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Original poster

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

620 replies

wineoclockthanks · 26/04/2017 15:32

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.

OP posts:
ShatnersBassoon · 26/04/2017 20:38

My mum took my children swimming at the local leisure centre last week. It's a community-run place taken over when the council couldn't be bothered to keep it going, very cheap but excellent facilities. A really good cause to support by using it.
Up to the counter they go, £2.50 per child plus 50p for a spectator says the woman. "I'll wait in the car," says mum. So she sat in the car for 90 minutes, and missed watching the kids enjoying themselves. They were a bit Shock and at first thought she was joking, but luckily are old enough to sort themselves out. I'd given her £20 to cover the entry plus a bite to eat in the cafe after. She says she wouldn't pay 50p for nothing, and couldn't accept that she was ridiculous.

She also takes anything that isn't nailed down in hotels. It's a good job she'd only pay to stay in hotels that are likely to nail most things down.

She almost wrestled me to the ground to stop me putting items in the supermarket food bank box, then wouldn't speak to me for the rest of the day.

She used to use bread bags (fair enough) and sanitary towel packets (WTF?) as lunch bags to take to work Confused

OhtoblazeswithElvira · 26/04/2017 20:42

sanitary towel packets (WTF?) as lunch bags to take to work

OK bassoon your mum wins the thread Grin

StealthPolarBear · 26/04/2017 20:46

The tights thing s genius! Just be careful they match

mrsBeverleygoldberg · 26/04/2017 20:49

Shouldhavelistenedinbiology, I get rid of the stalk on broccoli! I dig my thumbnail in, then snap it off!Blush
I also used to get a few more of the vegetable/fruit bags instead of food bags. We had no money and lost loads of weight because we couldn't afford to buy food, for me and dh. Ds1 was little and it took longer to get back to work than I thought.
I think you know you are poor when you can't buy food.

LilQueenie · 26/04/2017 20:55

Turning off the number lock on the laptop. Apparently it saves money as the little light is not switched on. Never mind the god knows how much electric is being consumed while the thing is plugged in for up to 12 hours a day..... but it matters he says. Hmm

Laine21 · 26/04/2017 20:55

An old friend always made homemade soups. One day we were there for dinner with lots of Finger food, roast chicken pieces on the bone, pork ribs etc... at the end of the meal she collected all the bones and leftover veg and salad and put it all straight into her stock pot for the next soup.
She would buy Christmas presents from charity shops......fine you might think for a bargain, but getting a second hand used gift was not nice, I still remember the used pedicure set that still had somebody's flakey dried skin on the hard skin remover tool....mega yuk!!!!

SweetLuck · 26/04/2017 20:58

Thing is, if you did the tights thing you would set of out the house every time knowing that there is no way you could possibly find yourself in an unexpected shag situation. I mean, it doesn't happen ever often, but it's nice to know it could.

PastysPrincess · 26/04/2017 21:01

I watched an extreme cheapskates where this guy would have one week every month where they wouldnt spend anything on food. They would use up what they already had in the cupboards/freezer. Sounds sensible until they run out of things to eat so this guy would go around the neighbourhood looking for dropped change by things like phoneboxes. He would go into restaurants to sit in booths so he could feel down the side of the seats for some change and then tell the waiter he had changed his mind. Then when he eventually found enough he would go to the butcher and the only thing he could get with the change was a sheeps head. His wife did not look impressed.

PuddleTrouble · 26/04/2017 21:01

At the supermarket, my aunt would take vegetables out of the plastic wrappers before getting them weighed.

YogaAndRum · 26/04/2017 21:07

Those people who periodically feature in the paper. You know the ones, the 'My Christmas Shopping Cost Me 50p Because I Cut 7 Million Coupons Out Of Take-A-Break'.

I always imagine that the person behind them in the supermarket queue must want to commit hari kuri.

YogaAndRum · 26/04/2017 21:07

Or harakiri, even

iklboo · 26/04/2017 21:09

Years ago (pre Euro) a bloke on holiday would walk 1.5 miles each way to a shop to buy lemonade as it was 25 Italian lira cheaper than the shop near the hotel. There was something like 1400 lira to the pound at the time.

ShatnersBassoon · 26/04/2017 21:13

Just remembered another one of my mum's money-saving efforts; she pretended to choke on a cheap flight to get a bottle of water for free.

She's very comfortable financially, a retired professional. Her moral compass has a magnet pressed to it at all times.

forlornalien · 26/04/2017 21:15

People who return clothes and ask for a refund on the carrier bag.
Somebody who has no bedroom light because the bulb has gone, it's been like it for several years. They can afford a bulb.

Misspilly88 · 26/04/2017 21:24

At a large family dinner at a restaurant. Hosted by my uncle for his daughters bday. When the bill came he made us all pay individually (fine obviously but lots of that awkward passing the bill round thing) and then we were about 50pence short so he went round the whole table again to work out who had 'short-changed' him. Took forever and I was desperate to just chuck 50p at him. Needless to say, we didn't leave a tip.

yaela123 · 26/04/2017 21:24

they will peg up a teabag to dry out and reuse.

Oh we just use it wet Blush

CherryChasingDotMuncher · 26/04/2017 21:26

My ex's parents were horrendous misers. His cousin was getting married and sent out a stamp addressed envelope with the invitation for the RSVP. We were going to the cousin's to see her new baby and were just going to hand over our RSVP there (and envelope of course). Popped to his parents beforehand and told them this, so his mum went to go their RSVP, but before handing it over she steamed the stamp off the stamp addressed envelope to re-use Shock knowing fine well the cousin would see what she'd done!

Like a PP mentioned they also took a penknife to the supermarket to cut the stalks off broccoli so it would be cheaper.

The worst was when I went skiing with them to Andorra big mistake. We booked a hotel that was half board so got breakfast and evening meal (usual shit buffet, everything was cold and stale). At breakfast they would wrap up some bread rolls and cold meats in a napkin and smuggle out the butter sachets so they didn't have to pay for lunch on the slopes. They'd then moan on when I paid €2 for a plate of chips for lunch, they couldn't believe I'd waste my money! They were horrified when me and boyfriend went out for a meal elsewhere one night (I insisted as I was sick of the hotel gruel).

On the last day I'd sprained my ankle on the slopes so was obviously very slow moving when going home. BF's grandparents were picking us up and at the time at Manchester airport the first 10 minutes in the carp park for pick ups was free. After that you had to pay the grand total of £1.

The grandparents picking us up were equally tight (and millionaires funnily enough) and refused to buy a mobile phone so said they'd be in the pick up zone at an exact time and we HAD to be there. The flight wasn't delayed but getting through security was slow and they were all literally running to make it to the pick up point. I of course couldn't run, couldn't even get a fast walk and they were getting very pissed off. When we got to the (old clapped out) car, I've never seen people move so fast to get stuff in the boot and in a car. I explained if we had to pay I'd happily pay the £1 but they wouldn't slow down. We made it with seconds to spare and they waffled on the whole journey home about how that was a close one.

I dumped my boyfriend not long after that as I began to see traits of them in him - and he'd didn't defend me when they were trying to make me run with my sprained ankle - and I couldn't be with a cheapskate.

Luckily my DH is the opposite. He'd happily pay £20 extra on airport car parking to be that tiny bit closer to the airport, he's not irresponsible with money but he'd never ever skimp on anything we can afford

Fireinthegrate · 26/04/2017 21:31

My parents scoop the bath water out with buckets and then use it to flush the loo.
They are reasonably comfortably off, but I think it's often a generation thing. They are in their late 70's

StarryIllusion · 26/04/2017 21:32

Speaking of extreme cheapskates wasn't there someone on that show who collected and cooked roadkill?

SingToMeInFrench · 26/04/2017 21:39

My FIL sends Birthday "cards" fashioned from old pizza boxes/hotdog holders.

boolifooli · 26/04/2017 21:40

buy full fat and dilute so it is 50% water making it semi-skimmed.

It doesn't work like that does it. Semi skimmed has had half the fat taken out. Adding 50% water takes half the milk out, calcium and all. At least I think so.

mrsBeverleygoldberg · 26/04/2017 21:43

Just remembered the extreme cheapskates when the family drove around looking for road kill to eat and turn into fur handbags. Petrol must be cheap in America to make that worthwhile.

SixtiesChildOfWildBlueSkies · 26/04/2017 21:43

This is true.......

Someone I knew had a bed that was so old it eventually had springs poking through the mattress. As they were in the traumatic to them process of buying a new carpet as the present one was threadbare, a new mattress was out of the question.

However, on visiting them a few weeks later, they were beaming from ear to ear, and just couldn't wait to tell me of their clever idea.

On taking up the old, mouldy, worn out carpet they cut a square out from the middle of it you all know where I'm going with this don't you , stripped the bed, placed the carpet square on the mattress, and remade the bedding. Shock

They insisted on showing me the bed to see how you couldn't tell about the poky springs too!

Even now, 25 years later, my ears are burning with mortificado !

mrsBeverleygoldberg · 26/04/2017 21:44

Ha Starryillusion, just seen your post!

MrGrumpy01 · 26/04/2017 21:45

I come from a family line of wrapping paper re-users. I tend to only do it for Christmas presents and for the presents that go into the dc's stockings now.

I have been known to re-use birthday paper, but that generally ends up in a bag for my youngest now as she likes wrapping up 'presents' and playing pass the parcel.

Certainly for my Mum it comes from a time of post war rationing and then years of money shortages, so everything had a (re-)use. Strangely enough my mil who is about 10yrs older (so was a child in war time) isn't the same at all (she stock piles though) and when 'caught' me saving paper the first year tried to give me a roll of paper.

For me it is a bit of saving money and a bit of saving paper.

The light bulb stories though Shock surely it must be burning hot if you try to remove it.