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?

@GodfatherofCoaching

Guest at a wedding, me and DH were sat with DH's sister and her husband. When it came to BiL's turn to buy a round I asked for a soft drink (driving). He returned with everyone's drinks apart from mine and said 'I'm not paying thirty bob (£1.50, he's quite old) for a glass of lemonade' then sat back down, leaving me without a drink. I'm still appalled at his behaviour.

Sounds like DH’s ex-mate. Cheapest guy ever who had a history of being last to the bar and ducking out of his round. Once, when DH and two other mates (so 4 including stingy mate) finally got the cheeky git to go to the bar, DH asked for a pint of orange juice as he’d driven everyone there and wasn’t drinking.

Bear in mind DH had stood his round all night and bought booze for everyone, including his stingy mate.

The cheeky git came back from the bar with half a pint of coke as a pint of orange was ‘too expensive’ 😂 DH doesn’t go to the pub with him now.

@Phantom1

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.

Why do you guys keep subbing her?!

@ShadenfreudePersonified- Sure didn't Henry Kissinger call us all "useless eaters" at one time? Or was it just the elderly? Whoever he aimed that vile slur at, it shows that the powers-that-be do tend to regard us as "less than" . Of course, it says more about them than about us!

@DirtyDancing

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.

Also I saw a friend steel all the tip money the group had put it. I went ballistic, most was put in by my (now) husband's mates and they had been generous. The friend hasn't even put a tip in!

He had been scrounging off me for years anyway saying he was skint. Turned out he was saving heavily for a house deposit, despite me renting a small room in a house share. We stopped being mates not long after that, as he announced he was off to travel the world. Always felt like I own a door or two in that house or paid for part of his trip lol!

I would have asked for two separate bills, paid mine and walked off.

A few years ago my sister came round to ours for Christmas. She brought with her a huge chocolate cake, which was left over from her office Christmas party a couple of days earlier, less than 1/4 had been eaten. There were six of us in total and we each had a slice. There was still a little bit left - she took it back home with her!! . She also brings drinks but takes any left over home again.

SoupDragon
Re OP teadrinker11
I have read approx 6 Questions of late from OPs, all of whom do not come back to respond. This, for me is making me wonder if it is 'Seed Planter' doing this to bump up the responses of all us helpful people. As to the reason why folk do this, I do not know: could it be to keep MN running to gain in some way. I am less likely to continue with some of these meaningless and at times serious situations, because I cannot deal with anything disingenuous.

Buying your children "investment pieces" and then taking them back to sell when the price went up.

Friend of mine tried to sell her day bus ticket that she'd bought that morning. She posted it on fb selling pages. I thought it was a joke but then found she'd also posted a used bag of pegs for sale. Used mildew ridden wooden pegs.

I was actually worried about her and asked if she needed a bit of cash. She was very offended and I felt a right tit

I did the shopping for my mum during the first year of Covid.

She asked me if I could also do some for her friend as her daughter usually went but couldn't one week as she caught it.

I said absolutely fine, happy to help, but I was in the office full time as key worker and working 8am-7pm so would be going to the local Sainsburys, confirmed this was ok.

Delivered my mums friends shopping and texted her the cost and my bank details. She paid under the amount and sent a cost comparison of various items which could have been cheaper if I had visited up to 4 different shops (during the time when shelves could be empty and I had to queue for half an hour).

She is a very rich lady by the way, so no need to be so tight. I was quite upset.

Sew a T-bag that had burst. Use half sheets of kitchen paper towels. MIL, she left me a substantial sum, so can’t complain.

I'm part of a group of four friends who meet once or twice a year for dinner and drinks. We used to do rounds but one friend let's call her Sally is notoriously tight, never chipped in or disappeared when it was her turn. The last few times we went out with her the rest agreed to just pay for our own - Sally tried to convince us to keep the status quo but we decline.

The last time we went out we asked for the bill and the waiter explained that it had already been paid. Sally had secretly done it on her way to the loo. It was a bring your own restaurant and worked out about £30pp we tried to pay our share to her but she insisted that it was her treat. We went to a bar after and did rounds like we used too and all told Sally not to put her hand in her pocket since she'd been so generous treating us to dinner.

The next morning Sally sent her bank details to the group chat asking us to reimburse her £50pp for dinner as she'd changed her mind about treating. The other girls reluctantly did but I asked why she needed more from us that what the dinner actually cost she said she'd left a very generous tip.

She hasn't spoken to me since I said it was her choice to leave such a big tip and the bottle of wine and cocktail I bought her in the bar afterwards and me paying for our taxi home should more than cover my £30 for dinner.

@WeBuiltThisBuffetOnSausageRoll
Has just reminded me....
Last summer we stayed at a Blackpool b&b for a giggle. It was the first time I'd done this since being a child as we don't live near now and the first time ever for my kiwi DH (I dont think he'll ever recover from Blackpool. Me and DC loved it though). Anyway my ds is Autistic and is very fussy food wise. We don't stay in B&bs usually so it might be us being unreasonable here.. but don't think so. Owners asked us before bed what food we wanted for breakfast. I told them about our son and asked them to list what we could have. I said my son would probably (from the list) eat only white bread and sausage. In the morning they gave us one piece of white bread and one sausage! I thought they'd taken this too literally but no ... I said could we have one more sausage and slice (to make an actual sandwich..
he is a preteen and tall) and they said 'No, they'd only defrosted one' (everyone else was having full English!)
They couldn't cope with my DD and I being vegetarian either. We didn't expect special sausages etc.. said just eggs n beans OK. Didn't get any extra. Literally one egg and a spoon of beans. We wondered what would happen if they ever got a vegan!
Being denied a second sausage for our ds was so embarrassing though. The whole dining room stopped eating and stared at us 'Oliver twist' style. In that situation you can't really complain.

My PIL are notoriously tight. We called them once and they were describing how they were midst sieving the contents of a jar of coffee, they'd swept up from the floor, that they'd smashed and getting the glass out
Another one was charging us the £1.47 for the tub of sudocrem that we'd forgotten to pack, and they'd had to buy, for DD when they babysat.
We went for dinner once and we shared a 3lb chicken between 6 of us. I got a wing for Sunday lunch.
All Christmas presents are obtained from the charity distribution centre FIL volunteers at including the 14yr old second hand fleecy underblanket with age old dirt around the packaging, and from a company that went bust 10 years prior.

They are not short of money just incredibly mean.

Once my df rang me but literally garbled the message and rang off with I can't be doing with a big phone bill. It really was the only time he has ever rang me as til then I had never had a house phone.

My dad gave me hotel minis for my birthday.

Nothing else, just hotel minis wrapped in tissue paper.

The man in front of me at the restaurant on Christmas Day who left a £5 tip. Less than 5%. The staff had been wonderful so his meanness really shocked me.

Another thing was only making phone calls at certain times as it was cheaper after 6pm.

@converseandjeans that was absolutely normal back in the day. It wasn't about being stingy at all. The difference in cost was massive, so anything that wasn't a short necessary local call was usually an evening thing. Especially for those of us who lived a distance away from families. A weekly half hour 'trunk' call to parents (which was the only way of communicating of course) outside cheap rate time would have been outside most people's budgets.

We take cheap/free phone calls and messaging very much for granted now.

Is it just me or does ‘staying at a Blackpool B and B for a giggle’ sound incredibly snobbish? And yes you can still be snobbish even if you’re originally from the area, before you come back with that.

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.

The problem with things like this - and taking the lightbulbs with you when you move out of a house - is that the distress and inconvenience caused to the victims of these thieves is far greater than the total of any benefit that the thieves themselves will see. For the sake of stealing a pound or two's worth of toilet paper, they've actually made the whole facility effectively unusable. Anybody who checks before 'committing themselves' will see that there's no paper and be forced to go elsewhere; anybody who forgets to check first (or simply cannot hang on any longer) and uses the toilet will then discover that some disgusting low-life has decided that stealing the 3p worth of toilet paper that somebody would use is worth more to them than somebody else's dignity and comfort and could end up ruining their whole day.

At least, if they had the courage of their convictions and stole toilet paper from a shop, they would 'only' have stolen the intrinsic value of the product and nothing more - but I suppose public bogs don't have security guards, do they?

I'd hate to live my life in such a way that I was constantly looking for ways to profit a few pence by causing other people real distress - but maybe that's just me, eh?

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!

I'm still not convinced, though. I can see where they're saving themselves a tenner here, £25 there and noting that it all adds up; but the ones who will be literally scrimping and counting actual pennies - at least averagely well-off people who wouldn't even notice the pennies if they weren't so obsessed with looking for them.

Various MH problems will cause you to miss out on the greater joys of the bigger picture by pigeonholing yourself into one tiny pointless interest to the detriment of everything else. I'm no HCP, but to me, that sounds exactly like a description of a MH problem.

It can't actually make them truly happy to live like this - or indeed many real friends. I also think that they must have a vanishing amount of self-respect, not to care what others - family, friends, colleagues, strangers - think about them when they act shamefully for a minuscule little gain. We read the inheritance threads in horror, where people will rip off their family and cause permanent rifts in order to gain tens or hundreds of thousands of pounds; but people who are genuinely willing to destroy any reputation they have for the sake of 30p here and £1.50 there? Not to mention all the time it takes them - significant time out of their own finite lives - to pursue all the pointless 20p savings and to hatch more petty rip-off schemes.

@eastegg

Is it just me or does ‘staying at a Blackpool B and B for a giggle’ sound incredibly snobbish? And yes you can still be snobbish even if you’re originally from the area, before you come back with that.

Your standards are fairly low if you think it's snobby to want a sausage sandwich. You'd have to laugh.

My mum does the same thing with the soap!

Is it just me or does ‘staying at a Blackpool B and B for a giggle’ sound incredibly snobbish?

Blackpool actively sells itself as a place to go for down-to-earth old-fashioned fun and good times. It knows full well that it isn't the English National Ballet - and that those choosing the one will most probably never be in the market for the other. And I realise that nobody asked me, but personally, of the two, Blackpool would win hands-down every single time.

I once had a boss who was incredibly stinger. One thing that sticks in my head is that on pay day she refused to give us our cheques until the banks had closed so we couldn't bank the cheques until the next day. I knew her son well and he told me she did it just because she liked holding onto the money as long as possible!

after a family meal with partner, his parents , sister, her husband and 3 kids, partner paid in full and asked for tip contributions, we had had great service and his parents put £40 on table , i put £10 , his sister had went to the bathroom and came back as we were leaving and lifted the tip money and put it in her pocket. I called her out and she said the waitress was already getting paid and didn't need a tip. I demanded the money back and handed over the tip but we have never invited them out again