What's the most extreme example of effort to save a few pennies you have heard of?

[wineoclockthanks]

Lighthearted!!

Mine is someone who buys shirts/t-shirts and asks for the hangers, then returns the clothes minus the hangers.

I did mention that Wilkos sell 10 wire hangers for £1.75 but she was adamant it was worth it.

Please can I stress this is lighthearted, I am also on a tight budget and count my pennies so not judging at all.

As a student I lived in a very dusty house, nightmare if you've got allergies! I used to dry my tissues on the radiator and reuse. I'd go through multiple boxes a day and antihistamines didn't work. I couldn't afford to keep up. Soon after I designated an old tshirt a snot rag and washed it every night.

Did the tissues not go all crusty. Genius idea with the t shirt though.

The tights thing seems ridiculous to me. I've not worn tights for 30 years. Instead I wear a decent suspender belt and stockings, replacing a laddered leg as needed. I've got some stockings that are at least 2 years old but are still good to wear.

My friend used to womble at tescos, Its when you collect receipts from the trolleys and car park that have unclaimed points on, On her next visit she would get them added to her clubcard claiming she had left her card at home on her last shop

Does everyone renegotiate their gas and electric supplier...I feel in the light of this thread I should do it tomorrow as it's due this week
We are with sse and even though I have to have our draughty barn really hot, we only pay £90 a month and usually there's some credit at the end of the summer.

They don't hassle us, we're on dd and they are usually quite easy to get hold of.

When exh lived here 13 years ago and a few more family members we were paying £150 per month.

My great grandma had something called a soap saver where you put the slivers of the end of the bar of soap which are hard to use into it. Eventually it pressed into a more usable bar of soap. She had lived through the depression and war era so was very careful.

I knew someone whose (extremely wealthy) grandma used to give them the free airline socks as Christmas presents and nothing else.

Some of these are making me feel guilty as we are pretty wasteful these days. I try and put things in for recycling but reusing is far better. Some of these are pure miserliness though.

Some of these are gross- drying tissues and wearing 2 pair of tights- hiya thrush [waves]
DH went through a stage of trying to by cheaper (by weight) versions of our shop, ie rather than dunkers would buy breadsticks and cheese spread. after a couple of months of throwing out half opened packets of soft breadsticks and moldy cream cheese he soon stopped ;)

I should do it tomorrow as it's due this week
Yes, def do it now, as I heard somewhere (Your and Yours? ) that any savings you make are quickly wiped out by not bothering to do this. The existing supplier wacks you up to the max rate.

2 pair of tights- hiya thrush I've never had thrush But the stockings tip further up is so much better - although this thread isn't aimed at giving tips, I have found it useful.

Always keep an eye on the price of gas and electricity. It's become another thing that you probably need to check and change every year or else you pay rip off prices (same for broadband, pay TV etc etc).

If you switch via quidco or the moneysavingexpert cheap energy club, you can also get cashback everytime you switch. It's really easy but apparently most people have never switched and then moan about how much they spend on gas and electricity.

I have lots of little money making schemes and rarely pay full price for anything. It means what we have goes a little bit further and we can afford holidays and an expensive hobby. It really is true that looking after the pennies makes the pounds look after themselves.

We have Now TV, which is very cheap anyway, but don't even need to pay the full price usually because you can buy starter sets that include a voucher for X months service, for less than normal cost.

Recently we got a box and 6 months service for £19.99 from Currys, which is worth nearly £42 without the box. I normally sell the box on ebay, but because we still had the old white box, this time we have kept the new, better box.

I know someone who puts his egg to boil in the kettle when he's boiling it for his morning tea

At work, we had a serial toilet roll stealer. The cleaners did some detective work and it turned out to be someone really senior who was on about £70,000 a year

The King of Sweden never takes baths as they are a waste of water and energy. He thinks they should be banned.

The founder of Ikea is one of the richest men on the planet but buys all his clothes second hand and will only get cheap hair cuts.

Meanwhile, Johnny Depp allegedly spends 2 million dollars a month and wonders why he's in debt.

I once met someone who broke the stalks off mushrooms in the supermarket before weighing them to save money. He thought that was perfectly normal behaviour.

To the previous poster who said their in-laws rubbed a battery with a butter knife: I did it today for the doorbell as no spares to see if it worked, and it does.😄

My DH is the King of Savers (TM) The last time I asked him to get the car washed before the MOT he took it to Tesco and brought a bucket, sponge and soap. He used the free water (alongside the air) in the petrol station and used that as a 'jet wash' A saving of £4 with nice streaks all over

He goes to the pub, then rings the take-away next door that offers free delivery. He orders a delivery to his house, then sits into the car with the driver.

LOL I would feel so cheeky doing that, but its not a bad idea free taxi home.

MIL would take her shopping list for walk around all the shops/supermarkets in town comparing prices then go back around buying what she needed. She expected me to do the same......
My sister will drive 10 miles to another town to save 5p on a purchase, she gets everyone's presents from charity shops (including wedding presents); I was the lucky (?) recipient of a grubby, well worn oven glove on my birthday- she's certainly much better off than us, perhaps this is why! However she's very quick to criticise (new) presents she receives 😳☹️
MIL would also reuse presents to give to others, after she'd used them! One of my SILs was given a used gift set - soap and sponge clearly used (boak)

lightyears with persistent allergies my snot doesn't really get thick just runny. I'd give the tissue a wee rub to soften them but crusty ones were binned. I should add I don't do this now!!!

*NightWanderer Wed 26-Apr-17 18:34:34

I don't know if this is common in the US, but an American friend mentioned that in winter she treats herself by doing the washing up in warm water but only uses cold for the rest of the year.*

many pages back, but still.

I can assure you this isn't common in the US. People not having a dishwasher in the UK is one of the things still thrown in my face when asked why I chose to live here.

This thread has actually made me think about our own waste and the sort of unconscious wastefulness I am guilty of.

So, I have just reset the thermostat down 1.5 degrees on the central heating and this morning when I got DS's snackbox out of his schoolbag from yesterday instead of throwing the rather sad and tired apple slices and grapes which I usually do I cooked them up in a pan with some semi-dried prunes and a little bit of honey and had that on my morning yoghurt. It was delicious.

cherrytree63
"But my Dad, even when he was in sheltered housing with all bills included in the rent, made his first pot of tea with the warm water out of his hot water bottle."

This is so sweet.

Some of these make sense!

The worst I saw on Extreme Cheapskates was the woman who didn't want to pay to have a root canal, so she had her husband pull it out at home. He made a saliva suction device out of their hoover and a straw.

I know medical care is terribly expensive in the US, but I would draw the line at home dental surgery if I could afford not to. [unsure]

Alot of this is about perception though..... we are (currently) lucky enough to be financially solvent. But I got called 'cheap' and 'tight' by someone I know because we pretty much exclusively shop in Aldi. But I am astonished by the same person who called me that because they do their weekly foodshop at our local M&S foodhall.....horses for courses and all that, but I would probably faint at the bill of shopping for a full weekly shop there. The topic came up because we weer talking about Aldi and I am a massive fan. This person said she 'would not be seen dead' in Aldi, and gave one of those half laughing half not jokes of us being 'cheap'.

Thing is, we are on roughly the same household income, going by the average wages for our respective jobs and they have 2 kids to our one. It's different priorities - I think our Aldi is excellent quality, and I am very happy to shop there. I would not want to double my bill each week for produce that is either the same quality of less quality.

So, I guess my ramble is just that some of the things on the thread I think are bonkers and other things are sensible, so it's funny how perspectives differ.

Cutting the legs of tights is bizarre and really really stingy