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 our son and all his stuff to his new student house-share for the start of the year.
I made sure to take tea, coffee and a load of Penguin/KitKat type of snacks for everyone as we unloaded cars and so on.
Offered a hot drink and a choc biscuit to the mother of the next guy to arrive, she looked horrified and went into a huddle with her son.

She was calculating the mileage rate her owed her for the lift to uni. and holding out her hand for the money.

Well, I went on a second date with a guy and he ordered lobster and 'forgot his wallet'. I literally sat there in near tears as it meant I couldn't afford my weekly tube card to get the work the following week. I was in my 20s and earning peanuts.

That's awful. I think that, with serial wallet 'forgetters', it should be put straight back on to them. If THEY can't pay for THEIR meal, how are THEY going to sort it? What else would they do if you genuinely didn't have money available to sub them - not even money that you needed for something else essential, no actual funds at all?

I remember an old thread where somebody did call the bluff of a serial advantage-taker and paid for her own meal and left the freebie-expecter to sort her own. In the end, she had to call her parents and ask them to transfer the money into her account - BUT she was something like £250 overdrawn (unauthorised), so they had to transfer £260 to enable her to use her card to pay a tenner for her meal. I hear they were VERY unamused.

@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.

Really good idea - my 8 year old still does this - and I really like apple crumble!

food in the First Class lounge trumps those eggs

Two very appropriate words close together there

@WeBuiltThisBuffetOnSausageRoll

Well, I went on a second date with a guy and he ordered lobster and 'forgot his wallet'. I literally sat there in near tears as it meant I couldn't afford my weekly tube card to get the work the following week. I was in my 20s and earning peanuts.

That's awful. I think that, with serial wallet 'forgetters', it should be put straight back on to them. If THEY can't pay for THEIR meal, how are THEY going to sort it? What else would they do if you genuinely didn't have money available to sub them - not even money that you needed for something else essential, no actual funds at all?

I remember an old thread where somebody did call the bluff of a serial advantage-taker and paid for her own meal and left the freebie-expecter to sort her own. In the end, she had to call her parents and ask them to transfer the money into her account - BUT she was something like £250 overdrawn (unauthorised), so they had to transfer £260 to enable her to use her card to pay a tenner for her meal. I hear they were VERY unamused.

Omg i would totally do this now.

@WeBuiltThisBuffetOnSausageRoll

I bet they know. I had someone do this to me.

Yes. It sounds like a brilliant way of both saving yourself a few quid over the month and also directly leading to you ending up losing jobs that pay far more than that - as well as a reputation that will go ahead of you.

Cleaning jobs especially require a large element of trust. Unlike stealing toilet rolls and soap from work toilets, where there's nothing else much to steal, being in somebody's home on your own would give you the opportunity to steal loads, if you're dishonestly inclined.

Once the homeowners know that you steal something then they figure you could start helping yourself to anything. When they no longer feel able to leave their things around in their own home, because of you, it will be game over for the job very soon after that.

Yes. I changed my locks eventually. It was everything. Teabags, cereal, face cream, vitamins, household equipment,... as soon as it was convenient I got rid of her.

friends every time we went out for a meal, just as soon as they finished main courses, we are going home just had a starter each (and a main) here's a tenner, Bye. of course there was always 2 mains and drinks they never paid for!!! they didn't understand why we stopped asking them along to meals.

@narkyspirit

friends every time we went out for a meal, just as soon as they finished main courses, we are going home just had a starter each (and a main) here's a tenner, Bye. of course there was always 2 mains and drinks they never paid for!!! they didn't understand why we stopped asking them along to meals.

I’d love to know how that conversation went?

@WeBuiltThisBuffetOnSausageRoll

But wouldn't let my dc be hungry.

It's not nasty just makes it affordable

As long as there's enough food for their age/appetite, I'm not blaming any parent for buying a child's portion for their kids - that's exactly what they're for; although a lot of places have an age limit of 12.

However, if you have, say, a family of four - two parents and two older teenagers - with four people with adult appetites, and actively decide to have two of them eating until they're full whilst the other two go hungry, I would say that's remarkably uncaring and unnatural parenting. Surely it would be fairer for all four to have a cheaper full adult dish rather than two have sirloin steak whilst the other two six-footers get left with a few chicken nuggets and a couple of cucumber sticks, designed to fill somebody a third of their age?

When money is really tight (and obviously restaurants are out of the question), most parents would instinctively make sure the kids had enough, even if it meant going hungry themselves - not the other way around.

Definitely but it was never the situation as I remember

When my sister was pregnant I was out for a meal with her and her partner. Her partner ordered his meal with a side order of gravy. He used the gravy and there was still some in the jug, my sis reached for the gravy to get some and he went mad saying it was his gravy and he had paid for it and she couldn't have any!
He also used to check the radiators to make sure she didn't have them on while he was at work!

I used to meet up with a friend every Monday evening for drinks/catch up. I almost always bought the first and the last drink. She would check her watch and down her's and say "oh, you've got time to get another in if you're quick". On the odd occasion that she got the first, she always made sure I still got the last. She earned more than my exDH and I combined earned at the time. Once, another friend came with us, I got the first, other friend got next, and when we went into a different pub, she stood by a heater and said she was so cold she'd just stay there and warm up. I did at that point tell her that it was her turn and she'd go to the bar 1st! Never see her now.

I was berated by the decorator I was making a cup of tea for because I used the teabag to make two cups.

This isn't stingy. You can easily get two decent cups of tea from a single teabag.

@ilovepixie

When my sister was pregnant I was out for a meal with her and her partner. Her partner ordered his meal with a side order of gravy. He used the gravy and there was still some in the jug, my sis reached for the gravy to get some and he went mad saying it was his gravy and he had paid for it and she couldn't have any! He also used to check the radiators to make sure she didn't have them on while he was at work!

That's vile and abusive, why do people behave like that

On the children meal issues, there is a really lovely pub near us and they have a childrens meal section with the usual sorts of things and then a section called 'For those with smaller appetites' and they have smaller versions of the regular menu. I love that, because despite being a great chub of a person I do not like eating a huge meal in the day (when we usually go) and it covers anyone who wants a nice meal that isn't the soup of the day which is what I too often resort to otherwise.

@UniformSchmooniform

Dunno if it's been mentioned before but those lockdown food bags for kids were the epitome of stinginess - packs of ham and pasta split into plastic bag portions and individual counted out cheese slices. I think they were meant to be 30 quids worth but looked like they had a value of about a fiver at best.

Agree - I was shocked when I saw what people were posting online.

Food that the govt claimed would healthily feed a growing child for a week wouldn't have covered most families' snacks for a day.

The workhouse mentality is still fit and well, it seems.

My elderly Cousin has stockpiles of napkins and toilet rolls stolen from Spoons, day centres, McDonald's etc.
Circa 1980's an ex work colleague lugged a huge ancient library electrical manual across London to work to photocopy something for free rather than pay the 5p photocopying charge. He cobbled his own shoes, repaired & patched all his 1940s/50's clothes and used supermarket bags over his head if it rained. He was a millionaire, lived in a lovely Des Res.

Every time I meet a friend, she always tries to avoid paying her share. We went for a meal with another friend. We wanted bottle of wine but she claimed loudly, that she was on a budget. What were we meant to do; not have wine, have wine but not share with her or share with her but the two of us pay for hers?

She's known for not wanting to pay her share. She went out with another friend. They popped into a wine bar. Friend paid £30 for 2 glasses of champagne. They looked around some shops and then went for coffee. She paid but it was less than £10. I have had similar experiences with her. We've been for a coffee or coffee and a spot of lunch. She never offers to pay. She always comes off better than we do. At other times when we have been out, we all notice that when the bill arrives, she goes to the toilet. Or we offer cash and she offers her card. We think she is hoping that someone will pay her share. For me, meeting her always stresses me out because I know that when it comes to pay, she will always be looking for ways to not pay or reduce or bill in some way or another.

It feels good just to post that here and get it all out!

Cathartic.

@ClaudineClare

Using other people's stories in an article without paying them.

I work in a school and most of the parents were grateful for the bags we gave out in lockdown. There were a few that complained it was only lunch stuff (it was like a full loaf bread, a packet of ham, a packet of cheese, a bag of apples etc for the week) and we should have been covering dinners too.
There was 2 parents who turned up in massive new cars who literally threw the bags back at me because they wanted cash.

@Teadrinker11 Are you going to bother coming back to any of the threads you started?

@Larryyourwaiter

I work in a school and most of the parents were grateful for the bags we gave out in lockdown. There were a few that complained it was only lunch stuff (it was like a full loaf bread, a packet of ham, a packet of cheese, a bag of apples etc for the week) and we should have been covering dinners too. There was 2 parents who turned up in massive new cars who literally threw the bags back at me because they wanted cash.

Selective spending

@sarahann1211112

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.

Some years back there was a local family who did just this! They patrolled the public toilets daily and blatantly helped themselves to all the toilet paper. In fact anything that wasn't well nigh nailed down found its way home and they collected soap in bulk too. They really weren't hard up either, just wouldn't pay for anything that they saw as theirs for the taking. For sure, you never wanted to visit the lavs straight after one of their raiding excursions!

@SE123

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

My DPs ex mate does this, never buys toilet rolls. DP said what about weekends, you must buy toilet roll then? He said no, he calls on customers on a Saturday. Ah-ha, what about Sunday's? Oh no, I go for dinner at mum's. Bakes it and rushes to work etc.

A student friend lived in a shared rented house and this Polish student on the course asked to stay for a “short while”.

While the others were out he built/partitioned a sort of MDF room for himself with a lockable door that used up over half the floor space of the living room and he took other people’s stuff including toiletries out of the bathroom. The others couldn’t dismantle the partition (it was bolted to the floor) or get him to move out.

I went round to see my friend “if you go to the loo take a few sheets of my toilet paper, I keep all my stuff in my room now as Peter nicks it”.

She and the other sharers who paid the rent had to move house to shake him off!

*not real name

@NewModelArmyMayhem18

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

That you're wondering if it's a mental health problem shows you're a kind person who wants to see the best in everyone but I'm sad to say, it's not mental illness but plain old vice- avarice! The hording of money and/or resources, with a refusal to share with the less fortunate, like Scrooge did. I have a fair few stories, but their either other peoples' to tell not mine, or too outing. This sort of behaviour comes from a dark place, one of extreme selfishness and lack of compassion for others. It might originate from a childhood of dire poverty, the half- starved kind, which has traumatised the child so they grow up with a deep fear of "not having enough" but plenty people have grown up dirt poor and do not become avaricious nor the least bit mean, and may even be generous to others at their own cost, so avarice indicates a flawed character more than trauma. Perhaps I've become cynical in my old age but I've just come across too many people with this vice, sadly. They're not a joy to be around at all!