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?

@WeBuiltThisBuffetOnSausageRoll

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.

Aren't they made in-house by volunteers - often elderly ex-servicemen and women? I seem to recall reading (I may be mistaken) that some of the younger volunteers are folk with learning difficulties as it's a simple job to put the parts together, but they like to know that they're making a valuable contribution and supporting the overall aims of the charity.

The poppies are made by ex-servicemen and women, employed for these jobs. The poppy factories started as part of the Earl Haig Poppy Fund, and employed veterans who could not get a job anywhere else.

These are real people, doing real jobs.

@Talipesmum

*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

I agree with you @Talipesmum - E looks the right colour for tea to me, too.

(But I use one bag per cup - planning on experimenting with the multi-cup tea bag method now!)

Too many involving pil over the years but most recently.

Mil asking if we still had any Swiss rolls in our pantry (she must have been looking through our cupboards ) because she wanted them to put in her Xmas trifle.

We had thrown them out as they were out of date and she complained at how stupid as she wanted them even though they were out of date and could dh fish them out of the bin.

He told her absolutely not. Best not is she was off shopping anyway and they're about 30 p to buy

When I moved into my house the previous owner had taken the kitchen radiator off the wall and took it with then. Still haven't replaced.

At a funeral there was a table in church with a collection box for the deceased's chosen charity put there by the undertaker. A parishioner then went and put a collecting plate next to it and was telling people they could put their donation in either. His wife was gaily telling people she knew that they were trying to get extra money for the church by taking the donations meant for the charity. Fortunately somebody overheard their bragging and told the undertaker. The couple were barred from the wake. Did make you wonder how often they'd misled people at other funerals before they got caught out.

I used to let DILs friend stay at my holiday let Free of charge when it was not booked, she invited loads of friends and family to stay with her. I covered all utility bills and cleaning costs. Years later she was left a caravan in Yorkshire and told me I could stay anytime for “mates rates”.

Another friend collects food from M & S at the end of the day for the food bank. She had 8 turkeys in her freezer at Christmas, told me food bank rejected them.

@remainsofthesummer

When I was a student I loved m and s prawn sandwiches but they were a bit spendy. I'd open it up and take half the prawns out and put it between two slices of bread from the bread bin. Voila! One for today and one for tomorrow!

Surely much cheaper just to buy a pack of prawns and make your own! (Would be a much more generous portion too).

We have a friend who used to (when we socialised together a lot, she lives further away now) liberate 'spare' loo rolls from bars, nice restaurants, hotel room service trolleys.

Once she went away with another friend and liberated a bathrobe from said room service trolley. I was a bit - it was a big hotel chain but it was theft and some poor underpaid housekeeping staff member probably had to stump up for that.

Neither of them are particularly stingy in other ways, so I found it really changed my perception of them.

When the dc were little and would take a bite out an apple and then discard it, I would cut the remainder into slices and freeze them to make apple crumble.

For those of you still on the fence about tea bags, one bag will give two fairly strong (or weak if you prefer) cups of tea if you use a teapot. I prefer tea made in a pot in any case as it gives it time to brew. I use more expensive brands in general such as Yorkshire, Twinings or Whittards as tea is my favourite drink and I like good quality tea. I can tell the difference between expensive and cheap tea. Economy tea is often false economy.

@IbizaToTheNorfolkBroads

When the dc were little and would take a bite out an apple and then discard it, I would cut the remainder into slices and freeze them to make apple crumble.

fantastic idea

#minniejackson - I think that was me snapping the stalk off the broccoli, I wasn’t going to use it so didn’t want to pay for it !!!! These days I chop them up and use them in soup.

I've seen that happen very often . Don't they realise its shop lifting ?

@Fraine

No, it's not organised to bring your own refreshments when the condition of hiring a room for free is that you buy something at the venue!

I know a hobby group who lost the hire of a function room that they'd used for years because of precisely this. I worked at the pub in question and on the night that this group met, the members would creep past the bar laden with bags of drinks! What finally did for them was the half-time interval when the bar staff were asked for a pint of tap water so thate a group member could dilute the grapefruit juice he'd brought with him. That and the email request that reminded everyone to bring their own crips and biscuits. An email that was accidentally copied to the landlord. Result being that a great venue was lost because of sheer stinginess.

@saturdayhelicopter

We have a friend who used to (when we socialised together a lot, she lives further away now) liberate 'spare' loo rolls from bars, nice restaurants, hotel room service trolleys.

Once she went away with another friend and liberated a bathrobe from said room service trolley. I was a bit - it was a big hotel chain but it was theft and some poor underpaid housekeeping staff member probably had to stump up for that.

Neither of them are particularly stingy in other ways, so I found it really changed my perception of them.

Theft through and through

Bignanny30 I'm so sorry my comment wasn't meant for you ☹

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. That was quite normal in the past and was a way of promoting patience and the art of sharing amongst siblings!

When my kids were little, one of the school mum's invited my then five year old son to her son's birthday party.
There were a total of six children and for the party food they were given one half of a sandwich containing meat paste and one half of a small home made bun each.
There was no birthday cake or party bags and the party games was kicking a ball about in the back garden.
She offered me a cup of tea and offered me a biscuit, which she removed from the packet and handed to me before returning the packet to the cupboard.
They lived in a fancy house and her husband bought her a brand new car each birthday!

@WeBuiltThisBuffetOnSausageRoll- What drives people like that-the parsimonious, penny-pinching wealthy and the the money-hungry billionaires is AVARICE! It's a vice and one of the Seven Deadly Sins!

[quote TheMarmaladeYears]@Fraine

No, it's not organised to bring your own refreshments when the condition of hiring a room for free is that you buy something at the venue!

I know a hobby group who lost the hire of a function room that they'd used for years because of precisely this. I worked at the pub in question and on the night that this group met, the members would creep past the bar laden with bags of drinks! What finally did for them was the half-time interval when the bar staff were asked for a pint of tap water so thate a group member could dilute the grapefruit juice he'd brought with him. That and the email request that reminded everyone to bring their own crips and biscuits. An email that was accidentally copied to the landlord. Result being that a great venue was lost because of sheer stinginess.[/quote]
It was just a misunderstanding, the poster cleared it up for me.

I thought she was working for a company who booked the room and they’d be paying fro the drinks.

It was definitely stingy, as was the hobby group you mentioned.

@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.

Depends whose was the second tea.... DH's grandmother would always have very weak tea but I would never give weak tea to someone visiting (unless requested)

At my DP's Dad's funeral wake, his ex-wife took all the left-over food home in Tupperwares she had ready in her car. I'm all for zero waste but she'd planned this & didn't ask.

With poppy's, I have an enamel bling poppy broach I wear and just make a donation. Saves waste and when I used to buy poppies I always used to have to buy 3 because they always fell off my jacket, even with a pin. DH has a metal poppy tie clip and just makes a donation too.

In college I had a friend who lived opposite a market square which had a public toilet on it.
They never bought toilet roll just popped down and stole some when needed.

@reecewithoutaspoon, my dgran and later my DM did this too. So sad. When my DM was in her 80's she went up town with my sister and my sister saw the fish van Mum liked and she refused to buy her favourite fish she really enjoyed because it had gone up by 7p. She died a couple of years later leaving a lot of money unspent in the bank.