would put 'our' tray into the chiller to be brought out once she reduced stuff. My family looked forward to half price cream cakes!

I thought of another one (mil again). When we were young and he was still living at home I was invited round for lunch which was sandwiches. However because I was a guest it meant my DH got half a sandwich and so did I. She didn’t want to be out of pocket by having me there I feel. Again, they are not poor by any means. This is a family that have been on holiday to Disney land. She’s always going on cruise holidays and takes my niece and nephew away to Centreparcs (She doesn’t bother with my children though)

A Mum at my children’s primary school who had 4 girls …they had to share one chocolate advent calendar! This was years ago and I still remember every Christmas…Mum was actually a lovely person though .

I knew a family that plastic runners on their carpets in all rooms to protect them from being walked on

I hadn't thought about this for years but when I was a child most houses in my estate had this at least in the hall. I can remember so clearly the slight tap each step made, and the way it felt underfoot.

Having a party in your back garden at No 10 Downing Street and telling people it's BYOB

Wow, I hope there wasn't another date after?! I would have left a tip too.