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.

Gold I think that's quite sensible of your FIL re the bags (not the roads!) because it's eco friendly.

I've often found myself really penny pinching but that's from a hard up time when I had to! Old habits die hard!

Things I've done before:
Nicked a few more tissues than i should've done from Costa / whatever cafe I've gone too.
're used take away containers (cleaned first) to freeze stuff in
Taken a few sachets of salt/sugar/milk/plastic knives/forks
Watered down milk
Watered down toiletries /cut them open
Glued shoes when I couldn't afford to buy a new pair.
Regifted/ebayed Xmas presents and birthday presents
made cards
printed things at work
charged things at work

Oh and re used wrapping paper /gift bags/ made gift tags out of old cards.
Sold old perfume bottles on ebay because I saw it on MSE*

Don't people just take the toiletries with them then if they were meant to use them?!?! From hotels I mean?

" charged things at work"
Assume you mean elective items rather than fraud!

Instead of having trendy leisure attire I hoard old clothes for slobbing around the house but I'm sure most of us do.

Just thought of a good one for Daily Mail readers: don't spend money buying the newspaper, just read the same stuff for free on Mumsnet.

Funnily enough there's also a piece about abuse of parent and child parking spaces on the Daily Mail website. I wonder where they got that idea from?

At work each day I have to bundle and file one pile of paperwork. I normally bind it with an elastic band. We literally use one a day. The postman drops off our post bundled with an elastic band. My team have taken to nabbing this daily for that purpose we no longer order bags of elastic bands, probably save the company - ooh maybe ten pounds a year?

On a grosser note there is a man I see in beer gardens frequently taking discarded cigarette ends, opening them up and tipping the remaining tobacco in his tin

My friend was too tight to buy toilet paper and used free newspapers but it blocked his toilet and cost him
Loads to fix.

expatinscotland !!! Wishes I hadn't looked up San Pro! Eww!

Loving this thread

LOL @ amber. Wasn't that rank? Extreme Cheapskates is sheer entertainment value.

Reminds me of a caravan holiday many moons ago with extended family. Was washing the dishes, mil was clearing the table. I just couldn't get the washing up liquid to lather up so was pontificating about how crap this brand was, how I'd used almost half the bottle to get a decent lather, blah, blah blah. DH took me to one side later to say mil was notorious for watering down the washing up liquid, or anything she could, to make things go further. She never said a thing but I did feel a bit mean afterwards.

The tights thing isn't bonkers pixie!

I used to do it when I was nursing. I used to wear support tights to try to stop getting varicose veins. Also, they were expensive. When I wore the two pairs together, the midsection was brilliantly tight - it was like wearing Spanx without the cost! Also was much warmer in the winter. I think it is a brilliant idea.

My god there are more right misers out there! I know a guy who only had one lightbulb in his whole house. He unscrewed it and brought it from room to room as needed. He is an accountant with a very good income and a low mortgage but is extremely tight.

I'm not doing it to save money but recently have been cutting makeup remover wipes in half. I only wear eye makeup and I only have a little face

Troysmammy if you wanted to save money, you could use cottonwool with liquid facial cleaner instead
But how small is your face? 5 year old is what I am imagining...

Or tissue, which would double as an exfoliant...

The wipes cost 50p for 25. My little face is in proportion to my just under 5ft body

I'm not doing it to save money but recently have been cutting makeup remover wipes in half. I only wear eye makeup and I only have a little face
Even better use a flannel. Fresh one each night then stick it in the bathroom to wash with the next morning. Put it in the wash with the towels.

@troysmammy vaseline is excellent eye makeup remover. Much cheaper than wipes.

Snickers I don't use a flannel and I wash my towels once a week. I'm a minger